National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day article
Title
National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day article
Subject
National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day
Description
An article on National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day and the history of Oklahomans for Equality's/Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights' locations since the organization's founding in 1980.
Creator
Mary Bishop-Baldwin
Source
Oklahomans for Equality History Project archives
Publisher
Oklahomans for Equality
Date
Oct. 19, 2026
Rights
Oklahomans for Equality
Format
Word Doc
Language
English
Type
Article
Identifier
National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day article
Coverage
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Text
By Mary Bishop-Baldwin
Oklahomans for Equality History Project
It’s Oct. 19, National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day, and today we at the History Project celebrate the very existence of Oklahomans for Equality’s Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. Since the Equality Center opened nearly two decades ago, thousands of people have come through its doors, joining with like-minded folks and advocating for LGBTQ people, accessing services, using a free library with thousands of LGBTQ-themed books, and rallying for justice and equality for all.
The Equality Center is a gift for us all – and for future generations – from many dedicated volunteers who gave of their time, labor and money to establish this home for the LGBTQ community in Tulsa.
Before the Equality Center opened in 2007, Oklahomans for Equality and its predecessor organizations had no permanent home. When the group was founded in 1980, its members met in places such as the Central Library and All Souls Unitarian Church. Within a few years of its founding, the group had rented small spaces for storing the organization’s records and for such things as board meetings, but any community meetings and gatherings were held elsewhere.
Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights opened Tulsa’s first “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Community Center” in a rented space at 1338 E. 38th St. on Peoria Avenue in Brookside in October 1996, according to a “History of TOHR 1980 to 2003” document in the OkEq archives. “The center quickly became a popular meeting spot for community groups, support groups, and those who wished to network with other members of the GLBT community. The center began to operate a book and video library, referral service, and pride retail store,” the document says.
The center, which also was known as the Pride Center, was named the Tulsa Gay Community Services Center in 1998, Greg Gatewood, a former TOHR executive director, recalled in an oral history interview that is part of the History Project’s archives.
Keeping the center’s doors open was always a concern, particularly from the standpoint of money. “As the end of 1998 approached, and despite very careful budgeting with strict adherence to that budget, the serious question of ‘how we will pay rent’ and ‘will we have to close the doors’ was a real threat,” Gatewood said in an addendum to that interview. “An anonymous gift, an amount to cover rent though the end of year plus a bit more, was then delivered to the TOHR office in the newly renamed ‘Tulsa Gay Community Services Center.’ That anonymous gift kept the doors open in 1998 and helped set the course for success in 1999.”
The property owner wanted no exterior signage indicating that this was a gay center, but Gatewood said that in 1998 he and two other members raised a Pride flag and hung banners that said “Gay Community Center and Pride Store” from the roof down two sides of the center’s building to enhance its visibility in Brookside. “We got kicked out. We lost our lease because we hung up the signs,” he said in the interview. A legal fight ensued, and TOHR lost that battle.
Part of the reason landlords insisted on no obvious signage is that they feared potential vandalism to their buildings from anti-gay extremists. A Sept. 15, 2014, Oklahomans for Equality Facebook post says that “we had to move the existing gay community center every few years because landlords overreacted to vandalism and felt our visibility hurt other tenants’ business.”
Indeed, “the Community Center has been vandalized numerous times in the many locations in which it has operated,” TOHR noted in its Pyramid Project Capital Campaign Executive Summary in explaining part of the rationale for buying its own property.
In former TOHR President Tom Neal’s oral history interview, he and Dennis Neill discussed the vandalism at the Brookside center, recalling that the front glass was broken twice.
The organization moved to a rented space on Memorial Drive at 21st Street in October 2000. The Nov. 10, 1999, TOHR membership meeting minutes, housed in the History Project archives, state that the organization “can put up permanent signs once outside renovations are substantially complete.” Before that lease expired in September 2003, TOHR began looking for a new space to lease – explicitly stating in an Aug. 1, 2003, “Request for Space” document that it needed the “right to place visible exterior signage with text similar to the following: ‘Tulsa GLBT Community Center,’ including graphics for the TOHR logo and the rainbow colors associated with the GLBT worldwide community.”
The Tulsa GLBT Community Center moved in 2003 to the Highland Plaza shopping center, 5545 E. 41st St., east of Yale Avenue.
TOHR had launched its first capital fundraising campaign, the Pyramid Project, in 2000. The “History of TOHR 1980 to 2003” document says the goal was to raise $1 million to buy “a permanent and visible home for the Tulsa GLBT Community Center.”
“Those brave and self-sacrificing folk believed if they would ‘build it, they would come’ to a center that provided direct services, advocated daily for a more inclusive Oklahoma, and connected individuals and created paths to friendships,” OkEq’s Sept. 15, 2014, Facebook post says.
Not long after OkEq bought the building that would become the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center – and long before the building was remodeled and opened to the community – Gatewood went onto the roof and raised a Pride flag above the building for the first time. “One of the most memorable days of my decade-plus of involvement with TOHR /OkEq was the day (in November 2005) I raised the Pride flag on the roof of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center,” Gatewood said in his oral history interview. “It was a celebration attended by hundreds of the Tulsa LGBT community on a beautiful November day filled with sunshine. I will never forget that feeling. I will never forget that day.”
