In the ongoing quest to tell the story of local LGBTQ+ history, Augustana College professor Chris Strunk has created an interactive digital Story Map filled with narrative, oral history videos, places and information.
This Story Map documents key moments and places of LGTBQ+ history in the QC, gathered by the Quad Cities Pride in Memory (QCPIM) steering committee.
The map is available on the QCPIM website HERE. There is a form available for people to submit additional materials for inclusion.
Strunk and Augustana students have been collaborating with Pride in Memory over the last five years. “Pride in Memory is a terrific example of community-led research,” Strunk said recently. “The stories in these oral histories demonstrate the wealth of experience and resilience that exist in this community. The project was a great opportunity for students to connect with and learn from older generations.”
Pride in Memory is seeking additional stories and contributions for the Story Map.
“I am so impressed by the work being done by Augustana staff and students,” said Rev. Rich Hendricks, chair of the QCPIM committee and pastor of Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities. “We must tell our stories now more than ever. First, to preserve them for history before they disappear. Second, because we are experiencing an unprecedented amount of governmental persecution in the LGBTQ+ community today and people need to be inspired again about equality for all.”
Established in 2021, QCPIM’s mission is to document, protect and preserve LGBTQ+ history in the greater QC area, and to educate the public regarding that history and its significance.
To date, the nonprofit has conducted over 60 oral history video or audio interviews with key historical figures in the Quad Cities LGBTQ+ community and collected printed materials and artifacts for a permanent archive at the Putnam Museum & Science Center and at the Davenport Public Library Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center.
QCPIM has partnered with Augustana students (in Queer Theory, Theater Arts, Film studies) along with Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Geography faculty members.
Community members also created a portable historical panel display focused on LGBTQ+ history in the QC.
“My role has really been to work with the community leaders who got the project started and then to be thinking about how can we connect students, to do research, to do additional oral histories,” said Strunk, a geography professor. “And then over time, I started talking with Rich Hendricks about different ways that we could make this material available to the public. And he had been doing research on the history of gay bars and other really important sites in the Quad Cities.
"And so we came up with this idea of having a Story Map where it would be an interactive format for people to be able to go in and see what the different experiences were from these oral histories that we've been conducting for the past 5 years.”
“This was a project that was started entirely by community members. Augustana was asked later on to come in, but this was something that happened during COVID and the community leaders were at home, and started doing oral histories with each other over Zoom,” he said. “And then this really blossomed into a much bigger project. And they asked Augustana to come on and to assist with some of the research as they were expanding and doing additional oral histories with community members.”
A Story Map is a digital interactive tool that allows you to map where different places, events, experiences took place. It incorporates video, audio and photos.
“But what the Story Map allows you to do is to really kind of see where these events took place,” Strunk said, noting most of the oral histories in the Story Map were done by community members.
“There's a core group of folks in Pride in Memory who took the lead really on conducting these oral histories with friends, with allies of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “Then later on, they asked if Augustana students would be interested in reconducting some of the oral histories with improved audio and video equipment. But also we were able then to conduct additional interviews with community members who hadn't been interviewed in that first round.
“I think it became really clear to me early on that there was a real geography to this history,” Strunk said. “And so it wasn't just taking place in a few areas, it was taking place in different sites around the Quad Cities. So there were a couple areas where we saw that there was a lot of LGBTQ history, especially early on in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, especially downtown Rock Island.
"But also MCC, the Metropolitan Community Church, is a really important site. And they had actually moved around quite a bit. So even that was interesting to see, the different places where churches were located.
“And then there are all these different networks or places where community members were making connections across different faith traditions, across different socio-economic backgrounds,” he said. “And so we really wanted to be able to show that history on a map so people could see for themselves where a lot of these events took place, but then also to be able to listen to the different oral histories and be able to kind of experience what participants in these events and in these important places, what they had to say about their experiences there.”
Working with Women, Gender and Sexuality classes
Strunk has worked closely with the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies classes, including a class taught by Kiki Kosnick, who had their students doing research with the Pride in Memory Steering Committee for an entire semester.
