Resurrection MCC Sells Charles Botts LGBT Archives
Collection to remain in Montrose as historical research library
The board of directors for Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church, owner for more than 20 years of Houston’s Charles Botts Memorial Archives and Library, announced on July 25 that the LGBT collection has been sold to an anonymous buyer.
Mary Wagner, president of the board of directors of RMCC, says the church began the year-and-a-half-long process to find a new, more appropriate home that would be best for the collection. “For nearly 20 years, through floods, hurricanes, and an ever-changing congregational base, the church has strived to be good stewards of the collection and honor the wishes of the late donor and long-time church member, Charles Botts,” she says. “The church felt this precious collection of LGBTQ community history could begin to thrive again under new ownership.
“After listening to the concerns of those in the community with a passion for the Botts collection, which included groups associated with Houston Area Rainbow Collective History (ARCH), the church formulated three conditions that the church wanted met before the church would part with the collection,” Wagner continued. “To best serve the collection and the community, the church requested that the collection remain together and stay in the local community, remain open for research by the public, and remain with the name ‘Charles Botts’ attached to the collection.”
Following a search that lasted a year and a half, no library, university, or museum was found that would take the entire collection with those conditions, Wagner said.
Duane Todd, attorney for the archive’s new owner, said in a press conference July 25: “It is the desire of the new owner to have the entire collection cataloged and much of it available to the general public by the beginning of 2013. It will be housed locally, in the Montrose area, for the purpose of viewing and/or research in the future. The collection will officially be known as The Charles W. Botts Memorial Research Library of GLBT Studies.”
The new owner has directed that longtime Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of GLBT History director Judy Reeves be appointed to act in the volunteer capacity of trustee of the research library.
“I am very happy to be a part of this endeavor, and appreciate the faith he [the anonymous purchaser] has placed in me,” Reeves said.
Others are less enthusiastic about the archives’ sale.
In response to RMCC’s selling of the archive, a separate collection, now known as the Botts Collection of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History, Inc., established an independent 501(c)(3) status earlier this year. This separate collection is now housed at Grace Lutheran Church; its curator is Larry Criscione, a former volunteer with the RMCC’s original Botts archives.
“It has come to our attention that many of the persons who lent and deposited materials to the Botts Library at RMCC over the years believed their historical papers were there for the purpose of serving the GLBT community,” Leif Hatlen, president of the board of the Botts Collection of LGBT History, said in a statement to the press. “They are amazed and horrified that RMCC is now proposing to sell off these important historical activist documents to an anonymous buyer to be relocated to GCAM’s storage units where other important historical materials have been subject to severe damage in various storms and suffered from apathy and neglect.
“In the past 16 years, few researchers have been allowed to access the [GCAM] material,” Hatlen continued. “Virtually no cataloging of individual items has been done. No database exists. No connection to the Internet exists. For this reason, the return of the materials currently at RMCC has been demanded by several of the parties, and more requests will be forthcoming.”
Additionally, according to John Heinzerling, a board member of the Diana Foundation, a 60-year-old social and charitable organization based in Houston, its members are requesting the return of “donations/loans” of papers and items to the Botts archive at RMCC Church “for safety purposes.
“We always gave the materials with the understanding that they were on loan to be used as research materials for any appropriate request received by the archive,” Heinzerling said in a statement to OutSmart. “Diana retained the right of ownership because we always wanted control of where they were and how these materials were treated.
“We have never been told in the 20-plus-year history of the Botts Archive that RMCC Church had any ownership position in the Archives, much less our papers. Had we been told otherwise, they would have been removed promptly, and probably, given the history of other archive efforts in Houston, either retained and stored by Diana itself or given over to a university or other archive outside Houston.”
Mark Eggleston, director of outreach at Resurrection MCC, said relocating the Charles Botts Memorial Archives and Library enables the church to expand its ministry in the community. “We will utilize this space by enlarging our food pantry, clothes closet, and other mission-related activities.” —Nancy Ford
Category: Local News, News
On August 10, 1995, Charles Botts’ brother Richard sent $50,000 and a letter to RMCC.
An excerpt from that letter:
“My own views of the possible uses for the funds is to provide seed money to assure the library is stable and continues to grow. I personally would like to see the money be used to fund a development director/fundraiser to obtain additional funds for the library and eliminate the available space burden on the church. I would be disappointed to learn in the future that the entire bequest had dwindled away with administrative salaries or capitol projects not directly benefiting the library.
Charles’ greatest concern was that the library would be broken up and dispersed for profit. Charles put the library together as resource, as comprehensive as possible, for people who wish to understand and learn about the gay and lesbian community with the intention to promote greater personal growth. In Charles description to us of his own past, he often felt isolated and confused during his personal development. He felt that he would have grown easier and with much more self assurance if a library such as he created had existed. Charles was driven to provide this resource for others in the future searching for understanding and development in their own lives. Charles worked so hard on this, and it meant so much to him, that I am going to do my best to assure that his wishes are carried out.”
What did $50,000 and a lot of trust buy him? A neglected archive, allocation of the money to complete the down payment on RMCC’s new facility, and ultimately what Charles feared most – the sale of the archive for profit.
If you can’t trust Christians, who can you trust? [Answer: non-Christians with a sense of community purpose and moral ethics}
RMCC’s statement about their stewardship of the Botts Collection does not parallel the reality of the collection’s existence at the church.
Their ‘precious collection’ was stuffed into a non air-conditioned former shower room on their grounds, for nearly a decade. With Houston’s heat and humidity, this is extremely detrimental to a ‘precious collection’.
They received $50,000 when Charles Botts died in 1995, to nurture and develop and find professional housing for the archive. They have never accounted for that money, but the condition of the archive is witness that they didn’t spend it on the archive. It’s believed to have been spent on the down payment for their current location.
The only reason they were ever considered ‘owners’ is that Botts will gave the archive to the MCC Library, which didn’t exist legally. All parties at the time agreed to legally change the ownership to MCC, so that money could flow from the estate to the archive.
The church has milked the collection dry for every penny it could get – ignored and neglected its well-being – and turned a profit by selling it to a private individual who is not accountable to the community or an elected board.
Their actions are devious, divisive, detrimental, and disheartening. RMCC has continually put its own selfish interests before the good of the community. They tossed away a gem because it brought them little publicity. Now they have a food pantry in that space, which makes them feel quite ‘Christian’ and self-important.
Charles Botts would be broken-hearted if he knew the fate of his precious and priceless collection. I’m broken-hearted too.