More than a year later, the Jan. 22, 2007, Oklahomans for Equality eNews reported that “after hundreds of thousands of dollars, over 7,000 hours of volunteer work, … 275+ volunteers, 2 big trucks and countless weekday and weekend workdays – the day is finally here! Oklahomans for Equality will open the new Dennis R. Neill Equality Center today, Tuesday, January 23, 2007.”
A five-day grand opening celebration was held from Feb. 14 through Feb. 18, 2007, with various events every day. A Jan. 23, 2007, email from Oklahomans for Equality announced that “defying conventional expectations, Tulsa is now home to one of the largest (18,000-square-foot) lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community centers in the United States.” Celebratory events ranging from an art exhibit to GayBingO to a Wild Hearts Ball were held at the Equality Center. The email contains extensive information about the grand opening events.
Our ownership of our own building was a remarkable accomplishment, and while it gave us a permanent home with no chance of being evicted, it didn’t stop the vandalism. Around 12:30 a.m. on March 6, 2017, a white four-door pickup pulled up in front of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and fired 13 shots at the windows and front door. The damage was discovered when staff arrived later that morning, and the drive-by shooting was viewed on the center’s security video.
Over the years, TOHR/OkEq and other organizations in Tulsa and across the nation have held events to mark National Coming Out Day.
But the community was resilient. “The board of directors has chosen to keep the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center open and programming to continue as it does on a regular basis. They have hired an off duty Tulsa police officer to provide extra security during this time of uncertainty,” the March 8, 2017, OkEq eNews reported. After OkEq member Wes Smith challenged members of the community to send in $13 each – one dollar for each of the pellets that had hit the building – to replace the glass, people across the country and world sent in more than $33,000, which allowed OkEq to replace all the downstairs windows and the front door with more bullet-resistant glass, Sue Welch and Marcy Smith recalled in their oral history interview with the History Project. The damaged door is now a part of the History Project’s office.
On July 22, 2019, a little more than two years after that drive-by, the mural depicting Lynn Riggs on the exterior of the Equality Center’s Lynn Riggs Black Box Theater was vandalized with spray paint, the July 31, 2019, OkEq eNews reported. A Tulsa World article about the vandalism and OkEq’s resilience is on file in the History Project’s archives.
Our home at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center can never be taken for granted. It is meant to be our safe place. While Oklahomans for Equality owns the building, it is the community’s responsibility to foster its continued existence by contributing resources and participating in programming.
On this National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day, think of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and all those who have made its existence possible for us and for future generations.
Oklahomans for Equality History Project
It’s Oct. 19, National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day, and today we at the History Project celebrate the very existence of Oklahomans for Equality’s Dennis R. Neill Equality Center. Since the Equality Center opened nearly two decades ago, thousands of people have come through its doors, joining with like-minded folks and advocating for LGBTQ people, accessing services, using a free library with thousands of LGBTQ-themed books, and rallying for justice and equality for all.
The Equality Center is a gift for us all – and for future generations – from many dedicated volunteers who gave of their time, labor and money to establish this home for the LGBTQ community in Tulsa.
Before the Equality Center opened in 2007, Oklahomans for Equality and its predecessor organizations had no permanent home. When the group was founded in 1980, its members met in places such as the Central Library and All Souls Unitarian Church. Within a few years of its founding, the group had rented small spaces for storing the organization’s records and for such things as board meetings, but any community meetings and gatherings were held elsewhere.
Tulsa Oklahomans for Human Rights opened Tulsa’s first “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Community Center” in a rented space at 1338 E. 38th St. on Peoria Avenue in Brookside in October 1996, according to a “History of TOHR 1980 to 2003” document in the OkEq archives. “The center quickly became a popular meeting spot for community groups, support groups, and those who wished to network with other members of the GLBT community. The center began to operate a book and video library, referral service, and pride retail store,” the document says.
The center, which also was known as the Pride Center, was named the Tulsa Gay Community Services Center in 1998, Greg Gatewood, a former TOHR executive director, recalled in an oral history interview that is part of the History Project’s archives.
Keeping the center’s doors open was always a concern, particularly from the standpoint of money. “As the end of 1998 approached, and despite very careful budgeting with strict adherence to that budget, the serious question of ‘how we will pay rent’ and ‘will we have to close the doors’ was a real threat,” Gatewood said in an addendum to that interview. “An anonymous gift, an amount to cover rent though the end of year plus a bit more, was then delivered to the TOHR office in the newly renamed ‘Tulsa Gay Community Services Center.’ That anonymous gift kept the doors open in 1998 and helped set the course for success in 1999.”
The property owner wanted no exterior signage indicating that this was a gay center, but Gatewood said that in 1998 he and two other members raised a Pride flag and hung banners that said “Gay Community Center and Pride Store” from the roof down two sides of the center’s building to enhance its visibility in Brookside. “We got kicked out. We lost our lease because we hung up the signs,” he said in the interview. A legal fight ensued, and TOHR lost that battle.
