In most of our classrooms, discussions of movements of the 1960s generally focus on those big endeavors — civil rights and the antiwar efforts — that are discussed in the traditional textbooks. Yet this approach, as Howard Zinn reminds us, omits an essential topic for discussion — the emergence of a counterculture with “radically different ideas about how people should live their lives.” Indeed, “The United States experienced a general revolt in the culture against oppressive, artificial, previously unquestioned ways of living. This revolt touched every aspect of personal life,” Zinn suggests. Certainly the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam Era protests affected us all, but our lives were also changed forever by the poetry, literature, speeches, and protests of women who demanded their liberation, gays and lesbians who “came out of the closet,” native peoples who launched the Red Power movement, and prisoners who questioned their rights as incarcerated Americans.

As teachers, it is important to bring the voices of the counterculture to our students. And in so doing, we must remain ever mindful that to our students, this revolt has colored and textured the only history they have known. Indeed, in their eyes, today is the way the world has always been. It is imperative, then, that we give our students the tools to understand the events leading up to this transformation, the voices that shaped it, and the way in which it changed the American social landscape.

Reprinted from Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States | Seven Stories Press

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The second annual Reminder Day at Independence Hall in 1966. Credit: John F. Urwiller

Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings were the principal organizers of this event, one of the many pre-cursors to the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 that ignited the LGBT movement on a national level. Read more at LGBT50.org

Visit the Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs collection at the New York Public Library.

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For those using this film in the current moment of the coronavirus pandemic, there are lots of rich connections to be made. First, educators might ask students to think about how marginalized groups’ experience of disease is affected by oppressive structures like racism and homophobia. It is fair to say that the homophobia of men like Jesse Helms, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush killed millions of people as these politicians dragged their feet in addressing a disease that, at first, seemed to be killing mostly gay men. Just as AIDS became inextricably tied to homosexuality, so too did President Trump label coronavirus a Chinese virus, stirring up anti-Asian hatred and spreading misinformation. And just as the poorest people on the globe have been disproportionately killed by AIDS, so too are we seeing outsized numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths among Black and Brown people in the United States. Second, the ACT UP activists sought to democratize the biomedical bureaucracy — drug research, trials, the FDA approval process — so that the people most affected by its decisions could have a seat at the table. Students might think about to what extent working people today in the United States have a voice in determining the priorities of the health care system. One imagines that were nurses and hospital aides given real voice in government, there would be no shortage of PPE. Finally, the film raises a key question for the current moment: What kind of activism do we need for this plague, coronavirus? How to Survive a Plague reveals the nitty-gritty process of organizers hatching actions that match the moment; for students, it might serve as inspiration to consider what actions they might hatch today.

Appropriate for high school classrooms — history, science, language arts.

Trailer

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Troublemaker for Justice

Inspired by his Quaker upbringing and the nonviolent direct organizing tactics of Mohandas Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Rustin strongly believed in the value of community organizing and remained true to his values of equality, peace, and civil disobedience. As a Black, gay, working-class man, Rustin was not motivated solely by his marginalized identities, but they did give him an intersectional perspective with which to see the world and that perspective informed his activism. Rustin lived out his belief in the principle of nonviolence and direct action.

Troublemaker for Justice is appropriate for middle and high school students to learn about activism, nonviolent organizing, the civil rights movement, and LGBTQ+ changemakers. The book provides clear definitions of complicated terms, advanced vocabulary, social movements, and relevant ideologies, and that it offers a set of discussion questions to use in classroom teaching.

ISBN: 9780872867659 | City Lights Books

This summary was adapted from book review prepared by Conner Suddick, a 2019 Truman Scholar.

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Through narratives, letters, drawings, poems, and more, A Queer History of the United States for Young People encourages young readers, of all identities, to feel pride at the accomplishments of the LGBTQ people who came before them and to use history as a guide to the future.

