In this episode, we throwback to 1985, where two seemingly unlikely activism campaigns collided. Kingston’s fight to have a gay and lesbian pride day, and the campaign for nuclear disarmament joined together to stage a controversial lesbian and gay kiss-in on the steps of Kingston city hall, that sparked controversy throughout Kingston.

Though we had talked about the fight for Kingston’s first ever pride celebrations in our first episode, today we will uncover a different aspect of the same history.

In this episode, we discuss a brief moment in the summer of 1999, where parking attendants in downtown Kingston were rendered so incapable of doing their jobs, that you could find them sitting frustrated in restaurants instead of looking for parking violations. These parking attendants were prevented from doing their jobs by no more than two to three youths, who would follow the parking attendants on their routes, run ahead of them, and plug quarters into the parking meters which had expired, preventing the attendants from giving these vehicles tickets. These youths were members of the People’s Parking Ticket Service. They would then slip envelopes onto the windshield informing the owner of the cars that they had been saved from a ticket. The envelope also asked for a small donation so the PPTS could continue their efforts. In addition, the stated purpose of the donation was to support the funding of a youth shelter in Kingston.

In this episode, we discuss the violent and racist history of Kingston prison institutions, through the lens of one activist at the center of it, Robert Tex Gentles.

In this episode, we discuss how an act of misogyny on Queen’s campus lead to one of the greatest pushes for sexual assault activism and the installation of the blue safety lights across campus.

Alfie Pierce, the former namesake of our beloved campus pub, is a Queen’s legend, yet few really know the true story behind his life. This episode of the People’s History Podcast brings Alfie’s story to life detailing the trials and barriers he faced as a person of colour on Queen’s campus and exposing the racist underpinnings that led to Alfie’s role as ‘Team Mascot’, underpinnings that have an impact on his legacy today.

Music: Nina Simone-“Young, Gifted and Black”

This podcast illustrates the story of how LGBT activists from Queen’s University in the mid-80’s to early 90’s, advocated for the city to recognize an official ‘Pride’ day for the LGBT community, only to be turned away multiple times over the years by homophobic council members, and shunned by homophobic Kingstonians. They never gave up – and we now owe our thanks to them for the month-long pride that we celebrate here in Kingston.