Customer Reviews

Stonewall

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a straight female raised in the bible belt, my level of education about the Gay Rights movement was at best minimal. We learned about Women's Rights and Civil Rights in school, but never Gay Rights. Anyway, I became very interested in Gay Literature earlier this year, and was often confused by references to Stonewall and other historical events/places/people.

Mr. Duberman's book, which, to be honest, I picked because it was the only book of its type available at the bookstore here in my small Texas town, was interesting and a fast, entertaining read. I especially liked the way Duberman followed a small group of people over a long period of time. Learning about an historical event through the eyes of people who were actually there gave me a far better understanding than a bland, general history might have.

For those unfamiliar with the word, "Stonewall" was a gay bar of the 1960s Greenwich Village district in New York. Like most gay bars of its place and time, it was mafia operated and kept its doors open through repeated pay-offs to a corrupt police beaurocracy; even so, in an era when gays and lesbians were considered intrinsically criminal it was subject to repeated raids and its staff and customers were often arrested.

In the early morning hours of 28 June 1969, police officers conducted such a raid--but instead of encountering a fearful, easily managed crowd, they ran afoul of a handful of people who had had enough of police intimidation and harassment. The resulting confrontation spilled into the street and quickly exploded into a full-blow riot that continued on and off for several days.

Although it received little coverage by mainstream media, the incident was quickly recognized by many in the gay and lesbian community as a turning point, and the gay rights movement suddenly became activistic in tone. That activism would shape the drive toward decriminalization, an increasing openess, and a determination to obtain equal rights that continues to direct gay and lesbian issues to this day.

Given its central role in a controversial social movement, the Stonewall riots are more than worthy of a detailed examination by a major historian, and certainly Martin Duberman is all of that, a highly respected academian and noted author who is particularly noted for his documentation of the gay experience in 20th Century America. But in truth, you will find out very little about the riots from his 1993 book STONEWALL. In a 282 page text, neither Stonewall nor the riots are mentioned until page 181--and Dubberman's account of the riots is all of twenty pages long.

So what, then, is this book actually about? STONEWALL attempts to place the riots in historical context, and as such it is actually about the earlier gay and lesbian organizations, movememts, and leaders who by accident or design helped lead the gay community to critical mass. In an effort to render a sprawling subject more manageable, Dubberman focuses on six individuals: Yvonne Flowers, Jim Fouratt, Foster Gunnison Jr., Karla Kay, Sylvia Ray Rivera, and Craig Rodwell. In each instance Dubberman presents us with a general biography of each, interweaving one with another, showing how each person drifted into the movement--and then uses the overall narrative to create a portrait of gays and lesbians in the pre-Stonewall era and the impact the Stonewall riots had on their individual lives.

It is an interesting concept, but there is a significant problem. While all their stories are interesting, several of the people involved were neither part of the pre-Stonewall movement nor a factor in the riot, and the result is less of the hard fact that we want to see in favor of an excessively "political correct" array of characters whose stories never really seem to add up to any cohesive statement. While it will be interesting to any one who wishes to read in depth on the subject, this is not the text on the 20th Century gay rights movement with which to begin or end your reading.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

If there's any one thing that has the potential to evoke instant violence from individuals, it's the idea of homosexuality. Today, nothing seems to polarize so many people. Anyone growing up has heard "fag" as a basic insult in the grammer of teenagers and beyond, and I really suspect there's a lot of people who are in the closet in some way that know that if they came out at all of even being remotely attracted to members of the same sex (however you want to define that), then they would become an instant target for former friends and family. It's even worse in the countryside than in the cities, too. So I picked up Stonewall to brush up on some Queer history, especially since the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York are often cited as being a turning point in the acceptance of anything but straight as an arrow by mainstream society at all.

