Lexington’s LGBTQ archive awarded $900,000 private grant. How it will be spent
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- Faulkner Morgan Archive receives $900,000 Mellon grant to expand work.
- Grant funds a three-year initiative to map and mark Kentucky LGBTQ sites.
- Funding will boost nominations, tours, outreach and organizational capacity.
A Lexington LGBTQ+ organization has received a $900,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation to help elevate and make visible Kentucky’s LGBTQ+ history.
The grant is the largest in the history of the Faulkner Morgan Archive, which is based in Lexington and was created in 2014. The Faulkner Morgan Archive’s mission is to make Kentucky’s LGBTQ stories visible.
That work includes things like local and national exhibitions, and nominating Kentucky LGBTQ+ sites to the National Register of Historic Places.
Grant funds will support “Following the Sweet Evening Breeze: Mapping Kentucky’s LGBTQ Landscape,” a three-year, four-part initiative to add history onto the “physical and cultural landscape” of Kentucky, the group said. Sweet Evening Breeze was a well-known Lexington drag queen and activist.
The grant will grow the group’s organizational capacity, increase outreach to underrepresented areas in Kentucky, up its ability to nominate LGBTQ+ sites in Kentucky to the National Register of Historic Places and expand Pride of Place LGBTQ+ history tours , the group said Tuesday, Feb. 10.
“Our goals have always been long-term,” said Jonathan Coleman, president and co-founder of the Faulkner Morgan Archive. “Each National Register nomination, each tour, and each oral history collected contributes to a permanent cultural infrastructure that will continue to grow beyond the life of this grant. We hope these new initiatives will inspire Kentuckians with exciting ways to incorporate a broader narrative into their understanding of local history.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 12:35 PM.
