Smash the Church, Smash the State

Join us for a reading from the anthology celebrating 40 years since the Stonewall Riots of June 1969 set off the modern day queer movement. The anthology is being published by City Lights Books on June 1. Edited by local longtime queer activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca, who will be on hand, along with several contributors to the collection, among them, Blackberri, Merle Woo, N.A. Diaman, Dajenya, Pam Mitchell, Barbara Ruth, Paola Bacchetta, Steven F. Dansky, Martha Shelley, and Richard Bollingbroke. Authors will read from their pieces that talk about the early radical queer movement that sprang up after Stonewall.

Tommi Avicolli Mecca was involved with Gay Liberation Front at Temple University in Philadelphia. Paola Bacchetta was part of Dyketactics, also in Philadelphia. Blackberri founded Tucson GLF. Steven F. Dansky, Martha Shelley, Nikos Diaman, and Dajenya were all involved with GLF/New York, Pam Mitchell with GLF in Los Angeles, and Richard Bollingbroke with GLF/London.

Join a discussion with activists who were involved with radical, post-Stonewall queer groups, such as Gay Liberation Front (GLF), Radicalesbians, Dyketactics, Radicalqueens, etc. With Martha Shelley, Blackberri, Paola Bachetta, Merle Woo, and Steven F. Dansky. A discussion about the queer movement then and now, where we’ve come from and where we are. Like other movements of the late 60s and early 70s, Gay Liberation Front believed in revolution, not reform. GLF/NY’s statement of purpose read: “We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people can not come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society’s attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature.” This is the movement that changed forever the country’s perception of queers.

Cosponsored by the GLBT Historical Society.