Stonewall details the lives of seven different individuals from their childhoods, to the day they came out of the closet, to their lives afterward and up until the stonewall riots, and the aftermath. The six people are Yvonne (Maua) Flowers, Jim Fouratt, Foster Gunnison Jr, Karla Jay, Silvia Rae Rivera, and Craig Rodwell. Some like Jim Fouratt were previously involved in radical left-wing groups like the Yippies before Stonewall brought gay issues as an issue to be seriously considered. Yvonne Flowers felt out of place wherever she went, being a black lesbian and therefore subject to homophobia and sexism in much of the black community and racism in much of the white lesbian community. Foster Gunnison Jr was the son of an industrialist, and became extremely involved in the moderate Mattachine Society, which sought to seek an understanding with straight society. Karla Jay was a student who became involved with left-wing activism but quickly was uncomfortable about male domination of the movement. Silva Rae Rivera defiantly strikes the reader as one of the most interesting, as she lives on the streets as a queen, and transvestite. Finally, Craig Rodwell was a young member of the Mattachine Society and tried to turn it more radical and relevant by recruiting young members into it to infuse it with energy, and later opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore.

Without going to far, the Stonewall Riots started when the police raided the notoriously seedy, and Mafia-run, Stonewall Bar. Raids were common place and often were proceeded with warnings, bribes, and such, but this time after the police roughed up a few people, the crowd fought back. It escalated into a full scale attack on the police and lots of pent up rage was unleashed. The next day, as news of gays fighting back spread quickly, people took to the street and made a statement that they would no longer be silent second-class citizens. After this, the Gay Liberation Front was founded to push for confrontation and demand, not request, full equality with straight society. The effects on the characters reminded me of the effect that the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization had on me when I was a teenager. It all the sudden became alright to be out in the open.

The book itself can be a little confusing at points as Dr. Duberman switches between the individuals stories quickly and suddenly, but each story is indeed pretty interesting. Even today as there seems to be an enormous backlack by the Christian Right to attack the rights of people to be attracted to anyone, or to BE anyone, that they feel like, and to have access to all of the same health, jobs, and life that any straight person would, it really was the beginning of hope back in an age of closets and not being able to even talk. This was a beginning of change, before even the onslaught of the AIDS epidemic. Stonewall should be read by anyone who believes in the right of anyone to struggle for a better life for themselves and those they care about.

The "Stonewall" in the title of this intriguing, if narrow, study by Martin Duberman was a mobster-controlled New York City bar which was the scene of a series of "riots" in the summer of 1969, now regarded as an important milestone in the movement for gay and lesbian rights. Duberman, who teaches at the City University of New York, has written extensively in the field of gay and lesbian studies, and this is one of his best-known books. This is more a work of anthropology than a comprehensive history of the origins of the gay liberation movement because it is built around a series of sketches of gay and lesbian life in New York in the 1960s. Duberman focuses on the lives of six gay and lesbian activists, and his research is prodigious, but, whether the lives he selected were representative of the times is subject to debate. In the preface, Duberman acknowledges the book's "emphasis on personality," and the story it tells also includes an interesting mix of petty mobsters and corrupt cops, as well as walk-on appearances by the famous and later-to-be famous, including future San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk, Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin, author Rita Mae Brown, and Jim Morrison, The Doors' front-man. But there is more to writing history than profiling the leaders even of great social movements.

Duberman is well aware of the important context surrounding the events about which he writes. According to the author: "'Stonewall' is the emblematic event in modern lesbian and gay history" because the series of riots "has become synonymous over the years with gay resistance to oppression." He asserts that his focus on individuals "will increase the ability of readers to identify...with experiences different from, but comparable to, their own." Although this is not, strictly speaking, a conventional work of academic history, Duberman makes some important, incisive observations. For instance, he briefly discusses what he refers to as "the endemic homophobia that characterized the black political movement" of the 1960s. (According to Duberman, Bayard Rustin, the principal organizer of the March on Washington in 1963, was ostracized after Rustin's sexual orientation was revealed.) In Duberman's view, the "new frankness about homosexuality" of the mid-1960s, "was part and parcel of a much larger cultural upheaval," and "the homophile movement" reflected and contributed to "the general assault on cultural values." And, according to Duberman, the direct-action tactics adopted by groups such as the East Coast Homophile Organizations were "inspired" by the efforts of militant students on college campuses and Freedom Riders in the south to achieve social justice in a different arena.

