James Lynn Kepner, Jr. (192315 November 1997) was an American journalist, author, historian, archivist and leader in the gay rights movement. His work was intertwined with

One, Inc. One, Inc., or One Incorporated, was one of the first gay rights organizations in the United States, founded in 1952. Organization The idea for an organization dedicated to homosexuals emerged from a Mattachine Society discussion meeting held on O ...

and ''One Magazine'', and eventually contributed to the formation of the

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries is the oldest existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organization in the United States and one of the largest repositories of LGBT materials ...

Early life

Jim Kepner was found wrapped in newspaper under an oleander bush in

Galveston, Texas Galveston ( ) is a coastal resort city and port off the Southeast Texas coast on Galveston Island and Pelican Island in the U.S. state of Texas. The community of , with a population of 47,743 in 2010, is the county seat of surrounding Galvesto ...

in September 1923, aged about eight months. He didn't find out he was adopted until he was nineteen. In 1942, followed his adopted father to San Francisco, where, wandering around the libraries of the city, Kepner could not find anything objective that focused on the way he was. Later, he would record that he had been "aware of being different from age four."

Career

Kepner started his career as a clerk for a railroad company in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

in the 1940s. He joined the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

and wrote for a Communist newspaper in New York City, the ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...

''. However, he was expelled from the party because of his homosexuality. Instead, he joined the

Mattachine Society The Mattachine Society (), founded in 1950, was an early national gay rights organization in the United States, perhaps preceded only by Chicago's Society for Human Rights. Communist and labor activist Harry Hay formed the group with a collection ...

in Los Angeles, the main gay organization in the United States at the time. Kepner's search for information and then

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

led him to begin a private collection of gay-related materials unlike anything previously compiled. Upon settling in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, Kepner became an essential part of the emergence of modern gay culture through journalism, writing, activism and pioneering archival work. He became one of the main writers for ''ONE Magazine''. Before falling out with ''ONE'' in 1961, Kepner wrote many of the magazines' articles and served as co-editor of the magazine. ''ONE Magazine's'' documents and Kepner's research materials formed the beginning of today's ONE Archives. He maintained a relationship with ONE throughout his life even as he transferred his collections to his repeatedly renamed archives (Western Gay Archives and then the National Gay Archives and later the International Gay and Lesbian Archives). Subjects of Kepner's 1950s writings included whether there was such a thing as a "gay community," police actions against the gay community, same-sex marriage, social interaction in the gay community and a whole host of other subjects. As he wrote, he collected, and over five more decades, Kepner was able to amass enormous amounts of essential information on gay life in the United States. As HIV/AIDS ravaged thousands in the 1980s and 1990s, Kepner's efforts became essential as he recorded, memorialized, and documented the vital personal and community response to the epidemic. In a review of Kepner's 1998 book, ''Rough News, Daring Views: 1950s' Pioneer Gay Press Journalism'', historian

William Armstrong Percy III William Armstrong Percy III (December 10, 1933 – October 30, 2022) was an American professor, historian, encyclopedist, and gay activist. He taught from 1968 at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and started publishing in gay studi ...

wrote, "the Gay rights movement had three remarkable pioneers. Two—

Harry Hay Henry "Harry" Hay Jr. (April 7, 1912 – October 24, 2002) was an American gay rights activist, communist, and labor advocate. He was a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, the first sustained gay rights group in the United States, as well as ...

and

Dorr Legg William Dorr Lambert Legg (December 15, 1904 — July 26, 1994), known as W. Dorr Legg, was an American landscape architect and one of the founders of the United States gay rights movement, then called the homophile movement. Early years Born i ...

—have long been recognized, whereas the contribution of the third—Jim Kepner—has never been adequately documented…" Percy goes on to say "Kepner's articles (in the book) record not only the past of the gay rights movement but also its soul." Kepner's collection consists of thousands of distinct subject files containing primary and secondary materials such as organizational minutes, newspaper clippings, journal and magazine articles, correspondence, brochures, and other printed and original materials relating to all aspects of the LGBT experience. ONE's Library and Kepner's archives merged in the early 1990s. By the time of Kepner's death, the ONE Archives had evolved into the premier source for gay and lesbian research in the nation.

Death

Kepner died on November 15, 1997 at the Midway Hospital in Los Angeles, California. He was 74.

References

External links

Jim Kepner at GLBTQ Encyclopedia

ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives
— official website
Southern California LGBT History Timeline

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kepner, Jim 1923 births 1997 deaths People from Los Angeles American archivists American gay writers LGBT historians American LGBT rights activists American LGBT journalists 20th-century American historians Members of the Communist Party USA

Early life

Career

Death

See also

References

External links