So I’m Peggy Gillespie and I’m living in North Hampton, Massachusetts. 

Back in 1993, I was a mom of a three-year-old multiracial child. In preschool, my kid was greeted by another friend when she came in with a brown doll. And the kid said to her, “Why do you have such an ugly doll with such ugly skin color?”

And the teacher, Gigi, reported this to me. So I decided to do what was going to become an exhibit for the schools on multiracial families, and I was part of a multiracial family group, so we got all these people together. And Gigi, my kid’s school teacher, was also a photographer, so we decided to take pictures. I would do these interviews and we created an exhibit called “Of Many Colors – Portraits of Multiracial Families.” 

Well, it was a big, huge hit. Every school wanted the exhibit. We created panels of some of the teenagers and the parents from the local schools district. We wound up becoming a nonprofit, Family Diversity Projects, in order to get grants so that we could ship this exhibit to all these different schools. 

There was one or two LGBT… or lesbian, actually – a lesbian couple and a gay couple in Of Many Colors. So we thought let’s do another one, another exhibit. The schools will be so happy to have us back. I don’t think we have the title quite yet, but it was, Love Makes a Family got created.

Went back and I told the principals, “Guess what? We have another exhibit. It’s gonna come soon. We’re working on it.” And suddenly I get an email from the superintendent of schools and he said, “I’m sorry, but this exhibit cannot go into any of the elementary schools. It’s way too advanced a topic.” 

He wanted to meet with me. So I brought a picture of two women sitting by their barbecue with their 8-year-old and their dog. He sat me down. 

He said, “No, this will not work. It is absolutely impossible to have this exhibit go into the elementary schools because it will make the children think about sex.”

“This picture, does this picture make you think about sex?” 

I’ll never forget the look on his face when he went, “Yes, it does.” 

So he said, “You know, I’m, you know, I’m sorry. Maybe we will consider it for the high school.” 

After I left that meeting with the superintendent, I started to tell people, some of the people, of course, that we had photographed and interviewed and the word got around the group of students from the high school, got together and and a group of parents… all got together and marched on Gus’s office. They confronted him and said, “This is ridiculous. Our families live here. They deserve to be shown and part of the world that goes on in our elementary school so that children don’t grow up to be homophobic like you.”

From that point on, there were petitions. Teachers put out petitions: let this exhibit come into our school. What he did was he said principals can decide. 

The families that were against the exhibit, and there were, had hired a right-wing lawyer from Colorado and he flew in and he came to these meetings with a Bible. The people in the audience, I’d say most of them were on our side, but there was a strong contingent of people that were very angry and this lawyer represented them. 

This went on for over a year. There was front page news. Eventually, each principal had to make a decision, and each principal, the five schools, decided yes, they would have the exhibit. 

Once we had the agreement that all of them were gonna show it, then there was the debate. The families wanted to opt their children out. They wouldn’t allow them to go to school for the two weeks that the exhibit would be in each school. So the principals had to agree, but we argued that and we finally decided to accept whatever conditions they made. You know, like they, one was not gonna show it in the front hallway, like they showed Of Many Colors. They would put it in the library. 

Five families took it to federal court. And we had this wonderful lawyer, Mary Bonauto came in to help advise the school attorney. It was this triumphant moment when I heard the news that the exhibit had won and was going to be allowed in every single school because of what else? Free speech. 

And because of the Associated Press publicizing this court case, I again started to get people wanting us to bring the exhibit around the country, which we did. 

The most wonderful thing happened, which is the guest books. This is back in Amherst where, you know, we saw the books that the kids filled out. And this one kid in sixth grade wrote, “We’re all created equal, remember?” with a big question mark.

And another one wrote, “It was just families. What was the big deal?” And again, it was like the kids knew.

“It was just families. What was the big deal?”

Now I’ll go back to the sex thing, because in one classroom, one kid said, “How did two women have a baby?” Just like Gus, the superintendent had feared. And another kid raised their hand and said, “Well, it was probably artificial insemination.”

So it was like these young kids already knew a lot of this… the ways that gay and lesbian people at the time were using different methods to create their families. 

Those of you listening to my story have hope. Like we fought through one battle. I believe as an older elder, there’s been many, many battles way beyond the one that I fought, you know, from Stonewall on by trans and… and lesbians and gays and bisexuals to get our freedom. And we can do it again. Stick with it. Don’t give up. I’m telling you, I’m 77 and I’m still out there and I’m not going to give up.