Focused as it is on the personalities of six activists, this book is, in some respects, less than the sum of its parts. I found it fascinating reading, but it is far from the whole story of the early years of the gay liberation movement. There can be little doubt about the importance of individual leaders in the emergence of gay and lesbian activism in the 1960s. However, there is much more to the history of gay resistance to oppression than the extent to which it affords readers the opportunity to identify with experiences different from, but comparable to, their own.

Yes, this is nonfiction. No, it is not in the least boring. By taking the history of a truly legendary event and splitting it up into 6 different personal histories, it becomes one big story made up of littler stories (obviously). Like an intricate quilt...each of the stories or patches is interesting and exciting enough but when added to others it becomes a really great story (quilt). Okay...that was probably a really corny analogy and not deserving of this awesome book.
Obviously Stonewall was the defining moment of the early gay rights movement so at times it can probably take on mythic proportions but when told through the eyes and mouths of these six altogether different and unique people it never becomes anything more than the human struggle and triumph that it was.
Comparing the events that happened in this book, and today, you have to be a fool to think that nothing has been accomplished. So much has. But so much more remains to be done. Pick up this book and discover the experience that is Stonewall.

As a veteran of the opression of the Gay rights movement, I am gladdened to see the story of my brothers told in such a respectful way. I was there in 1969, alone and afraid, unable to communicate my true self to my friends and family. Well, Stonewall changed all that. Today because of the doors kicked open, I can be who I am, a gay, father of three with a great job and a responsible position in municipal government. Read this book if you don't know your roots, it'll change your life.

This tells the story of the struggle of gays in America and the great Stonewall riots of the 60s that made Conservative America realize the existence of gay people and how they would no longer be treated as second-class citizens. (A story largely ignored and continued to be ignored by the mainstream press) and the boiling point. Stonewall is when gays strucks back and fought force with force. Violence with violence. No longer would they tolerate such abuses of their basic rights in supposedly "freedom-loving" America. Well-Researched, well-written, a great book and a must read for all!

I thought this book was excellent. It read like fiction, and was a real page turner. The book was unbelievably well researched, and I enjoyed very much reading about this critical turning point in history. My only query to the author is this: (as Marty Robinson's niece), why didn't you contact any of his family members? You did all of this amazing research... yet missed pieces of the puzzle by failing to contact those who new him in a way that others didn't. I wonder if you did the same with other central heroes in the book... Otherwise, I think this book should be required reading in every high school history class. Bravo.

"Suddenly they were not submissive anymore" - Deputy Inspector Pine, who commanded the Stonewall raid. Not a definite account, but a novel one, filled with 'great men and women of history,' sometimes participating, sometimes observing. Author Duberman traces the consciousness leading up to Stonewall-era Gay Power and Liberation through a carefully-selected (and politically correct) lens: the old gay guard, the new gay guard, the lesbian take, the TG take and the black take. It rather adds up to the ostentatiously diverse format of the X-Men, and reads as entertainingly. Jim Fouratt is the 'Wolverine' of the group, and the dramatic center of the narrative, representing "the new kind of gay man beginning to emerge: the hippie, long-haired, bell-bottomed, laid-back, and likely to have 'weird,' radical views" - which, by association, places Stonewall securely into the mythology of the Sixties. The bar itself is colorfully described as sleazy and small, much like William Burroughs' Interzone. No doubt, the acute history of the June 27-29 actions, recounted 'journalistically' here, are, and will be, forever debated, amended and venerated for many a decade to come. Not a conclusive take, but one with a compelling pace. Great stuff.

I loved this book...I read it once in my free time for myself and then we used it for my Social Movements class, which was amazing. We had gay and straight, male and female, reading this book and understanding why Stonewall occurred and why the gay and lesbian movement must continue. It was truly monumental...