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, …

Revisiting 1969 and the Start of Gay Liberation

On Friday afternoon, officials from the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and also to honor Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.
The embrace of the gay rights movement by Wall Street — the title of the stock exchange event was “From Stonewall to Federal Hall” — was a striking example of how much things have changed for lesbians and gay men in four decades. The change is brought into relief in a monthlong exhibition, “1969: The Year of Gay Liberation,” that opened June 1 at the New York Public Library.
Using the Stonewall uprising, which began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, as a starting point, the exhibition focuses on the pivotal months that followed, charting the emergence of a new strain of militant activism — exemplified by groups like the Gay Liberation Front, Radicalesbians and the Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries — that expressed a new vision of gay freedom.
The activist vision of that era, the exhibition suggests, was more far-reaching than the so-called homophile movement, which had used a more cautious approach, and also more critical of societal institutions like the family than the contemporary gay rights movement, which has been dominated in recent years by the debate over same-sex marriage.
Jason Baumann, who curated the exhibition and also coordinates the extensive collection of gay materials in the library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division, contrasted the new exhibition with “Becoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall,” the library’s landmark show in 1994 on the history of gay and lesbian life in New York.

Photo: Photo: Diana Davies. Gay Liberation Front marches on Times Square, 1969.

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NY exhibit on gay rights hits amid marriage debate

As exhibitions go, the New York Public Library’s “1969: The Year of Gay Liberation” could hardly have chosen better timing.
With debate raging over same-sex marriage across the United States, the library in midtown Manhattan opened the exhibit on Monday to mark the 40th anniversary of the so-called Stonewall riots that triggered the modern U.S. gay rights movement.
Photos, documents, clippings from the gay media and other artifacts illustrate what was a shocking development at the time: homosexual men and women coming out of the closet to demonstrate for their civil rights, often at great risk.
The free exhibit will run at the main branch all of June.
“We tend to forget how radical these activists were. They risked their lives and safety for this cause. That’s what this exhibition is about,” said Jason Baumann, the curator.
Starting around June 28, 1969, the Stonewall riots refer to a week of violent clashes on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village between patrons of a gay bar called the Stonewall and police who had periodically raided the bar, arresting gays under morals laws of the era. See NY exhibit on gay rights hits amid marriage debate
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Exhibit celebrates 40 years of gay activism

orty years ago this month, riots against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement. An exhibit opening today at the New York Public Library charts what happened in the heady year that followed.

Before Stonewall, gay rights activists pursued a lonely agenda, working for homosexuals to be accepted as part of normal society and not as the sociopaths judged by psychiatric associations.

“But 1969 suddenly saw a mass movement getting behind these activists,” said curator Jason Baumann, amid the artifacts of the blossoming battle, from colorful newsweekly publications to photos of the first Gay Pride march up Sixth Avenue in 1970.

Gay bars were often owned by the mob and run as private clubs. The mob offered protection but sold out patrons whenever advantageous. On June 28, 1969, a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn — owned by “Fat Tony” Lauria — took a significant turn when patrons decided to fight back.

“The police were freaked out by drag queens throwing rocks,” Baumann said.

The rights groups that followed — with names like the Gay Liberation Front, the Radicalesbians and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries — no longer cared about fitting in, said Baumann.

“They wanted to transform society.”

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