Archival Justice An Interview with Ben Power Alwin

In this interview from the summer of 2013, Ben Power Alwin discusses with K. J. Rawson his archival activism as the curator of the Sexual Minorities Archives (SMA) since 1977. Currently located in Northampton, Massachusetts, the SMA is one of the oldest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) archives in the United States, and it remains a radical grassroots collection. Housed in Alwin's personal residence for several decades, the SMA and the curator share an intimate symbiosis that Alwin discusses. This conversation also touches on many other topics including the emergence and emotional function of queer archives, the influence of the geographic setting of an archive, efforts to control history, and the continuing politics of grassroots archives. © 2015 by MARHO: The Radical Historians’ Organization, Inc.