“And then we've had research assistants from WGSS as well. And so they've been really involved and really have gotten a lot out of the process of meeting the older generation of LGBTQ activists and community leaders,” Strunk said. Kosnick is Augie’s chair of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Strunk usually has two research assistants every semester, who want to go into museum and library studies and have been helping to catalog the oral histories. They hope to have all of the oral histories and archival material that's in the Story Map eventually be at the Putnam Museum and also in the Davenport Public Library Special Collections.
“A lot of times students at Augustana are kind of stuck on campus and they don't get to experience the Quad Cities,” he said. “And this was a way for them to really learn about the history, but also to be collaborating with community members on this project. This was not a project where Augustana was deciding what we wanted to research. This was something where community members did that. And we were just collaborating and giving our labor and research time. But it was something that community members really have been directing the entire time.
“I'm really interested in community geography, which focuses on trying to incorporate people's experiences, and interest into the research process,” Strunk said. “And so trying not to have the research process be something that is only directed by academic researchers, but instead kind of working alongside community members, often for long periods of time, to be addressing needs that are in the community through research and trying to build ethical and sustainable partnerships between Augustana and community groups. And so that's my primary interest, but I'm also a cultural geographer.
“And so this was a great project for me to be able to see how LGBTQ history in the Quad Cities developed over time, where it developed in the Quad Cities, and then also be thinking about how this is different than some of the histories we often associate with LGBTQ life,” he said. “It's often focused on New York or San Francisco. And a lot of times, places like the Quad Cities are left out of those histories. And so for me, this was a really unique and amazing opportunity to be able to help the community tell this story and to be able to talk about what life was like in a smaller metro area for LGBTQ community members.”
Changes in attitudes over time
Changes in views toward LGBTQ people, especially in Iowa, has been one of the most interesting parts of this project for Strunk and students.
“There's so many amazing stories from clergy and other folks who were involved in performing dozens of same-sex marriages. These were people, people were coming from across the country to come to Davenport to get married in 2009, because it was one of the only places you could do it in the United States,” he said, noting Iowa was just the third state in the U.S, to legalize same-sex marriage (before the Supreme Court allowed it nationwide in 2015).
“And so we have these incredible oral histories detailing people's involvement in that process. There's also a great deal of, so there certainly is pride in that, and that memory and the activism that led to same-sex marriages becoming legalized in Iowa, I think, is certainly a real point of pride,” Strunk said.
“There's a lot of sadness, though, and a lot of kind of angst about the way that Iowa has shifted the other way.
“And so thinking this project has been, I think, really useful at this time to be thinking about these struggles and the resilience of the LGBTQ community,” he said. “These are rights that we can't take for granted. And this project really shows us the ways that community members have fought and built alliances and struggled for a long period of time. And it appears that we're going to have to do this again.
"And so there's a lot that we can learn from the older generation about what they went through to achieve some of the rights that we took for granted but are gradually being eroded.”
Before same-sex marriages were legalized, there were local “I Do celebrations,” for civil unions, Strunk said.
“They would go to the Scott County Courthouse and kind of do a civil disobedience protest, where they would ask the county clerk to give them a marriage license, and they were turned down. But then they would still go have a celebration where they perform a civil union,” he said.
“I think one time it was at MCC, another time it was at Vanderveer. And so all these really great moments that we don't have a lot of information about. There might be an article in the paper about it at the time, but not a ton. But the oral histories allow us to really fill in some of the gaps about what happened during these really formative moments for the Quad Cities.”
The Story Map and documentary will echo the big shift Iowa has gone through, from championing same-sex marriage to today’s Republican dominance, Hendricks of QCPIM said, noting both the map and film are crucial.
“The interviewees talk about what an amazing thing it was with Iowa and marriage equality. I mean, that was an amazing time,” he said. “I did so many weddings. It was just incredible, people coming from all over the country to get married in Davenport, Iowa. And then national marriage equality. And yeah, that's why what we do is more crucial now than ever because the attitudes that people have are really disgusting right now.”
The documentary aims to reflect the humanity of LGBTQ people, and what they have in common with everyone else.
“I want them to see the strength and resilience of LGBTQ people and for folks to recognize their own inner strength and resilience to overcome obstacles and to participate in the larger community,” Hendricks said. “I want them to appreciate the struggles that the folks who came before them, the ones who came before me faced. And hopefully that future generations will not have to face those struggles.”