People and groups featured include:

• Indigenous nations who embraced same-sex relationships and a multiplicity of gender identities
• Emily Dickinson, brilliant nineteenth-century poet who wrote about her desire for women
• Gladys Bentley, Harlem blues singer who challenged restrictive cross-dressing laws in the 1920s
• Bayard Rustin, civil rights organizer

The book includes accessible descriptions and explanations of the identities included in the text, as well as an introduction to explain the relevance and necessity of LGBTQ history.

Regrettably, the book does not address the racist views of some of the LGBTQ historical figures described in the book, such as Walt Whitman.

IMDB: 9780807056127 | Penguin Random House

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ACT UP activists sit-in at New York City Hall, 1989. Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections

On June 5, 1981, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published a study about five patients — all gay men — treated for a rare fungal infection caused by severely weakened immune systems.

Los Angeles immunologist Dr. Michael Gottlieb, CDC’s Dr. Wayne Shandera, and their colleagues report that all the men have other unusual infections as well, indicating that their immune systems are not working. Two have already died by the time the report is published and the others will die soon after. (From A Timeline of HIV and AIDS at HIV.gov)

The study claimed that the infection was spreading among patients who identify as gay. It claimed that the cause of the infection was likely an unknown “cellular-immune dysfunction” that was soon identified as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). This study marks the beginning of the recognition of the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

In the decades that followed, people organized to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, to find a cure, to educate people about treatment and prevention, and to create a culture of compassion instead of fear around it.

Activist organizations like ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) have worked since the 1980s to change healthcare policies and cultural stigma, while supporting individuals. Read about the tactics ACT UP used to pressure the FDA in 1988 and about its organizing success as a model for grassroots activism.

June 5 is also observed as HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day.

Listen to the words of Vito Russo, a founding member of ACT UP, performed by actor Peter Sarsgaard as part of a Voices of People’s History event on March 21, 2017 in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.

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The raid did not proceed routinely, and resulted in resistance and demonstrations by the bar’s patrons and other individuals who gathered around the scene. The Stonewall Riots are considered to be a spark that ignited the gay rights movement.

However, in Teaching Stonewall’s 50th Anniversary, Teaching Tolerance editors note that it is important for students to learn that the gay rights movement did not begin with Stonewall.

Before, during and after Stonewall, activists in New York City were fighting against a system that criminalized their love lives and outward expression.  Jason Baumann, who curated the New York Public Library’s exhibit honoring the Stonewall Uprising’s 50th anniversary, points out that as early as the 1950s, groups like the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis were opposing job discrimination. Queer people at San Francisco’s Compton’s Cafeteria, Philadelphia’s Dewey’s Restaurant and Los Angeles’ Black Cat tavern all protested to demand access to public accommodations and freedom from police harassment. Continue reading.

The poster to the right from Justseeds depicts Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican and Venezuelan trans woman from New York City. Rivera was a civil rights activist involved in Black and Latino liberation as well as LGBT rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. She participated in the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson in 1970.

The Stonewall Riots were part of a long continuum of LGBTQ oppression and resistance. Here is a short description from a teacher workshop at the Stonewall at 50 at the New York Historical Society exhibit.

From the 1920s through the mid-1960s every state in the US had laws that punished homosexual conduct. The courts and police used such misdemeanor charges as disorderly conduct, lewdness, and loitering to harass gays. According to historian George Chauncey, “…homosexuals were not just ridiculed and scorned. They were systematically denied their civil rights: Their right to free assembly, to patronize public accommodations, to free speech, to a free press, to a form of intimacy of their own choosing. And the confronted a degree of policing and harassment that is almost unimaginable to us today” (Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today’s Debate Over Gay Equality, 11).

In the Cold War, as a result of a 1953 Executive Order banning homosexuals from federal employment, you could be fired for being openly gay; this led to an era known as the Lavender Scare. As the 1960s progressed and other minorities began to fight for equality, gay rights groups were created for the same purpose. While this activism led to some gains, especially after the Stonewall Riots in 1969, discrimination and bias remained present among the people and in the government.

