Gay Power: An American Revolution

By David Eisenbach

Book Overview

The explosion of gay visibility following the street riots at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 brought, for the first time, tens of thousands of lesbians and gay men out of the closets and into headline news around the world. Never before had so many gay people at one moment stepped into the spotlight of mainstream American politics, culture, and entertainment. More than any city, New York became overnight the center of the new "Gay Power" movement and served as the focal point for gay protest and politics for the next decade. Gay Power, chronicles the tumultuous first wave of the modern gay rights movement. From the first-ever gay student group launched at Columbia University in 1965 to the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activist Alliance, and other vanguard organizations that emerged from the Stonewall riots, David Eisenbach draws on archival material and numerous firsthand accounts from the individuals who built the movement. Unlike their predecessors, this new generation of lesbians and gay men spoke as a community, established political clout, appeared openly on television and in the press, demanded equal rights with heterosexuals, and pioneered protest tactics like the "zap," which later ACT UP employed famously in the 1980s.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786716339
• ISBN13: 9780786716333
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf Publishers
• Length: 390 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.7" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Reading About Our History

I started reading this book thinking it was on how to more active in obtaining our right as equal citizens. Instead it was a GREAT history lesson about the Gay Rights Movement and our role models of the movement. I suggest ALL GLBT people read this book and know where we came from and where we are going. And take lessons on how to get things done....This book holds important info on our history as a group.

The Gay Leap Forward

Here is a sweeping, comprehensive account of the Gay Leap Forward. In his groundbreaking retrospective, historian David Eisenbach serves up vignettes across four decades of LGBT activism. Packed with new research, and revelations, about the people who changed history, Gay Power is one book that each member of the LGBT community ought to be compelled to read.

The Definitive Work

Eisenbach presents herein an incredibly comprehensive and well researched study about the gay rights movement in America. His easy narrative style combined with his meticulously detailed research make for an exceedingly enjoyable, rewarding read. After having done a research paper myself on the gay rights movement in America, it has become abundantly clear that this work is one of a kind, as no other author has so fully and successfully tackled the tale of this movement and its heroes. Highly reccomended for anyone interested in how civil-rights are won in this country. And for those who are already well-versed, Eisenbach fleshes out with great care original concepts of how the media impacted the movement, such as his "media-trigger". A must-read!

A Groundbreaking Study

David Eisenbach has written a groundbreaking study of America's gay rights movement during the 1960s. Well-written, and backed by impressive primary source research, Gay Power is also an entertaining story. Anyone with an interest in gay rights and good books, will enjoy this text.