“The whole reason I started getting involved in this was because as a pastor, I was saying goodbye to people and doing their eulogies and their stories hadn't been told,” he added. “I was privileged to, but I increasingly— as I began to realize, this means somebody needs to be recording these stories.”
Documentary a long-held dream
Beyond just having the website, producing a feature-length “Pride in Memory” documentary has been “a dream of the steering committee and of Pride in Memory, I think, since the very beginning,” Strunk said.
“It accompanies what the steering committee put together. So all the videos that are on the Story Map, those are oral histories that the community members or Augustana students collected. What we've been doing is working closely with Fourth Wall Films, with Kelly and Tammy Rundle, to identify some of the key participants.
“And I think what the documentary is going to allow us to do is to really bring their expertise and great experience kind of producing these wonderful stories about the Quad Cities,” he said. “And they'll be able to expand and go in some other directions. And so we see this as something that grew out of the oral histories that the community members developed, and then they're going to take it to another level. And so it'll— there's a lot of connection, but the oral histories will go into much more depth in the documentary.”
It was 2023 when Quad Cities Pride in Memory set the wheels in motion to produce a feature documentary on the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the QC in the context of the bigger historical picture unfolding in the country.
Emmy award-winning documentary filmmakers Tammy and Kelly Rundle of Fourth Wall Films signed on to film, write and edit the documentary. It has been a long journey thus far, but an enlightening one. The Rundles have been actively in production on the monumental documentary project ever since.
Fundraising has been especially difficult, but with the support of the Illinois Humanities, the National Humanities, Quad City Arts, and contributions to QC Pride in Memory for the film, the project has stubbornly progressed. And now, in the fall of 2026 the filmmakers have crossed into the post-production editing phase.
“We have met some amazing and inspiring people along the way and are grateful to each one of them for sharing their stories, images and complete support with us,” filmmaker Tammy Rundle said.
“QC Pride in Memory has become like family to us,” filmmaker Kelly Rundle said. “We are not hit and run filmmakers. We care about the people we have met, the history before and the history that is unfolding now for the LGBTQ+ community. It is more important than ever to document what is taking place.”
“I think the documentary is of critical importance because it's going to reach people who are not out there, looking up LGBTQ history or necessarily curious about that,” Hendricks said.
“Maybe it'll pique their interest and actually drive them to do some further looking and get them to the website. But we're hoping that the documentary would reach a larger audience. To allow people to appreciate the struggles that people have been through to claim our rights and just that message that we're all human beings and we're supposed to just care about each other.”
Fourth Wall will use some of the existing interview clips in their film, but are doing their own interviews, he notes.
“They are amazing filmmakers. I just can't say enough good about them and how much they care about the projects that they get involved in,” Hendricks said of the Rundles. “They truly invest themselves in this. And, I mean, these folks aren't making a fortune off of doing this stuff.”
They originally planned to raise $150,000 to make the doc, most from grant funding. But he said grants for “DEI woke stuff is nonexistent now. I mean, it's just hard. It's really hard to get anything for LGBTQ stuff.” Hendricks said they got a small Illinois Humanities grant, and a Quad City Arts grant for music to be in the documentary, composed and performed by Lojo Russo.
In years past, the Iowa Humanities Council would give very large grants to a project like this, Hendricks said. “And now, they turned us down completely, and I don't anticipate that changing anytime soon,” he says.
Forty oral histories done so far
QCPIM, Augie and Fourth Wall have recorded about 40 oral histories, including LGBTQ community leaders, allies, other folks who are involved in different nonprofits and organizations involved in LGBTQ history.
“We were fortunate to be able to have an oral history with Clayton Peterson, who was really the driving force for this project,” Strunk said. “I actually found a number of documents where he had been talking about developing a documentary film all the way back in like in the early 2000s. And so it's been really great for me to see this process moving on so we can hopefully realize his dream.
"And that was really a lot of the impetus for this project too. I think Joyce Wiley, who was a really important figure and ally in the struggle for LGBTQ, she passed away right before this project started. And I think that really motivated the other community leaders to start recording these oral histories. So we didn't lose any more knowledge and experience that weren't kind of captured in some of these formats.”
