Our History
The story of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center is deeply rooted in decades of grassroots organizing, historic civil rights victories, and an unwavering commitment to visibility and education in the Greater Lehigh Valley and across Pennsylvania.
Our Roots and Civil Rights Milestones
The foundation of the center was built upon more than thirty years of full-time advocacy by co-founder Liz Bradbury, M.F.A., who has been a prominent community organizer since 1979. Alongside her partner of over 35 years, fellow LGBTQ+ activist Patricia Sullivan, Ed.D., their collective efforts transformed the cultural and legal landscape of the region.
Liz Bradbury, M.F.A., Co-Founder of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center and long-time regional civil rights advocate.
Patricia Sullivan, Ed.D., LGBTQ+ activist, educator, and co-founder whose decades of community labor helped shape the center.
Before the physical center existed, our founders paved the way through major political and media initiatives:
- Political Advocacy: In the 1990s, Liz co-founded and spent ten years leading the Pennsylvania Gay and Lesbian Alliance for Political Action. Under her leadership, they successfully added Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity protections to Allentown’s Human Relations Ordinance—marking the first municipal civil rights passage in Pennsylvania to explicitly protect people based on gender identity.
- Community Lifelines: In the 1990s, the Lehigh Valley LGBTQ+ Infoline was created, operating 24/7 for 25 years to connect isolated individuals with life-saving resources. Concurrently, the Valley Gay Press was published for 18 years to give the local community an open, journalistic voice.
- Municipal Protections: Our founders were instrumental in drafting and passing 11 significant municipal civil rights laws across the Commonwealth, securing vital non-discrimination protections in Easton (2007), Reading (2009), Bethlehem (2011), and contributing to inclusive language protections in State College (2023).
From Network to Community Center
In 2004, the Pennsylvania Diversity Network (PDN) was co-founded to formalize these expanding advocacy efforts, with Liz serving as Executive Director for a decade. Recognizing the critical need for a physical, multi-service home for the community, the PDN Board of Directors voted to transition the network into a permanent community center.
In honor of their historic lifetime contributions, the board named the new institution the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. Following the purchase of our building, teams of hundreds of dedicated community volunteers rallied together to completely rehabilitate the physical space, creating a vibrant, safe, and accessible haven for LGBTQ+ individuals.
A Legacy of Education and Culture
Following the center’s grand opening, Liz transitioned to lead the center’s professional development efforts as the Director of the Training Institute. Over the course of eight foundational years, the Training Institute achieved massive state and national scale:
- Trained more than 300 organizations and over 17,000 individuals on LGBTQ+ equity, awareness, and cultural competency.
- Facilitated critical institutional training for 1,000 Pennsylvania State COVID-19 contact tracers, 17 regional school districts, the PA State Department of Aging, Health, Corrections, and the Department of Labor and Vocational Rehab.
- Formed medical and equity partnerships with major regional networks, including Lehigh Valley Health Network and St. Luke’s University Health Network.
- Launched popular community-facing cultural series, such as the long-running “Art History from a Queer Perspective” presentations.
Preserving Our Local History
We believe that understanding our past is vital to building our future. During the 2021-2022 academic year, the center expanded its historical preservation efforts by hosting Collaborating Scholar Mary Foltz, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of English and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Lehigh University) as our scholar-in-residence through an ACLS Scholars and Society Fellowship.
This ongoing academic collaboration has significantly enriched the Lehigh Valley LGBT Community Archive through groundbreaking oral history preservation projects and curated public exhibitions, including:
- “Pride in Print: Moving Above Ground and Embracing our Gaydar”
- “Pride Guides and the Early Years of Lehigh Valley Pride Festivals”
Today, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center stands as a living testament to these decades of labor, love, and community resilience. We look forward to advancing this legacy as we enter our second decade of action, health equity, and celebratory queer visibility.