The Letters of Stewart Butler

Update: Nancy has let us know that this event has been postponed. Please follow Letters Read on their website for future events. 

The Letters of Stewart Butler
Frenchmen Art & Books

Emcee Frank Perez, readers Dylan Hunter and Rebecca Hollingsworth. Audio engineer Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio.

This event provides a rare glimpse into the personal life of an important Louisiana political activist. It begins with the 1961 era correspondence from Ann, an intimate friend. The reading weaves in annual Valentine’s letters beginning in 1999 that Stewart still mails to 200 of his dearest friends.

Since the 1970s, Butler has been a significant force in the Louisiana civil rights movement. In 1984, 1986 and 1991 he strategically advocated for changing gay-rights ordinances. Butler was a co-founder of LGPAC (the Louisiana chapter of Lesbian and Gay Political Action Caucus) and has served on boards including the Lesbian and Gay Community Center, PFLAG, and LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana.

New for 2020, a collection of incubator-style events, happenings, and recordings. Listen to the first. Each contains material that may and may not be used in regular programming. As with this first experimental reading, some are letters from the archives of primary subject persons, such as Stewart Butler. Others may be oral histories of individuals surrounding subjects in the regular program. Still others may be abstract musings on themes filtering through main subject narratives for 2020.

Letters Read is a project by Nancy Sharon Collins which is fiscally sponsored by Antenna.