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Loading ...New York Public Library celebrates “Gay Liberation”
(New York) In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, an event many view as the catalyst for the modern gay rights movement, the New York Public Library will host an exhibition titled 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation.
The exhibition, highlighting the rise of various gay rights groups, runs throughout the entire month of June in the Stokes Gallery (third floor) at The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.In addition to documents and picture chronicling the rise of many gay rights organizations, like the Gay Liberation Front, the Radicalesbians, Gay Activists Alliance, and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries, there is also a small prologue of gay and lesbian activism in New York City in the early 1960s.
“The reception’s been really wonderful,” said exhibition curator Jason Baumann. “There’s a difference from hearing about (the gay movement) and reading about it in a book and seeing the actual documents.”
“Ida,” member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Lavender Menace, 1970. Photographed by Diana Davies.
Exhibited documents include pamphlets created by gay rights groups, police reports and even a letter sent on June 7, 1970, to New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller by Jim Owles, President of the Gay Activists Alliance, asking to meet to discuss gay rights.
Baumann noted that the exhibition has attracted as much attention heterosexual viewers as from gays and lesbians. He said that many of the heterosexual visitors are surprised by the laws in place at the time regarding sodomy and cohabitation. By learning about these laws, straight people start to realize how their own sexual freedoms would have been affected.
Many of the photographs in the exhibit were taken by activist Diana Davies, who chronicled the marches of protests of the various groups. Though many of the groups had very different philosophies, Baumann notes that they were more similar than one would assume. Groups perceived to be more conservative, such as the Gay Activism Alliance, were more “deeply utopian” than believed, said Baumann, which can be learned by reading the group’s constitution.
The exhibition will also have an online version launching sometime this month, as well as a traveling exhibition throughout the library’s other branches. Admission to the library is free.
For more information regarding exhibition times, call 917-ASK-NYPL or, for more information about the Library’s LGBT collections and resources, visit LGBT@NYPL.
That’s nice that the New York Public Library is doing that. I’m happy to see a public place like that celebrating the gay rights movement. It’s not often that you see things like this.
This is very cool. I’ve read only a few documents from that era and it’s *very* enlightening.
I personally want to thank the Newyork public library for their support of gay liberation and literature.this let’s us know that there is still some hope left for us to gain the equal rights that we so richly deserves !!
At least there is an acknowledgement that the gay equal rights movement was already in place before 1969. Stonewall was an important milestone, but the movement was already up and running. To ignore the hard work and sacrifice, including going to jail and being sent to mental institutions that the early gay equality movement members endured, is a disservice to both them and the movement as a whole.
We should never forget that the first public gay rights organization in the U.S. was the Society for Human Rights (SHR) in 1924, organized by Henry Gerber, who was soon arrested. Organization attempts continued and the Mattachine Society emerged in 1950, followed by Daughters of Bilitis organized by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon (the first couple married in California) and 6 others in San Francisco in 1955. In August of 1966, the Compton Cafeteria riot in San Francisco, helped set the precedent for Stonewall. By 1969 gay and lesbian organizations existed all over the country, helping to set the stage for Stonewall.
Every state in the U.S. except for Illinois criminalized homosexual sex between consenting adults in a private home in 1961: An adult convicted of the crime of having sex with another consenting adult in the privacy of his or her home could get anywhere from a light fine to five, ten, or twenty years—or even life—in prison. In 1971, twenty states had ’sex psychopath’ laws that permitted the detaining of homosexuals for that reason alone. In Pennsylvania and California sex offenders could be locked in a mental institution for life, and in seven states they could be castrated. Castration, emetics, hypnosis, electroshock therapy and lobotomies were used by psychiatrists to attempt to cure homosexuals of their desires through the 1950’s and 1960’s
I hope there will be a traveling exhibit for those of us who aren’t in NY. I saw some items @ West Hollywood during an impromptu rally over Prop 8 and it was really something.
There’s a huge banner on Fifth Avenue, between Patience and Fortitude, with “1969 The Year of Gay Liberation” in bright green
Pretty great…..NYPL rocks
I happened to be there right as they were putting the finishing touches on the display. Within seconds, a group of school children came through and I was barraged with homophobic comments, including a young boy wondering if it was “a joke”. I think it’s great that NYPL is doing this, but if you plan on going, be aware that you may have to put up with that too, since the exhibit is in the hallway where the library tours go through. It was extremely uncomfortable. The exhibit, though, is fascinating. Just have your comebacks/tolerance lectures ready.
Too bad gay people rarely seem to read. I said “seem.” Meanwhile… children will destroy things like this… Whenever I’m near Independence Hall and their are brutish groups of children I enjoy telling them either 1. they are gay (or tell their chaperones they are making their kids gay) or 2. i enjoy telling them their parents are gay.
Puzzled look and no odd comments back, ever. Too dumbfounded. I’m usually right more often than a gay person picks up a book these days, it seems.
It’s a ploy.
Why would someone who won the very coveted title of Miss California then sabotage it by something as absurd like not making the required appearances? Perhaps because she WANTED to get fired–so she can truly put on the tattered robes of victimhood at the hands of the homosexual agenda, and become a full-time spokesperson for NOM. Who, I won’t be surprised, is paying her far more than the Miss Universe corporation did.
What other beauty queen was asked to be a guest on most major news shows, right after she won? What beauty queen was signed with a national organization ready to parade her from Atlantic to Pacific, while their PR firm made her into the conservatives’ personal superstar? Her appetite for fame and fortune has been whetted through NOM and their campaign, and she’s not going back to cutting opening-day ribbons at malls.
Here’s a question, “why is it that in the 1970’s you could 1000’s of young gay men and women together to demonstrate, protest, in minutes whereby today with the internet, cell phones and texting you can’t. I do know that several times there have been demonstrations here in NYC that neither me nor anyone I know was aware of until it was over. I wonder if part of this is the fault of our leadership, or is there just a lot of apathy? Not judging just wondering.
polish gay pride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbzof9L5f2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXe9biG-f4
Yes! Now we are getting through to the youth! The agenda is being fulfilled! Recruitment will be up!