Other Sellers on Amazon
& FREE Shipping
100% positive over last 12 months
FREE Shipping
+ $3.99 shipping
91% positive over last 12 months
Usually ships within 3 to 4 days.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism Paperback – June 9, 2015
| Price | New from | Used from |
|
Audible Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry" |
$0.00
| Free with your Audible trial | |
- Kindle
$18.99 Read with Our Free App -
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial - Paperback
$6.5033 Used from $2.44 18 New from $6.50
Purchase options and add-ons
The Right Side of History tells the 100-year history of queer activism in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBT pioneers and radicals. This diverse cast stretches from the Edwardian period to today, including first-person accounts of the key protest that is at the heart of the 2015 movie Stonewall.
The book shows how LGBT folk have always been in the forefront of progressive social evolution in the United States. It references heroes like Abraham Lincoln, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bayard Rustin, Harvey Milk, and Edie Windsor. Equally, the book honors names that aren't in history books, from participants in the Names Project, a national phenomenon memorializing 94,000 AIDS victims, to underground artists and writers.
- Print length264 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCleis Press
- Publication dateJune 9, 2015
- Dimensions6 x 0.66 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101627781234
- ISBN-13978-1627781237
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

What do customers buy after viewing this item?
- Lowest Pricein this set of productsThis item:
Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI ActivismPaperback - Highest ratedin this set of products
Queer America: A People's GLBT History of the United States (New Press People's History)Vicki L. EaklorPaperback
Editorial Reviews
Review
"The Right Side of History is not an original work of historical scholarship. The essays, when they aren’t first-person pieces or interviews, rely on secondary sources for most of their historical claims. However, as I was reading it I thought of myself as a twelve-year-old, and how I likely would have benefited enormously from having a copy of The Right Side pressed into my hands as a birthday or Christmas gift. I was the sort of child who voraciously read young peoples’ biographical sketches of inspiring women of history (some of whom I now know were decidedly queer). This collection would have helped me see possibilities for myself in a similar way as those women-of-history collections did helped me find language and historical context for longings I was just beginning to form. I suggest you consider this book for the queer, questioning, and just plain historically interested teenagers in your life; it’s never too early to start peering through the windows of the past and considering how and where you might fit yourself." thefeministlibrarian.com
"The Right Side of History's fundamental premise: Queer activism is an act of patriotism, and radical Queer activists are, and have always been, central to the struggle for a more perfect union. To read this book is to join our Queer ancestors as they dance, riot, write, organize, sew, sashay, and howl their way through American history."
Katie Gilmartin, author of Blackmail, My Love
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Cleis Press (June 9, 2015)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 264 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1627781234
- ISBN-13 : 978-1627781237
- Item Weight : 12.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 6 x 0.66 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #611,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #751 in LGBTQ+ Biographies (Books)
- #868 in Civil Rights & Liberties (Books)
- #1,942 in Essays (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product, click here.
About the author

Adrian Brooks (b. 1947) is an American writer and activist who's been in the vanguard of progressive political, spiritual and social movements since the 1960s. An international traveler, poet, performer, playwright, painter and designer, he is, also, a novelist and non-fiction writer.
Born in Philadelphia, Brooks was raised Quaker. After graduating Episcopal Academy in 1966, as an early hippie and anti-war protester, he attended the international Friends World Institute- a radical Quaker school intent on its students becoming non-violent "agents of social change." In 1968, he volunteered for Martin Luther King in Washington, DC. Following Dr. King's assassination Brooks did field work in Mexico and East Africa before attending Woodstock in 1969.
In 1970-1972, Brooks was part of the nascent SOHO scene in New York. Here, he knew Andy Warhol, who cast him in an film and invited him to be the front person at 'the Factory,' an offer Brooks declined, choosing, instead, to go to India.
In late 1972, Brooks moved to Inverness, California, and began writing poetry. In 1974, he moved to San Francisco and was prominent in the gay lib movement. He organized what may have been the first public gay poetry reading on September 18, 1974. In late 1974, Harold Norse published Brooks' poetry and drawings with works of Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet and William Burroughs, among others. During this era, Brooks' poems also appeared in: "Gay Sunshine"; "Manroot"; and "Mouth of the Dragon," etc.
Most visibly, Brooks became scriptwriter/star of an iconic free theater: "The Angels of Light." From 1974-1980, he scripted all their epics but one; these included the two smash hit productions: "Paris Sites Under the Bourgeois Sea", in 1975; and in 1979 and 1980, "Holy Cow!"
In 1980, "The Glass Arcade," Brooks' first novel, was published by Pocket Books in the US and Star Books in the UK. In 1983, Brooks starred in "Leni Riefenstahl', his trial drama about the 1945 interrogation of the famed German film director by the US Army.
In 1985, Brooks left the US. In London, he worked as a designer at Chelsea Harbor. In Holland and Goa, India, Brooks often appeared with "the Amsterdam Balloon Company"- the forerunner of Burning Man festivals.
In India, Brooks' focus grew more spiritual. From 1986-1991, he was an adept of Siddha Yoga. After meeting H.W.L. Poonja, and receiving his Grace in 1995, Brooks returned to the US to study with Poonja's American disciple, Gangaji.
In 1998, Brooks experienced an Awakening and began offering free counseling for men's groups, AIDS hospices, and Death Row at San Quentin. His satirical novels- "Roulette" and "Black and White and red all over"- were published in 2007 and 2009, while his theater memoir- "Flights of Angels"- was published in 2008.
In 2009, Brooks collected his poetry and drawings for "In the Land of Opposite Time"; collated fifty-two volumes of journals dating to 1967 in "Black Cargo," and wrote "The Sea Horse", a fairytale, which came to him in a dream.
In 2010, Brooks began living in India again for four months a year. In Goa, he assists a home for orphans with hiv and in educating village children in Goa. In the US, he continues to edit other works and offer (free) spiritual counseling.
In 2013, Brooks has written text for internationally celebrated theater artist, Sha Sha Higby, and is currently working on an anthology about LGBT activism.
In 2015, Brooks published his anthology "The Right of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism"
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
runs like a current through the lives of so many relatively uncelebrated yet powerfully influential people
who have shaped the history of mainstream society so aptly documented by Brooks and the other writers\contributors
in this thought-provoking book





