Badge Of Pride

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We have a bold agenda. It involves history. And homosexuals.

October is LGBTQ+ History Month, and this year we’re trying something a little different. The Gay Agenda is a new campaign designed to bring more people into the work of Badge Of Pride and give you a new way to be part of what we’re building.

We’ll start in the 1960’s and take a trip through time. Each Wednesday, we’ll move forward another decade, with a new look, a new chapter, and another item on The Gay Agenda.

It’ll be fun, a little cheeky, and probably not quite what you’re used to seeing from us. But underneath it all is something we take very seriously: making sure is collected, preserved, shared, and there for the generations that come next.

Stay tuned. Join us. The Gay Agenda starts Wednesday.

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One year ago this week, “Badge Of Pride: From Silence…To Celebration!” closed its doors.

We marked the anniversary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, at the Southeastern Museums Conference, sharing what we learned from that exhibition with colleagues from across the region. It felt like the right place to mark the moment because the past year has been less about looking back at what we built and much more about figuring out what it made possible.

Since then, Badge Of Pride has expanded well beyond a single exhibition. We’ve launched new community archiving work, created original performance programming, begun cataloging our growing collection, hired our first staff, contributed to the field through conferences and two journal articles publishing later this fall, and built relationships with institutions and collaborators across the country.

And we are only beginning.

The next chapter is already taking shape: new exhibitions, new partnerships, deeper investment in archives and oral history, and projects that will carry this work well beyond North Texas.

Some of those announcements are coming very soon.

A year ago, an exhibition closed.

What followed was an opening.

It’s hard to believe that one year ago yesterday, September 28, we closed our landmark exhibition, “Badge Of Pride: From Silence…To Celebration!”

What a year it has been since. We’ve connected with new colleagues across the country, opened doors we could not have imagined then, and begun charting an ambitious path for what comes next.

It feels especially fitting to mark the anniversary here in Winston-Salem for the Southeastern Museums Conference-SEMC, where today we’ll take the stage with colleagues from the Irving Archives and Museum and the Virginia Museum of History & Culture for our workshop, “Navigating Challenging Topics: Community, Trust and Museum Practice in Changing Times.”

There will be time soon to reflect on everything this past year has brought. For now, we’re getting back to the conference, the conversations, and the work ahead.

A few weeks ago, we were invited by Netflix to a special, intimate screening of “La Bola Negra.”

It is a remarkable, beautiful film. Thoughtful, intimate, and deeply affecting.

We’re grateful to have had the chance to experience it early, and very glad to see it receiving the attention it deserves.

Take a look:

La Bola Negra Official Trailer: Why This Q***r Spanish Epic Is Leading the Charge as an Oscar Contender La Bola Negra’s new trailer previews the acclaimed q***r Spanish epic from Los Javis, starring Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close, ahead of its Oct. 16 release.

Thank you to the Lambda Legal team for inviting Badge Of Pride to curate a pop-up exhibit to the Landmark Dinner in Dallas, and to every guest who stopped by, engaged, and joined us in conversation.

The buttons and artifacts on display carry the history of people who organized, protested, and challenged laws designed to deny our dignity. That fight continues. We preserve these stories because knowing what our community has faced—and how we have fought back—matters now, more than ever.

Tonight’s the night! Who will we see?

We’ve been teasing big announcements for later this fall. Before they arrive, we want to share an unlikely story that’s been drawing standing-room-only audiences this year: how Badge Of Pride began.

Our founder, Adrian Cardwell, spent more than 25 years in corporate leadership before starting a nonprofit centered on LGBTQ+ history, a field he had never formally studied. He brought experience in strategy, making the case for an idea, building partnerships, and seeing complex work through. He had no blueprint for what came next.

For a long time, Adrian wondered whether he belonged in public history. Then, with Irving Archives and Museum, he curated and designed a Texas exhibition that navigated controversy, drew thousands of visitors, and earned six national and state honors. He’s come to see how his corporate experience, commitment to LGBTQ+ history, and willingness to build slowly and intentionally shaped the work.

Now Adrian is taking those lessons to new audiences:

• For corporate teams: what leadership experience can bring to a public mission, and what changes when success isn’t measured in revenue or market share.

• For people facing a layoff or a mid- or late-career pivot: the reality of becoming a beginner in a new field and finding a path without a guarantee.

• For young activists: why protest needs durable organizations, strong coalitions, and the capacity to keep pressure on after the march.

Adrian’s first presentation in this new chapter is at UCLA next month. Speaking honoraria will go directly to Badge Of Pride to support our mission.

Know a conference organizer, professor, or program that should hear our story? Send them our way: badgeofpride.org/speaker

Imagine stepping outside with GAY pinned to your chest in the 1970’s, 80’s or 90’s.

At the Lambda Legal Dallas Landmark Dinner this Saturday, Badge Of Pride will present BADGES OF PRIDE, PROTEST & POWER, a pop-up exhibition curated by founder and executive director Adrian Cardwell. A ticket to the dinner is required to view the exhibition.

Drawn from the Badge Of Pride archive, the exhibition brings together buttons from Pride marches, protests, elections, organizations, and campaigns across the country. These badges helped LGBTQ+ people recognize one another, organize, and declare who they were and what they believed. Wearing one could also cost someone a job, housing, family, safety, or freedom.

The buttons did not change the law. The people who wore them did, fighting in the streets, at the ballot box, and in the courts.

We are proud to activate this history in support of Lambda Legal and the fights still ahead. Presented with support from our generous donors and Moody Fund for the Arts.

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