The
June 2011 issue of the
Journal of American History is being mailed this week and is available on-line now. It includes a Roundtable on Beverley Gage's "state of the field" essay, "Terrorism and the American Experience," and the following article:
"The Trouble with Gay Rights: Race and the Politics of Sexual Orientation in Philadelphia, 1969-1982," by Kevin J. Mumford
In 1974 and 1982 Philadelphia's gays and lesbians mobilized for a bill to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and unexpectedly encountered the politics of race. Kevin J. Mumford traces the competing arguments and strategies of a range of groups, from early gay liberationists to conservative African American clergy to black gay men, for and against sexual equality. Mumford illustrates that gay and lesbian activists have had to struggle with the legacy of the civil rights movement and that gay identities may have proliferated and become more coherent as a result.
