Stonewall by Martin Bauml Duberman Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.68 You Save: $13.32 (83%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.41 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Stonewall
Book Review: A chilling account
Summary: 5 Stars
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.Book Review: A triumphant 'must-read' for anyone who wants a more ethical society
Summary: 5 Stars
Martin Duberman's Stonewall should be required reading for everyone in the US. Perhaps I exaggerate a tad, but he zeros in on a singular event in US civil rights history and creates a classic piece of historical reading. Yes, LGBT struggles for acceptance and justice is part of our civil rights movement in the United States, along with the United Farm workers, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson and the Equal Rights Amendment. I grew up across the Bay from San Francisco/Castro so the LGBT was never an alien concept to me, yet even in the Bay Area homophobia existed and still does. This book explains why LGBT people are still fighting for rights that many straight people either disregard as essential or simply don't think "those people" deserve. The book also explains why LGBT people can't 'hide' their minority sttaus and uniqueness the way many people think they can or expect them to. Best of all though, Duberman is a gay historian who does NOT want 'to be straight.' Just as his most famous biographical subject, the African America radical entertainer, Paul Robeson, did not want to be white. It sounds simple but it's a very important factor in why he's perhaps this countries' greatest historian. The photos are amazing, the book is exciting, as a straight woman, I cried tears of sadness and joy--don't miss out!Book Review: Best Resource for ALL
Summary: 5 Stars
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...Book Review: Excellently Researched- A Must Read!
Summary: 4 Stars
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!Book Review: Good.
Summary: 4 Stars
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.