We Set the Night on Fire Igniting the Gay Revolution

by Shelley, Martha

• ISBN13: 9781641609418
• ISBN10: 1641609419
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-06-13
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Summary

Martha Shelley didn’t start out in life wanting to become a gay activist, or an activist of any kind.
The daughter of Jewish refugees and undocumented immigrants in New York City, she grew up during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s, was inspired by the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements that followed, and struggled with coming out as a lesbian at a time when being gay made her a criminal.
Shelley rose to become a public speaker for the New York chapter of the lesbian rights group the Daughters of Bilitis, organized the first gay march in response to the Stonewall Riots of 1969, and then cofounded the Gay Liberation Front. She coproduced the newspaper Come Out!, worked on the women’s takeover of the RAT Subterranean News, and took a central role in the Lavender Menace action to confront homophobia in the women’s movement.
Martha Shelley’s story is a feminist and lesbian document that gives context and adds necessary humanity to the historical record.

Author Biography

Martha Shelley is a longtime political activist from Brooklyn. After the Stonewall Riot, she organized a protest march that morphed into today’s gay pride parades, and she was one of the founders of the Gay Liberation Front. Her essays, poetry, and short stories have appeared in many anthologies. She has published three novels and four books of poetry. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Prologue
1. A Small Act of Rebellion
2. Origins
3. Snakes in the Grass
4. Race, and the Race to Space
5. The Body Adolescent
6. Oh Baby!
7. When College Was Free
8. Are You Now or Were You Ever?
9. Wrestling with Women
10. Theresa Saves My Ass
11. A Cult in the City
12. Odd Jobs, Odd Girls
13. What Happened in Harlem
14. A Salute to the Pioneers
15. From the Bars to Barnard
16. The Closets of Academe
17. The Night We Set on Fire
18. “We Will Be Back!”
19. WE Are the Gay Liberation Front!
20. Some Private Affairs
21. Fighting on All Fronts
22. RAT Newspaper—and Some Real Rats
23. Occupying the Porn Factory
24. A Menace Grabs the Mic
25. No Gay Dancing Allowed
26. “You’re on the Wrong Side!”
27. The Radical Radishes
28. My Brief Radio Career
29. Backpack, Mic, and Tampons
30. A Brawl on a Boat
31. Escape from New York
32. Code Blue
33. With Wrench in Hand
34. A Dream of Flying
35. Martha Got Her Guns
36. In Print and on the Road
37. Narrow Escapes
38. A Dream Comes Undone
39. The Debate in Detroit
40. With Max in the Red Beetle
41. Misogyny and Hospitality
42. Badly Behaved House Guests
43. In Exile
Afterword: Discovering Jezebel
Acknowledgments
Notes