Tom Brokaw's book Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the Sixties and Today de-gays the decade that saw pioneering activists such as Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings and others spearhead the modern gay rights movement.
In an interview with media critic Howard Kurtz, Brokaw puts up a defense:
KURTZ: I have heard some criticism of the book saying that you deal with civil rights, you deal with women's liberation, as it was called then, but you don't devote any time or space to the burgeoning gay rights movement....
BROKAW: I don't, because the gay rights movement came slightly later. It lifted off during that time and I had to make some choices about what I was going to concentrate on. The big issues were the anti-war movement, the counterculture.
But Kameny, in a letter to Brokaw, points out a few facts such as:
- Starting in 1961, a long line of court cases attacked the long-standing U.S. Civil Service gay ban.
- About 1963, a decade-long effort commenced to reverse the psychiatric categorization of gays as mentally or emotionally ill got underway.
- In 1965, Kameny and a few other brave souls began picketing demonstrations at the White House and other government sites.
- And, of course, June of '69 brought the Stonewall riots, three nights of police confrontation in New York's Greenwich Village following a raid on a gay bar.
I doubt Brokaw is personally homophobic, but his is a generation that, for the most part, still can't seem to take the struggle for gay equality seriously. Unquestionably that's true among social and religious conservatives, but it also keeps rearing up among secular and straight liberal stalwarts as well, and to a large extent informs the Democratic Party's tepid support for real gay equality (as exemplified in the previous post).
14 Comments for “The ’60s: Not the Way It Was”
posted by Jorge on
I do not agree. I think based on these events the 1960s for gays compares with the 1940s for blacks, with a Rosa Parks moment.
posted by Bill Herrmann on
I’d go a little easy on Tommy Brokaw here. Yes, things were happening in the sixties and Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings were doing things. But I was gay in the sixties and new nothing about these things. I was living in Atlantic City in ’69 when the Stonewall riots happened and hear nothing about them. I’d side with Brokaw on this one.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
I think it is petty to critique Brokaw for not writing about gay rights in the 60’s.
If you are going to quote Brokaw on the issue, why leave out the following exchange?
BROKAW: “I do make some reference to it, but it is only fleeting. And it wasn’t any attempt on my part to suppress it. It is just that the gay rights movement really came later after the ’60s, it really began to take hold in the ’70s.
I did the first television documentary on AIDS in America, and it was because my friend Larry Kramer had stopped me on the street and said, there is something going on in the gay community that you need to pay attention to. So in this book it was not an oversight on my part to try to downplay the rise of the gay rights movement, which did come later.”
I agree with what Brokaw says here. I think Stephen’s argument might hinge on what exactly Brokaw wrote in his “fleeting reference” to gay rights struggles in the 60’s. Does anyone have the book?
posted by Avee on
Since Stonewall was clearly in 1969, and that would be part of the ’60s, would it not (I mean, unless I’m missing something), I find these defenses of Brokaw a bit perplexing. Might it be that some of you feel the need to disagree with whatever Steve Miller blogs? That certainly seems more and more to be the case, no matter how tiresome it is.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
avee: “That certainly seems more and more to be the case, no matter how tiresome it is.”
Oh yeah, because blind acceptance of whatever mindless slop you are given is not tiresome at all. Does anyone know what “fleeting reference” Brokaw is talking about in the above quote?
posted by Timothy on
Failing to include Stonewall is very surprising. Surely Brokaw is aware of the significance that the gay community places on that single event.
While I don’t agree that all of the items listed by Kameny are relevant or should be included, and while I share with Brokaw the impression that the greatest leaps in societal change occured in the subsequent decades, the seminal moment of the modern gay rights movement occurred during the 60’s. And it is startling that it was excluded.
From a cultural revolution perspective, Stonewall stands with Rosa Parks, MLK’s “Dream” speech, Reagan’s “Tear Down this Wall”, and others that changed the world around them forever. There is a reason why gay rights organizations all over the globe name themselves after Stonewall.
posted by Jorge on
Look, all three movements happened in stages. There was a civil rights movement in the 1940s and earlier, a women’s sufferage movement before Seneca Falls, but they were low-profile and behind the scenes. Most people think about the big stuff: demonstrations, major legislative changes or judicial rulings, things that get everyone’s attention. For the civil rights movement and a lot of the women’s rights movement, that was the 60s. The gay rights movement was still behind the scenes.