Peterson, 74, of Rock Island, passed away Nov. 28, 2021, and Wiley, 80, of Moline, died on June 14, 2020. Wiley was founder of Quad Citians Affirming Diversity, and Peterson was founder of We Care Weekends and an active participant in what is now known as The Project of the Quad Cities. Their passing motivated a group of QC seniors to form a Pride in Memory Steering Committee to start recording oral histories during the early days of the COVID pandemic.
“We've gotten a lot of support from the community over the years,” Strunk said. “Certainly there have been a number of institutions that are interested in partnering with us. We've had historical panels that community members developed, and those have been shown in libraries around the Quad Cities. And we've hosted events at Last Picture House and the Putnam. So I think there's been a lot of support.
“We really wanted to use the Story Map to get this back on people's radar and to kind of show what we've done so far and then, and then ask the public for additional donations so we can finish this documentary, which we've seen snippets of and some excerpts that Fourth Wall Films have created. It looks amazing,” he said. “And so we're really just hoping that we can kind of reach out to the public again and continue this fundraising process so we can finish this really important piece of local history.”
The oral histories reveal a lot of really difficult times in the Quad Cities for LGBTQ folks, Strunk said.
“There's a lot of really challenging things to hear about. that went on in our community back in the late 20th century. And even continuing on, I think there is certainly a lot more acceptance,” he said. “And we see that in the oral histories that community members are feeling like there's more belonging in the Quad Cities. And they feel like they can be themselves in a lot of different ways.”
“I wouldn't say that it's trending or kind of necessarily going in a direction where it's inevitably getting more accepting for people. But people really found, we really see in the Story Map and in the oral histories, that the Quad Cities has been a pretty accepting place.,” Strunk said.
“And that people have been able to live their lives and be able to create these LGBTQ places and networks. And that was really good for us to see, good for students to see, that this was a place for LGBTQ students, that they could also kind of call the Quad Cities home and make connections with people who've been living their lives and having good lives here in the Quad Cities.”
Students who work for the Augustana Web Guild created the Pride in Memory website; the Story Map is featured there, posted a few weeks ago.
“We see this as a living document, and so we actually have a form on the website where people, if they If they would like to contribute additional oral histories or documents or other material to the Pride in Memory Project, there's a way that they can leave their information and we'll reach out,” Strunk said.
The map is valuable partly to show what places have closed over the years.
“There were so many different gay bars in the Quad Cities, and many were concentrated in downtown Rock Island or downtown Davenport, but there were others in a variety of different places,” Strunk said. “Rich Hendricks did a lot of that research to find this really interesting history. But yes, over time, we've seen those places kind of drop off and to the point where Mary's on Second closed last year. And so that's been a big change. And you can see kind of some of that history and some of the dates of when these institutions were open or when they, when they finally closed.”
“This is a trend that we see in other communities as well, that as there's been more acceptance, where there are more places where LGBTQ people can feel comfortable and can participate in kind of social life, there's less of a need for some of those old traditional gay bars,” he said. “And so this is something that people in New York and other places are also grappling with.
"And so there, on the one hand, this is positive that there's not a need for places where people who are in the closet might have to go. On the other hand, we lose a lot of that history over time. And so one part of this map is really trying to uncover some of those hidden histories, right? We can drive around the Quad Cities and not know that this used to be a place where there were 5 or 10 different gay bars or different organizations dedicated to LGBTQ rights.”
QCPIM is currently seeking donations for the documentary film being produced by Fourth Wall Films, a five-time regional Emmy award-winning independent media production company formerly located in Los Angeles, and now based in Moline.
From the guarded 1950s, AIDS, and gay marriage to current attempts to roll back LGBTQ+ rights, the film will reveal the story of a personal and local civil rights movement.
For more information about the documentary “Our Story: Pride in Memory” and how you can help support and/or donate to the film project, visit www.PrideInMemoryMovie.org.
The Rundles look to 2028 to release the documentary. Pride in Memory is in fundraising mode, for final completion of the documentary. If you are interested in supporting the project, visit https://qcprideinmemory.org/ and click on DONATE.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
