On June 28, 1969, New York police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, sparking a backlash that consisted of several nights of riots and the birth of the modern LGBTQ movement. To commemorate the pivotal event’s 50th anniversary, Stonewall is the theme of this year’s Pride Month. What better time, then, to dig into the history of this momentous occasion? Below are three book suggestions to get you started:
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, by David Carter (1994): Based on hundreds of interviews and more than a decade of research, Carter details the events leading up to the Stonewall Riots. His book was the basis of the PBS American Experience documentary Stonewall Uprising.
Stonewall, by Martin Bauml Duberman (1994): Award-winning historian and scholar on gender and race issues, Duberman creates a narrative around the six individuals central to the event. Described as a “vivid and stirring recreation of the Stonewall riot, probing beneath its symbolism to discover the social forces it unleashed” in the Los Angeles Times Book Review.
The Stonewall Reader: An anthology of firsthand accounts, diaries, and magazine and newspaper articles drawn from the New York Public Library archives.