This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, and a lot of people think that was the beginning of the gay rights movement. It wasn't:
It's a fascinating article, but I want to point out one thing: the gay rights movement actually started in the 1950s, with the founding of the Mattachine Society by Harry Hay, but it wasn't what you'd call "activist". Rodwell might well be the first to openly demonstrate against the prevailing repression of gays; Stonewall was a catalyst that pushed awareness of the state of affairs and gave us a rallying cry.
Read it.
Via BarkBarkWoofWoof.
Coda:
On July 4, 1965 — four years before Stonewall—39 activists from D.C., New York, and Philadelphia marched on the place where the Declaration of Independence had been signed roughly two centuries earlier. They wanted to remind the nation that their rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” had been denied. Dressed in formal attire — the men in coats and ties, and many of the women in skirts and dresses — they carried signs that read equal treatment before the law and homosexual bill of rights.
For the next four years, the organizer of that protest, Craig Rodwell, along with his comrades, Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen, marched in Philadelphia. Their demonstrations became became known as “the Annual Reminders.” But in the summer of 1967, Rodwell also decided to do something that was, in its own quiet way, more radical than marching. He wanted to open a bookstore.
It's a fascinating article, but I want to point out one thing: the gay rights movement actually started in the 1950s, with the founding of the Mattachine Society by Harry Hay, but it wasn't what you'd call "activist". Rodwell might well be the first to openly demonstrate against the prevailing repression of gays; Stonewall was a catalyst that pushed awareness of the state of affairs and gave us a rallying cry.
Read it.
Via BarkBarkWoofWoof.
Coda:
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