CAMP Rehoboth always envisioned as heart of community
CAMP Rehoboth’s logo is a house with a heart in it. Co-founder Murray Archibald said the design has always stood for one thing – a vision to have the organization be the heart of the community.
Archibald didn’t say those words recently. Rather, they were from a 2010 interview conducted by the Rehoboth Beach Museum as part of its oral history program. The museum began the project roughly 15 years ago and has logged more than 100 sessions.
Periodically, the museum revisits these interviews through a program called In Their Own Words. Most recently, Sept. 25, there was a showing of a decade-old interview with Archibald and Steve Elkins, his husband and CAMP Rehoboth co-founder, who died in 2018 from lymphoma.
In the video, Elkins describes meeting Archibald for the first time. He was working for President Jimmy Carter. An artist friend of his was installing a piece in the White House and asked for Archibald to also get security clearance. Elkins said he asked if Archibald could be trusted.
Elkins said his friend’s response was, “Oh yeah, he’s nice.” Thirty minutes later, said Elkins, Archibald walked in, and that was 32 years ago in the White House.
The two men talked about family and how when they first started the CAMP organization, not everyone in Rehoboth shared the same definition of family. For the CAMP crew, it was an inclusive term used to describe everyone. For many locals at the time, family meant the traditional definition of husband, wife and kids, said Elkins.
It’s come full circle, with gay and lesbian city commissioners, said Elkins, explaining how things have changed. However, he added, there’s still a need to be vigilant, because hate will creep back in.
To accommodate Elkins’ job, the two men moved around a lot. Archibald said the dream was always to return to New York City. Then, he said, one day he was walking on Baltimore Avenue and the space that’s now CAMP Rehoboth was for sale and it just hit him.
Describing it as almost like an epiphany, Archibald said so many LGBTQ people were coming to Rehoboth that there needed to be a place for everyone to connect.
Elkins said there hadn’t been too many bad times for CAMP, but the AIDS epidemic peak of the mid-1990s did take its toll. There were several people who were activists who died much too young, said Elkins, growing emotional.
It was intense, said Archibald, admitting he wasn’t sure how they found the strength to keep going.
The Rehoboth Beach Museum is expected to continue its In Their Own Words series with William Burbank, who spent every summer at his grandmother’s home in Dewey Beach starting in the early 1950s. The program is set for 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 9.
The museum is open for in-person visits. Off-season museum hours now in effect are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday and Sunday; closed Monday through Thursday. For more information on the museum, 511 Rehoboth Ave., or to register for an In Their Own Words program, go to rehobothbeachmuseum.org or call 302-227-7310.
