Lived Experience

A beautiful series of full-color portraits of LGBTQ people over the age of fifty

Even with the extraordinary strides the LGBTQ movement has made in civil rights, acceptance, and visibility over the past half century, a growing portion of the community remains largely invisible, its concerns relegated to the margins.

In the latest in a groundbreaking series of beautiful photobooks on LGBTQ communities around the world—from Russia to Mexico to Japan—French-Senegalese photographer Delphine Diallo centers on the voices and lives of older LGBTQ people in the United States, a generation that has been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic but has also been instrumental in extraordinary progress in LGBTQ rights and visibility in this country.

The series of fifty full-color portraits of LGBTQ people from across the nation—interviewed on the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots that led to modern LGBTQ rights movement—offers this wise and resilient cohort a chance to share their stories and to reflect. With a special focus on people of color, The Wisdom of Our Elders is a celebration of an underserved, neglected part of the LGBTQ world in America and an inspiration to future generations.

The Wisdom of Our Elders was designed by Emerson, Wajdowicz Studios (EWS).