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Staff Pick
This anthology is so incredibly touching and inspiring. The New York Library has pulled together its extensive collection to bring us multiple first-hand accounts of what happened both inside and outside of the Stonewall, making you feel as if you were there. These are accounts of Stonewall that weren't a part of any documentaries that I'd seen, and I felt lucky to have stumbled upon all the different and unique points of view laid out in this book. I personally feel that all human beings would benefit from reading this. Recommended By Parker W., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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
Tor.com, Best Books of 2019 (So Far)
Harper's Bazaar, The 20 Best LGBTQ Books of 2019
The Advocate, The Best Queer(ish) Non-Fiction Tomes We Read in 2019
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.
Review
"The first-person narratives collected here effectively spotlight the social inequalities surrounding the LGBTQ community, many of which persist today. A bold rallying cry that should help in the continuing fight for LGBTQ rights."
Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This window into the daily lives of activists and ordinary people fighting passionately against injustice is illuminating and inspiring."
Publishers Weekly
Review
"This masterful collection is perhaps one of the most exhaustive looks at the events surrounding Stonewall from the LGBTQ perspective and provides a wonderfully diverse cast of voices."
Library Journal
About the Author
Jason Baumann coordinator of humanities and LGBT Collections at the New York Public Library, where he develops and promotes literature, philosophy, and religion collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Baumann coordinates the Library's LGBT Initiative, for which he has curated two exhibitions — 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation and Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism. Baumann will curate a major Stonewall exhibit at NYPL for 2019.
Edmund White is the author of A Boy's Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997). He received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Genet: A Biography. He won the 2018 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction