The Gay Community Center of Richmond is pleased to announce that Jay Squires, GCCR President, has been elected to the Board of Directors of CenterLink, the Community of LGBT Centers.

CenterLink was founded in 1994 and serves as the national voice for the more than 150 LGBT community centers in the US, Canada and worldwide. With support from organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Bohnett Foundation and the Movement Advancement Project, CenterLink serves as the clearinghouse for information on best practices for the local organizations that are helping LGBT people every day – one person at a time.

"We are excited to have Jay join the Board and look forward to the unique experiences he will bring to both the Board and our constituencies,” said ‘Dolph Ward Goldenburg, co-chair of the CenterLink board and Executive Director of Living Room, Inc., an Atlanta HIV/AIDS service organization.

Jay said, “I am honored to be selected to serve on a board that includes leaders from centers that have done so much for our people, for years, in large and small communities. And, I’m pleased that our work in Virginia has been recognized. I am excited to have the opportunity to share our successes and to bring home some great ideas.”

GCCR has been a member of CenterLink since 2008. LGBT centers in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Los Angeles have provided assistance to our developing programming efforts.

CenterLink – The Community of LGBT Centers

GCCR and Women for Women are proud to present legendary Women’s music artist Alix Dobkin in concert at GCCR! Come celebrate 3 decades of Women’s music with a pioneer of the flourishing Women’s music scene. In 1973, with Kay Gardner and Marilyn Ries, Alix Dobkin produced Lavender Jane Loves Women, the very first album by, for and about Lesbians in the history of the world. From then until now, she has focused on the lives, concerns and perspectives of women who love women.

Alix grew up in the heart of American folk and ethnic as well as jazz and Broadway musical traditions. In 1970, Alix became a feminist, fell in love with a woman, and for over thirty years since she's been celebrating blatant Lesbianism in song and story. Richmond has had the fortune to host Alix several times over the last three decades, and she has been a fervent supporter of women’s communities everywhere including here in Richmond. Come out and support and celebrate this legend of women’s music.

8 pm
Saturday, February 20th
GCCR Event Hall
Doors open at 7:00 PM

Tickets are $15 in advance and are available at online. They can also be purchased directly from Cindy Bray at 804-622-4646 X22 or Volunteer@GayRichmond.com. Tickets will be $20 at the door.

GCCR and Women for Women welcome Alix Dobkin to GCCR for a book signing for her memoir - My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing up Communist, Coming onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming Out in the Feminist Movement.

Women’s music legend Alix Dobkin for the first time chronicles her rise to fame as the first artist to record an openly Lesbian record album in 1973. Her story, however, opens much earlier in post-war New York City where, growing up in a Communist family, she watches Jackie Robinson steal home, rubs elbows with radical left celebrities like Paul Robeson, and comes of age under the watchful eye of the FBI. Dobkin herself joins the Party at the height of the McCarthy witch hunts and offers readers a first-hand glimpse of daily life as a young person living under government surveillance. During this time she also matures as a devotee of folk music, having fallen under the spell of renowned performers such as Leadbelly and Pete Seeger.

Yet it’s after she arrives on the burgeoning folk music scene of Greenwich Village, where she meets the up-and-coming Bob Dylan, Bill Cosby, John Sebastian, Buffy Ste. Marie, and Flip Wilson, among many other rising luminaries, that she achieves her first acclaim as a singer-songwriter. Her music takes on overt feminist dimensions when she joins a women’s consciousness raising group and comes out as a Lesbian. Rich in period detail, storytelling, and outspoken politics, My Red Blood is essential reading for lovers of music and history.

Books will be available at the event with the generous cooperation of Fountain Bookstore. There will be an opportunity to meet and talk to the author and get your book signed. This is a free event.

3 - 5 pm
Saturday, February 20th
GCCR

GLSEN Richmond and GCCR celebrate Black History Month with a special screening of “Tiny & Ruby: Hell Divin' Women” as part of GCCR's Winter Film Series. The movie will be shown in the GCCR Event Hall on Saturday, February 13th from 4 pm - 6 pm, followed by a reception discussion of the film.

A portrait of the legendary famel Jazz trumpet player Tiny Davis and her partner for over 40 years, the female drummer Ruby Lucas (real name Renei Phelan). In the 1940s, Tiny Davis was considered the “female Louis Armstrong” and her extra-ordinary talent made her the toast of the jazz world. Original archive footage gives us an impression of the personality and musical ability of these two female musicians. Interviews and live performances and, last but not least, Cheryl Clarke’s poetic texts complete this film portrait. An hommage to two significant female musicians.

GCCR Event Hall
Saturday, February 13th
4 pm – 6 pm

 Free and open to the public  

The next upcoming film at GCCR is "Amancio: Two Faces on a Tombstone." The date for "Amancio" will be announced.