Brad Keistler papers

William Bradley "Brad" Keistler was born on September 23, 1942 in Charlotte, North Carolina to William Carlyle "Crip" and Frances Elizabeth "Lib" McCraven Keistler. Keistler grew up in Charlotte and attended Charlotte College and UNC Chapel Hill during his college years. Over the course of his career, Keistler started a head shop business called Asterisk in Charlotte located on Sixth Street across from the Main Library and next to Crazy Horse bookshop. Over his career, he also worked as a laboratory technician for Celanese Fibre Industries, Papermate and American Cyanamid and was employed as a coin payphone repair technician for Pacific Bell/Southwestern Bell. In the early 1970s, he co-founded the Charlotte chapter of the Gay Liberation Front along with his friends, Greg and Charles. During this time, Keistler lived in the Red Worms Commune on Lyndhurst Avenue, one of at least two communes in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte. Red Worms Commune was opposite the Charlotte Women's Center, a feminist center that was also known as the purple house. He moved to Los Angeles, California shortly after forming the Charlotte Gay Liberation Front Chapter.