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Marty Robinson
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The
Gay Crusaders by Kay Tobin and Randy Wicker
This
first-and so far only-collection of biographical sketches of
American Gay activists vividly communicates, through their
personal stories, a sense of the concerns, ideas, and feelings
motivating a variety of Gay liberationists between 1955 and 1972;
it is an important source on seventeen years of Gay movement
history. The accounts are derived from tape-recorded interviews
conducted in 1971-72 with eleven male and four female homosexuals,
supplemented by quotes from published materials by and about them.
The authors, themselves long-time activists, chose their
interviewees "for their record of accomplishment in advancing
the Gay cause, and for the diversity of their contributions and
viewpoints." Each of the fifteen crusaders reveals what in
his or her own experience led to a commitment to change the
conditions of life for Gay people. The men interviewed are Troy
Perry, Jim Owles, Craig Rodwell, Dick Michaels, Frank Kameny, Jack
Baker, Michael McConnell, Marty Robinson, Lige Clark, Jack
Nichols, and Arthur Evans. The women are Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin,
Ruth Simpson, and Barbara Gittings. The book includes sixteen
pages of photos and a "Symposium" section of comments by
the interviewees on such topics as psychiatry and
"cure," revolution versus reform, Gays in old age,
confrontation tactics, Gays in politics. The Gay Crusaders, issued
originally as a paperback original, is now first offered in a
library edition.
 Out
for Good : The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America by
Dudley Clendinen, Adam Nagourney
Writing about events
within living memory is one of the hardest tasks for a
historian--there is too much information, too many perspectives.
The authors of Out for Good, both writers for the New
York Times, not only drew on extensive archival records but
conducted nearly 700 interviews with the founders and opponents of
the early gay rights movement. That they have been able to shape
this unruly material into a convincing narrative is impressive
enough--yet they have also managed to write one of the most
dramatic and beautifully structured histories in recent years.
Starting with the almost accidental Stonewall
riots in 1969 and shifting between key cities and events, they
track what they describe as "the last great struggle for
equal rights in American history." For homophile activists of
the 1950s and early 1960s, that struggle had been about being left
alone by police and politicians, but for those gathering to
protest Stonewall, it was about "defining themselves to
society as gay men and lesbians." While there are many
memoirs and smaller studies of the era, no other book so
graciously spans the 30-year period covered here. --Regina
Marler
"Two New York heroes, Marty Robinson and
Jim Owles, founders of the Gay Activists Alliance, are given
particularly vicious bios in OUT for GOOD. The sources
quoted are two jealous members of a competing organization, New
York’s Gay Liberation Front who got left in the dust when
Robinson and Owles jumped the GLF ship and founded another truly
effective group." -- Jack Nichols (Read Nichols'
scathing review of Out for Good here.)
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Kay Tobin's Magnificent Portrait
Excerpt from Jack Nichols' Introduction:
In the following portrait from Kay Tobin's
out-of-print classic, THE GAY CRUSADERS, a true hero
emerges who, because of revisionist history, is little-known
except in archives, academia or among those brave pioneers, still
living, who labored hard in the original Gay Activists Alliance.
The GAA was the extraordinary organization that
first embodied--on the spot-- the constructive spirit of Stonewall
and, through its wise direction of revolutionary passion, kept it
alive, strategic and successful. We today are the inheritors of
that spirit. Since this is the month--June-- that the entire globe
now celebrates 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, you are invited to enjoy
Kay Tobin's splendid depiction of a pioneer who not only was there
at the Inn, but who made it truly count immediately afterwards...
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From the Archives at gaycenter.org
(Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center)
Papers and records collected by Marty Robinson
primarily from the Gay Activists Alliance and The Lavender Hill
Mob. He was a founding member of both organizations. The
collection was donated by Marc Rubin, a close friend. The
Collection is 10 inches and contains papers and other
miscellaneous materials such as stickers and lapel buttons. The
bulk of the papers is material from the Gay Activists Alliance
from 1970 to 1974, and from the Lavender Hill Mob from 1986 to
1988. This collection is extremely valuable for research into the
early years of GAA and of gay political activism at its beginnings
in the wake of Stonewall. Although every effort was made to
organize it coherently, the collection suffers due to its
fragmentary and chaotic nature.
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
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