In 1977, for example, Anita Bryant launched the “Save Our Children” campaign that successfully aimed to repeal the gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida by equating homosexuality with perversion and child molestation. In the 1980s, with the rise of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell wrote to supporters, “The homosexuals are on the march in this country… Please remember, homosexuals do not reproduce! They recruit! And, many of them are after my children and your children.”

Amidst this context, the AIDS crisis began—with public and government responses colored by the perception of AIDS as a “gay cancer.” Even in the 1990s, laws like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act were voted into law.

As a result of concerted, grassroots organizing, the U.S. is moving toward greater rights for the LGBTQ population, however discrimination and roll backs continue, particularly for African American trans women.

To learn more, we recommend listening to “Before Stonewall” on the NPR podcast Throughline.

Find resources for teaching about LGBTQ history and rights below.

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An installation by Skylar Fein called “Remember the Upstairs Lounge.” Click the image to see more from the exhibit.

On Sunday, June 24, 1973, the largest LGBTQ massacre in U.S. history (until the Orlando Massacre) occurred at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was the final day of a Pride Weekend celebration, and dozens of people from the Metropolitan Community Church (a gay church founded in the U.S.) went to the Lounge. The attacker coated the stairs with lighter fluid, which made way for an exploding fireball throughout the building and took the lives of 32 people.

As journalist Terry Firma writes,

Homophobia being what it was, several families declined to claim the bodies and one church after another refused to bury or memorialize the dead.

Despite being the deadliest fire in New Orleans history, few news organizations covered the tragedy. Continue reading.

StoryCorps Audio

Reverend Troy Perry recalls the days after the UpStairs Lounge fire and trying to find a church to host a service in this StoryCorps interview.

Also read Slate article “New Evidence Shows That During the 1973 UpStairs Lounge Arson, Gays Had to Take Rescue Efforts Into Their Own Hands.”

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His death helped awaken the nation to the persecution of LGBTQ people and their victimization in hate crimes.

A play about the story of Matthew Shepard (and later an HBO movie, The Laramie Project) has been performed all over the world. His parents launched the Matthew Shepard Foundation.

Learning for Justice offers the story of Matthew Shepard for students to read and other teaching resources in “The Book of Matthew: Matt Shepard died 20 years ago, but his name lives on in stories, on stage, in the law—and in the classroom.” Additionally, learn more in the book Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Brian Britigan.

The post Oct. 7, 1998: Matthew Shepard Beaten and Left to Die appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam.

Born in the Heart Mountain, Wyoming, incarceration camp in 1943, Kiyoshi Kuromiya (May 9, 1943 – May 10, 2000) was a lifelong activist participating in several movements including civil rights, protesting the Vietnam War, LGBT rights, and AIDS/HIV advocacy.

Kuromiya spent the spring and summer of 1965 in the South fighting for civil rights, and became friends with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When King was assassinated, Kuromiya helped take care of the King children.

Kuromiya participated with the Gay Pioneers in the first organized gay and lesbian civil rights demonstrations, “the Annual Reminders,” held at Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell each Fourth of July from 1965 to 1969. He was one of the founders of Gay Liberation Front-Philadelphia and served as an openly gay delegate to the Black Panther Convention that endorsed the gay liberation struggle. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, Kuromiya became a self-taught expert on the disease, operating under the mantra “information is power.” He founded the Critical Path Project, which provided resources to people living with HIV and AIDS, including a newsletter, a library, and a 24-hour phone line. [Adapted from LGBT History Month, NBC News, and ACT UP-New York.]

Video Remembrance

Learn more about Kuromiya from You Should Know This Gay Asian-American Civil Rights, Anti-War, and HIV/AIDS Activist by Juan Michael Porter II and from this remembrance video by friend Alfredo Sosa:

Google Doodle

On June 4, 2022, Kiyoshi Kuromiya was featured in Google Doodle in the United States. (The artist was not identified.)

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