Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from

my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our

Patreon community yet, I hope you'll join today. Just $5 a month gets you access to these

Making Gay History extras, and you'll support us as we work to bring LGBTQ history to life

through the voices of the people who lived it. Find out more at patreon.com slash making

gay history, or go to makinggayhistory.com and click on the link in our homepage banner.

And thank you so much.

I'm Eric Marcus and this is Making Gay History. Back in 1988 as I started work on my oral

history book about the LGBTQ civil rights movement, I was determined to include a mix of voices

from places other than just the major east and west coast cities. But I had a limited budget,

so I had to choose carefully and combine multiple cities into the few trips I could afford.

Once I had interviews lined up in California and Washington state, I decided to add Alaska,

which I thought would provide an unexpected and rarely heard perspective on the movement.

The fact that my best friend Leslie lived in Juneau may have factored into my decision as well.

She had just given birth to her first child, so a visit to Alaska meant I'd also get to meet

baby Jane. And I'd have a free place to stay. In Alaska is where I met Sarah Besser, a self-spoken

activist in her late 30s who was drawn into the LGBTQ civil rights movement by the AIDS crisis.

Watching from Juneau as the AIDS epidemic swept across the lower 48 states, Sarah joined with

other local lesbians and gay men to organize and prepare for when people in their

own community would begin to fall ill. That's how Sarah became a founding member

of Shanti of Juneau, an organization patterned after the Shanti organization in San Francisco,

...