Isn’t that obvious? To fault Brokaw for not talking enough about our particular color in the each-and-every-little-group-is-important rainbow and blithely suggest he doesn’t accept gay equality without acknowledging that gays simply were not a major part of the social consciousness in the 1960s is ludicrous and shamefully prejudicial. How’s that for disagreeable?
posted by Samantha on
What was that line at the end of this article about the “Democratic Party’s tepid support for real gay equality?” God, Miller, you don’t even try to hide your bias. Well, folks you want to know why they love Walmart here, yet hate Hillary and hate Brokaw, just check out Conservapedia. I figured Brokaw was mainstream. They figure otherwise. Lots of criticism on Brokaw of supposedly leaning left, liking Bill Clinton, not supporting Bush, being critical of the war. Thus, the hatchet job.
For a real review of his book, we’ll have to ask someone else.
Personally, I’m no historian, but it seems to me that a movement that didn’t start until 1969 could be thought of as a 70’s movement, not a 60’s one. This is Brokaw’s personal account, and I’m sure he remembers the “big stuff” as Jorge explained. When did the flag become popular? When was Harvey Milk killed? When did homosexuality get declassified as a mental illness? Not in the 60’s, to be sure.
posted by Jimbo on
True, Stonewall occurred in the 60’s. But not for nothing is it called the “hairpin drop around the world”. Most gays were unaware of the significance of that event. Just try to find big newspaper articles on Stonewall when it happened. The New York Times buried it on page 33. There was no major TV coverage or articles in Time or Newsweek. Time only alluded to the riots in its October 31, 1969 cover story on gays (a first for a weekly newsmagazine by the way).
For a more accurate degree of attitudes towards gays in the 60’s, check out your local library & scope out the June 26, 1964 issue of Life magazine. This was exactly 5 years before Stonewall & that issue had an unusually big (for its time) article on gays. None of them were willing to face the camera. All are in silhouette watching a movie in a gay bar. There’s also mention of a sting operation & a guy being led away in cuffs & being shameful. Also take a gander at the picture of the gay couple (backs to the camera of course) walking in New York. The straight couple (especially the woman)are astonished & shocked.
That’s the way it was for the gay community back then. Our community was forming, but VERY tiny. I applaude the tough work that Frank Kameny & Barbara Gittings did. The ball didn’t really start rolling unitil the 70’s.
posted by Libertarian08 on
Everyone should also considering getting a hold of a good book on LGBT history; i.e. ‘Hidden from History’.
Their was a gay movement as far back as the late 1940s — in America –, but was not really a blip on most people’s rader until the late 1970s and the media did not take it seriously until the AIDS pandemic.
In the 1960s, gay rights was not a major political issue. Most gay people did not know that a movement existed, and most straight people never really questioned their prejudices about this matter.
posted by dalea on
Was in college in the late 60’s. At a liberal campus. There was no gay presence of any sort there. None. The topic was addressed only by Father Humphries book on toilet sex, which was fairly judgmental. Gay Liberation was a 70’s movement.
posted by Timothy on
I think we all agree on the following:
There was a hidden (and sometimes visible) gay movement in existance long before Stonewall. Mattachine and the Daughters of Bilitis were established in the 50’s. Dorr Legg and One, Inc. won their landmark First Amendment case against the Post Office in 1958 (something that would be worthy of mention in a book on the 50’s). Protest and rebellion against oppression formented and grew throughout the 50’s and 60’s but were not visible to the average person.
The gay rights movement did not gain momentum and visibility until the very start of the 70’s (with marches in major cities starting in 1970). The community in the major cities was strong enough to create a structured response by June of 1970, which suggests a healthy infrastructure in place in the late 60’s. But the attitudes and visibility were essentially nil before this point.
It must also be acknowledged that newspapers did not pick up on the Stonewall story. No one recognized the significance of this event at the time. This should not be surprising to anyone. Quite often events of historical significance are not recognized as such until long after – and, conversely, that which looms large at a time may prove unimportant overall. This is true in culture and society as well as in our personal lives.
We all agree on the facts. The only real quesion is this:
Was the Stonewall Riots an event that was of sufficient significance that it merits notice in a book on the time period in which it occurred?
posted by Jon Rauch on
[Editor’s post on behalf of Jim Reeves]
Yes, Timothy, the Stonewall Riot was an event of sufficient significance that it merits notice in a book on the time period in which it occurred. Yes, The Times and the rest of the media did pretty much ignore it. Yes, the media also ignored the 1978 Dan White riots in San Francisco. I was at both. The media’s ignoring (ignorance) of the burgeoning gay rights movement does not mean that the movement wasn’t happening, it merely means that the media was ignoring it, keeping us invisible.
posted by ColoradoPatriot on
But isn’t it referenced in the book? What was the “fleeting reference” that Brokaw mentioned?