"Welcome Gorbachev" button and flag manufactured in Minnesota and worn to commemorate the visit of Mikhail Gorbachev to the Twin Cities in 1990.

Allan Spear accomplished a lot in his three decades in the Minnesota Senate. But it’s the 1993 Minnesota Human Rights Act that he would call his “proudest legislative victory.” MN90 Producer Andi McDaniel finds out how one of the first openly gay Americans serving in elected office made Minnesota proud.

Nellie Stone Johnson was a labor organizer, activist, and the first Black elected official in Minneapolis. Hear what she has to say about her work in this video.

Members of the National Woman’s Party picketing for suffrage in front of the White House on March 4, 1917. Photograph by Harris and Ewing. Records of the National Woman’s Party, Library of Congress. Public domain.

Alice Paul, 1915. Paul worked closely with Minnesota suffragist Bertha Moller in the 1910s. Photograph by Harris and Ewing. Harris and Ewing collection, Library of Congress. Public domain.

Brian Coyle poses with the first two couples to register their domestic partnership in Minnesota in 1991.Pictured are, left to right, Marie Hanson, Ann Monson, Brian Coyle, Lyle Rossman, and Wallace Swan. From the folder “Domestic Partners Registration 1991” in box 10 of the Brian J. Coyle papers, 1960–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Brian Coyle between 1984 and 1986. From scrapbook vol. 4 in box 12 of the Brian J. Coyle papers, 1960–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

Campaign brochure from Brian Coyle’s run for the sixth ward of Minneapolis’s City Council in 1983. From the folder “Aldermanic Campaign, 1983” in box 6 of the Brian J. Coyle papers, 1960–2001, Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.