In 1966, a motley group of Tenderloin street youth, urban ministers, and anti-poverty activists formed Vanguard, now considered the nation’s first gay liberation organization. Joey Plaster and Rev. Megan Rohrer present the first ever oral histories and multimedia from this unlikely collaboration and draw parallels between strikingly similar present-day organizing.
Joey Plaster
Joey Plaster is an independent public historian, radio producer, and freelance journalist. His public history projects have focused on San Francisco’s Polk Street, pre-gay liberation Oberlin College, and street youth in the Tenderloin. A graduate of Oberlin College, he is currently Director of San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society Oral History Program. He is the recipient of the 2010 Allan Bérubé Prize for outstanding work in public GLBT history, awarded by the American Historical Association’s Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History. He was a 2009 fellow at the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Joey has also worked with KALW, the Peabody award-winning transom.org, The Nation, and the SF Bay Guardian.
Rev. Megan Rohrer
The Rev. Megan Rohrer, is a native of Sioux Falls, SD. Megan is a graduate of Augustana College in Sioux Falls and received a master of divinity at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California
Megan has been the Director of The Welcome Ministry since June of 2002 – and has been called to this ministry by a joint call from Ebenezer Lutheran Church, Christ Church Lutheran, St. Francis Lutheran and Sts. Mary and Martha Lutheran.
Megan works with Pace e Bene, a Franciscan nonviolence organization and is an associate of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, MN. Megan is also an accomplished musician, artist, reiki master, black belt, orator and promoter and creator of internet activism for non-profit organizations.
Megan currently serves on the boards of the Tenderloin Community Health and Saftey Fair, Sojourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General Hospital and Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. |