Part of the reason landlords insisted on no obvious signage is that they feared potential vandalism to their buildings from anti-gay extremists. A Sept. 15, 2014, Oklahomans for Equality Facebook post says that “we had to move the existing gay community center every few years because landlords overreacted to vandalism and felt our visibility hurt other tenants’ business.”
Indeed, “the Community Center has been vandalized numerous times in the many locations in which it has operated,” TOHR noted in its Pyramid Project Capital Campaign Executive Summary in explaining part of the rationale for buying its own property.
In former TOHR President Tom Neal’s oral history interview, he and Dennis Neill discussed the vandalism at the Brookside center, recalling that the front glass was broken twice.
The organization moved to a rented space on Memorial Drive at 21st Street in October 2000. The Nov. 10, 1999, TOHR membership meeting minutes, housed in the History Project archives, state that the organization “can put up permanent signs once outside renovations are substantially complete.” Before that lease expired in September 2003, TOHR began looking for a new space to lease – explicitly stating in an Aug. 1, 2003, “Request for Space” document that it needed the “right to place visible exterior signage with text similar to the following: ‘Tulsa GLBT Community Center,’ including graphics for the TOHR logo and the rainbow colors associated with the GLBT worldwide community.”
The Tulsa GLBT Community Center moved in 2003 to the Highland Plaza shopping center, 5545 E. 41st St., east of Yale Avenue.
TOHR had launched its first capital fundraising campaign, the Pyramid Project, in 2000. The “History of TOHR 1980 to 2003” document says the goal was to raise $1 million to buy “a permanent and visible home for the Tulsa GLBT Community Center.”
“Those brave and self-sacrificing folk believed if they would ‘build it, they would come’ to a center that provided direct services, advocated daily for a more inclusive Oklahoma, and connected individuals and created paths to friendships,” OkEq’s Sept. 15, 2014, Facebook post says.
Not long after OkEq bought the building that would become the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center – and long before the building was remodeled and opened to the community – Gatewood went onto the roof and raised a Pride flag above the building for the first time. “One of the most memorable days of my decade-plus of involvement with TOHR /OkEq was the day (in November 2005) I raised the Pride flag on the roof of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center,” Gatewood said in his oral history interview. “It was a celebration attended by hundreds of the Tulsa LGBT community on a beautiful November day filled with sunshine. I will never forget that feeling. I will never forget that day.”
More than a year later, the Jan. 22, 2007, Oklahomans for Equality eNews reported that “after hundreds of thousands of dollars, over 7,000 hours of volunteer work, … 275+ volunteers, 2 big trucks and countless weekday and weekend workdays – the day is finally here! Oklahomans for Equality will open the new Dennis R. Neill Equality Center today, Tuesday, January 23, 2007.”
A five-day grand opening celebration was held from Feb. 14 through Feb. 18, 2007, with various events every day. A Jan. 23, 2007, email from Oklahomans for Equality announced that “defying conventional expectations, Tulsa is now home to one of the largest (18,000-square-foot) lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community centers in the United States.” Celebratory events ranging from an art exhibit to GayBingO to a Wild Hearts Ball were held at the Equality Center. The email contains extensive information about the grand opening events.
Our ownership of our own building was a remarkable accomplishment, and while it gave us a permanent home with no chance of being evicted, it didn’t stop the vandalism. Around 12:30 a.m. on March 6, 2017, a white four-door pickup pulled up in front of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and fired 13 shots at the windows and front door. The damage was discovered when staff arrived later that morning, and the drive-by shooting was viewed on the center’s security video.
Over the years, TOHR/OkEq and other organizations in Tulsa and across the nation have held events to mark National Coming Out Day.
But the community was resilient. “The board of directors has chosen to keep the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center open and programming to continue as it does on a regular basis. They have hired an off duty Tulsa police officer to provide extra security during this time of uncertainty,” the March 8, 2017, OkEq eNews reported. After OkEq member Wes Smith challenged members of the community to send in $13 each – one dollar for each of the pellets that had hit the building – to replace the glass, people across the country and world sent in more than $33,000, which allowed OkEq to replace all the downstairs windows and the front door with more bullet-resistant glass, Sue Welch and Marcy Smith recalled in their oral history interview with the History Project. The damaged door is now a part of the History Project’s office.
On July 22, 2019, a little more than two years after that drive-by, the mural depicting Lynn Riggs on the exterior of the Equality Center’s Lynn Riggs Black Box Theater was vandalized with spray paint, the July 31, 2019, OkEq eNews reported. A Tulsa World article about the vandalism and OkEq’s resilience is on file in the History Project’s archives.
Our home at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center can never be taken for granted. It is meant to be our safe place. While Oklahomans for Equality owns the building, it is the community’s responsibility to foster its continued existence by contributing resources and participating in programming.
On this National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day, think of the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center and all those who have made its existence possible for us and for future generations.
Files
Citation
Mary Bishop-Baldwin, “National LGBTQ Center Awareness Day article,” OKEQ History Project, accessed October 22, 2026, https://history.okeq.org/items/show/1410.