For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White.
Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, presented by The Publishing Triangle
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June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969.
I’m glad I read Martin Duberman first for the historical context, but it’s hard to beat this oral history of Stonewall, or rather an anthology of first-hand accounts in a chorus of different voices.
There are standouts amongst them— Judy Grahn, Mark Segal, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Rev. Perry, Jeanne Córdova, Joel Hall. I highlighted half of the Martha Shelley essay. And I will say that Marcia P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Karla Jay, and Craig Rodwell all get a better platform in Duberman’s book, but the key is the chorus, and the varying viewpoints that try to both cut through the myth and ensure that what happened doesn’t get lost to history.
Great book. Extra poignant reading this on June 28, 2020, while various Pride marchers and protesters clash with the NYPD.
The riot was about the police doing what they constantly did: indiscriminately harassing us. The police represented every institution of America that night: religion, media, medical, legal, and even our families, most of whom had been keeping us in our place. We were tired of it. And as far as we knew, Judy Garland had nothing to do with it. (Mark Segal)
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