Trella’s tapes keep her outlook alive

For about 20 years, from the late 1970s to the 1990s, Trella Laughlin hosted a television program “Let the People Speak” that ran on Austin Public Television. She traveled widely to interview people about critical social and human rights issues of that era. She covered the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1978-1979 when the Sandinistas overthrew a repressive dictatorship. She did programs from Cuba, Palestine and the Gaza strip. She interviewed people marginalized or discriminated against because of their race, national origin, and sexual orientation, and frequently highlighted the work of artists and musicians.

These programs were done before the age of the internet, and what remains is primarily eight-track tapes. Now, thanks to researchers at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, those tapes will be digitized providing a historical record of Laughlin’s work to empower people and advocate for a more just society.

The project had roots in a visit by UCO students Emma Stewart and Alexis McKernan, and Dr. Lindsey Churchill, director of the Women’s Research Center and the BGLTQ+ Student Center. The three came to visit Laughlin in the summer of 2022 shortly before she passed away at age 85.

Trella and her wife, Marie Howard, retired to Eureka Springs in 2005, and both remained politically active.

Stewart was hired by the UCO Women’s Research Center (Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies) in 2022 to work on a grant digitizing older periodicals. One was the Ozark Feminist Review, a newspaper published by a Fayetteville community made up primarily of lesbian women in the 1990s.

“I found an advertisement for Spinster Haven which was about aging lesbian women trying to establish a commune in Arkansas,” Emma said. “I found it interesting. I found the group on Facebook, and asked if any of the women would be interested in being interviewed. We had interviews with a number of women, are currently editing them, and plan on creating a documentary.”

They were particularly impacted by Laughlin.

“It was interesting to meet someone who so aligned with my values,” Stewart said. “Growing up in Oklahoma, people older than me were not always progressing with the times. Trella was just so open. You could tell she really cared about the experiences of other people. Trella was able to articulate the experiences and the struggles of so many different people from the 1960s on. I hadn’t seen that passion in anyone else I had met before. As a queer person and a person with feminist values, just being able to find people who are like minded and fighting the same fight is invaluable.”

Stewart feels like they are uncovering hidden history.

“We are so grateful to be able to preserve this history and spread the word,” she said. “After Alexis catalogs the tapes, we want to go through them and build a new documentary project out of them.”

McKernan said with both of them trained in history, it was exciting to meet a woman who was a powerhouse working on the front lines advocating for the rights of people.

“This project solidifies why I love what I’m doing to promote the significance of queer people and women in the historical narrative of the world,” McKernan said. “I think it is really important. These tapes have genuine historical significance that document these stories and provide an entirely different perspective.”

McKernan is the student manager of the digitization project, and the tapes will be her graduate project.

“I’ll be working to not only catalog the tapes, but to also digitize the collection for anyone to utilize, not just university students,” she said. “Trella’s tapes will be the first video collection we will have in our archive, and I am beyond excited to see what all she documented and to be able to amplify her voice and her work to those who otherwise might not have been able to experience it. This means more than preservation; Trella’s memory being preserved in this way just makes sense. She was a prolific activist, and her tapes should be available to those who are interested in activism.”

Dr. Churchill was impressed with Laughlin dedicating her entire life to supporting marginalized people.

“She did that on a large scale on so many issues,” Churchill said. “One reason we are so interested in the project is the diversity of the collection. It is not just LGBTQIA+ issues, but issues within Black community, Latin American politics, women’s issues and many others. There are so many causes she helped to support, and we can now preserve the history of these incredible groups that will be put online for anyone to access. We are excited to have all copies in the world of these programs. She had so many of these interviews that we can’t wait to delve into. We want it as accessible as possible so many more people can enjoy this. I think it is very important to see these past struggles.”

The tapes also show that progress isn’t necessarily linear, Churchill said. There have been significant setbacks in women’s rights with abortion bans, the spread of antisemitism and white supremacy, and increasing intolerance of different sexual identities and orientation.

“We have to be vigilant,” Churchill said. “There is so much oppression in the world, and so much hurt. But Trella continued on despite that. That can serve as an inspiration to us. If more people were that way, the world would be a much better place for so many different groups and causes. That is one of the things so special about Trella. She worked on so many different things and had a passion for so many different issues. She had this tireless energy. Activism can be exhausting, but Trella kept on doing it into her eighties.”