Coming September 2025
History UnErased is collaborating with Houses on the Moon Theater Company to develop and produce "The Past Is Always Present," a dynamic method of creating and presenting educational content that reaches students, educators, and the community at large with US history that would otherwise be missed or misunderstood.
This Open Educational Resource (OER) is in development and has been made possible in part by funding from the Library of Congress.
YEAR ONE: Research and development will utilize digital primary sources from the Library of Congress and state and local archives to create:
-
an original play script dramatizing the hidden histories of LGBTQ Americans with original music
-
five (5) fully produced animated videos to catalyze the dramatic action onstage and bring the primary sources to life
-
five (5) multi-media case studies for integration within secondary and post-secondary US history courses
MEET THE TEAM!
Jeffrey Solomon
Playwright
Emily Joy Weiner
Artistic Director
Robb Leigh Davis
Artist & Educator
Kathleen Barker
Program Director
Jocardo Ralston
Content Developer
Mor Erlich
Video & Animation
Tyler Albertario
Archival Researcher
J. Eric Fisher
Content Developer
Jayson Caluag
Graphic Designer
Dinah Mack
Creative Advisor
Janaya Little
Creative Advisor
Danny Roberts
Project Manager
Visit our STAFF page to learn more about History UnErased's team. CLICK HERE to learn more about Houses on the Moon Theater Company.
BACKGROUND
New and emerging efforts are underway to digitize LGBTQ primary sources alongside both the growing number of states mandating the teaching of LGBTQ-inclusive history and the exponentially greater number of states enacting laws and policies restricting LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. This project is our new approach to creating and sharing LGBTQ-inclusive US history to reach communities that currently cannot partner with us, elevate state and local LGBTQ history, and connect those stories to a broader and more accurate reflection of America.
Our committed distribution partners (listed at the bottom of this page) will be sharing "The Past Is Always Present" with educators and constituencies in their networks nationwide, and in turn, those recipients will then share "The Past Is Always Present" within their educational contexts — directly serving nearly 2,000,000 lives and exponentially more lives indirectly!
Each year, as "The Past Is Always Present" educational products are developed into new editions to expand the representation of state and local archives, we have ongoing efforts to secure more distribution supporters and grow the number of lives directly and indirectly served.
Examples of how Mor Erlich brings primary sources to life in video content:
SERENDIPITY
After submitting our grant proposal to the Library of Congress for "The Past Is Always Present" project, Mor Erlich discovered the following primary source (from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture) when creating the intro video for our case study about James Baldwin.
James Baldwin's handwritten notes on Sheraton Tacoma Hotel notepad [circa 1963]
Malcolm X's Question... to Be a Citizen of The nation? The world? The race?
A. to confront Religion / Race / Power
B. The question of Identity
C. Involving History
D. Identity of History being synonymous: being the Present
E. Attempting to make the Past / History
COMMITTED DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS