Yale University Library News

Freedom to Marry archives offer insight into a modern civil rights movement

November 22, 2016

Same-sex marriage has evolved from a far-fetched notion to established law in the United States over the past four decades. At the forefront of this modern civil rights movement has been a Yale alumnus, Evan Wolfson ’78. Wolfson wrote his Harvard Law School thesis on same-sex marriage long before it became a topic of national & local activism. He founded Freedom to Marry in 2001, serving as its president until the Supreme Court’s historic 2015 decision guaranteeing marriage equality. Along with his many other awards, Wolfson was honored with a Yale-Jefferson Public Service Award earlier this month. He donated Freedom to Marry’s archives to Yale in 2015, explaining why in this YaleNews story.