In this lesson, teachers will contextualize the LGBT rights movement by answering the question introduced in the History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools: “How did various movements for equality build upon one another?” While activists fighting for LGBT rights utilized similar tactics and had some shared goals of those fighting for Civil Rights broadly, LGBT people in racial minority communities faced additional discrimination. To what extent was the movement for LGBT rights part of the broader movement for Civil Rights? Students will learn about the Black Cat Tavern riots and the start of the gay rights movement.
Students will study the treatment of gay and lesbian federal workers during the period of McCarthyism. How were gays and lesbians viewed and treated by the U.S. How did the black civil rights movement influence other activist movements of the late 1960s and 1970s? How did the conditions of the Cold War lead to the criminalization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Americans? When few would publicly identify themselves as gay, these brave pioneers challenged pervasive homophobia. Gay Pioneers is the story of the first organized annual “homosexual” civil rights demonstrations held in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, DC from 1965-69.
