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Billy Russo is a gay rights activist in southern Oregon. Russo co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance in 1972 and the Gay Switchboard (later the Gay and Lesbian Switchboard) in 1980. Both programs served as a 24-hour help line for the gay and lesbian community in Roseburg and other parts of southern Oregon. He also co-founded the Douglas County AIDS Council and worked as a case manager and gay/bisexual outreach worker with the council. He served on the board of directors throughout the 1980s and, from 1988 through the 1990s, ran the Ruby House, a Level III adult foster home for people living with HIV. Russo was deeply involved in activism and politics, running for the local school board in Rosebury, Oregon promoting comprehensive sex education and AIDS education. He also organized pickets of anti-gay rights politicians, advocated for funding to support HIV services in rural areas. He frequently contributed to Just Out, an LGBTQ publication out of Portland.
The Douglas County Gay Archive was compiled by Russo out of a need to document the advocacy and work of the gay rights community, particularly in southern Oregon. It centrally features programs and initiatives Russo was directly involved with, but incorporates the work of others as well.
For more information, see Russo's interview with the Rural Organizing Voices oral history project (2012): https://ruralorganizingvoices.org/narrator/billy-russo/
The Douglas County Gay Archives collection documents the the work and administration of Oregon gay and lesbian organizations in Douglas, Coos, Curry, and Josephine counties from the mid-1980s to the 2000s. The collection primarily documents the work of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, Ruby House, the Harm Reduction Center, and HIV resouce center. The collection contains newsletters, newspaper articles, correspondence, photographs, audio visual material, and digital records.
Featured records are related to: Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GALA) Monthly business meetings Gay men's consciousness-raising groups Gay Alcoholics Anonymous Support groups Community concernts Newsletters Gay and Lesbian Community Center Harm Reduction Center Scholarships provided to students at Umpqua Community College Board meetings, minutes, and letters