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 Conversations with the Most Influential Lesbians & Gay Men Preserves Memories/ Ideals of Pioneering American Activists |
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Compiled By GayToday
 Lanham, Maryland-A new 402-page history book titled Leading the Parade has been published. It contains 39 "Conversations with America's Most Influential Lesbians and Gay Men." In the mid-1990s its author, Paul D. Cain, interviewed a host of pioneering thinkers, activists, artists, politicians and writers. Some of these interviewees, including movement founders, have since died.
Among the features that give Leading the Parade an edge on other such histories are the quotations collected by the author showing how gay and lesbian pioneers have regarded the work of their crusading peers and comrades-in-arms. Writing in the current issue of The Advocate, Jessica DuLong asks "As gay rights pioneers pass on, is enough being done to preserve our history?" "The recent deaths of two figures in the gay civil rights movement," notes Ms. DuLong, "are a striking reminder of how much time has passed since the hot night in June 1969 when police raided the Stonewall Inn and the patrons decided to fight back." Leading the Parade's first West Coast interviewee is the late Dorr Legg, founder in 1952 of ONE, Inc. Author Cain writes: "Fortunately, I interviewed Legg in March 1994: He died less than six months later, just shy of his ninetieth birthday." Following Legg's interview is a conversation with 80-year old Californian Lisa Ben, whose mimeographed newsletter, Vice Versa, is now believed to have been the first attempt in the USA to publish a journal celebrating love among women. Another towering pioneer, Jim Kepner, was captured by Cain on 5 hours of tape prior to his untimely death following emergency surgery on November 15, 1997. Kepner, who founded the International Gay and Lesbian Archives (Los Angeles) is credited by Cain for having introduced him to many other movement stalwarts. Chapters about the late Hal Call, San Francisco's, long-time publisher of The Mattachine Review, and Jose Sarria, the first gay-identified person to run for public office (in San Francisco's mayoral race) follow Jim Kepner's interview. In the book's first section, titled "Starting from Scratch" the nation's founding lesbian mothers-Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon on the West Coast and Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen on the East Coast-are memorialized. Also on the East Coast, Leading the Parade includes GayToday's contributor Randy Wicker, who, in the early 1960s, became New York City's gay media whiz kid, appearing on both radio and TV talk shows as an openly gay man. Significantly, Frank Kameny founder of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., follows Wicker in a second section of the book titled "Building on a Firm Foundation". Paul D. Cain's research has led him in the book's ninth interview to write of Kameny: "More than any other person, Kameny shaped the American lesbian and gay rights movement into its present state today." GayToday's editor, Jack Nichols, follows Kameny (with whom he worked closely throughout the 1960s) in chapter 10. Nichols, whose name appears on the cover, was invited by the author to provide a Foreword to Leading the Parade. It reads, in part: "The best writers are those who've embarked on a spirited quest. "Paul D. Cain is such a writer. Without first bothering to obtain a pricey author's contract he set out alone on his quest, visiting the far flung movers and shakers of America's lesbian and gay civil rights movement, spending his personal savings in the process. Meeting him, I found myself speaking uninhibitedly, knowing intuitively he'd honorably utilize whatever I might say. "When we discussed my pioneering old friends and comrades-in-arms, I saw that they were not just subject-matter-fodder to Paul, but that in many cases they'd become his mentors, friends, and confidants. Through his new book, that individualistic magic that only gadflies, reformers, heretics, radicals, and revolutionaries can emit works to transform the readers of Leading the Parade themselves. "What actually impelled those who instigated the gay and lesbian revolts? Paul Cain wanted to know. What had made them flout the great taboo, bravely climbing over seemingly impregnable barricades, demanding uncompromising equality for same-sex love and affection?" Other interviewees featured as chapters in Leading the Parade (20 women and 19 men) include: Dick Leitsch, the Reverend Troy Perry, Ginny Berson, Robin Tyler, Barbara Grier, Ann Bannon, Kate Millet, Martin Duberman, Rita Mae Brown, Malcolm Boyd and Mark Thompson, Joan Nestle, John D'Emilio, Sasha Alyson, JoAnn Loulan, Jean O'Leary, Charlotte Bunch, Ginny Apuzzo, Allan Spear, Cleve Jones, Harry Britt, David Clarenbach, Barney Frank, Jack Campbell, David Kopay, Holly Near, Miriam Ben-Shalom, Virginia Uribe, Brent Nicholson Earle, and Urvashi Vaid. Historian James T. Sears, Ph.D. says "These are our 'rainbow relatives' and Leading the Parade is our family album. Rodger Streitmatter, Professor of Journalism at American University, and author of Voices of Revolution (Columbia University Press, 2001) writes: "Particularly distinctive is the author's commitment to telling that story (of the growth of the movement) not from the vantage point of the detached observer, but through the personal odyssey that sent him criss-crossing the country to chat with a wide range of individuals who have, indeed, 'led the parade' toward gay and lesbian liberation and visibility." Order Leading the Parade through Scarecrow Press www.scarecrowpress.com (and get a 15% discount on-line) or call toll-free 1-800-462-6420 (no discount) |
