Buy Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: "Have You Heard My Message?"

Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: "Have You Heard My Message?"

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Synopsis

One of the founders of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, Jack Nichols was a warrior for gay equality. Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: “Have You Heard My Message?” is his story, blending the man, the movement, and the moment into a memory of his life’s work. This powerful biography captures the wisdom, passion, and spirit of a man who refused to be silent at a time when even gay thoughts were considered by society to be a crime of the soul.

As a journalist, activist, co-founder of the Mattachine Societies of Washington, DC, and Florida, and editor of the first gay weekly newspaper in the United States, Jack Nichols left a legacy of gay rights, gay pride, and tremendous courage. Jack Nichols, Gay Pioneer: “Have You Heard My Message?” charts the life of this vastly important figure from his childhood in the suburbs of Washington, DC, to his final impassioned days in a Florida cancer treatment center in 2005. Braided throughout this crucial text is not only the history of the man, but also the ideas he used to bring the movement to critical mass and the sources of those ideas so influential to all of his work—before Stonewall and after, during the AIDS epidemic, and beyond. Here is everything from the early influence of Burns and Whitman to Nichols’s revolutionary relationship with Lige Clark to the integration of androgyny and anarchism into his activist philosophy. It is the story of a prolific activist and inspirational human being.

Product Format Information

Book Trade Paperback: $44.99

Availability: Usually ships in
5-10 days
ISBN: 9781560236535
Catalog #: BT2561862

Publisher : Harrington Park Press

Keywords

Biographical/Autobiographical, Book, Gay Male, Gay/Lesbian, History, Homophobia/Negative Portrayal, Politics

Genres

Biography/Autobiography/Memoirs, Books, Non-Fiction/Reference

Customer Reviews

A Founding Member of LGBT Civil Rights

Amos Lassen wrote on 04/11/2011:

We have very few biographies of the founders of the gay rights movement and now with Louis J. Campbell's "Jack Nichols: Gay Pioneer" we get a look at a man who was a warrior for gay equality. He was a journalist, an activist, co-founder of the Mattachine Society of both Washington, D.C. and Florida and the editor of the first weekly gay newspaper. When he died in 2005 he left a legacy of gay rights and gay pride as well as courage that many of us have not seen. Here is his story--the man, the movement and the memories of all he did before and after Stonewall and while the AIDS epidemic was raging in this country. The book shows us the man and his spirit; a man who refused to be silent at a time when gays had no rights.
I did not know about Jack Nichols before I read this book. I had heard his name regarding the early years of gay lib but never realized how important a man he was. Using unpublished interviews which the author compiled before Nichol's death, Campbell is able to give us a picture of the man and the early movement for gay rights. Nichols was self-educate and as he matured he was able to "achieve an impressive records of `firsts' as a gay rights activist" from before Stonewall to the age of the internet. He was one of the men that challenged the dogma of psychiatry that homosexuality is a sickness. He wrote a column entitled "Homosexual Citizen" for
SCREW magazine and was the editor of GAY. He managed to get a large following for the things he wrote and his works on liberation and gender identity as valuable to us in order to get a sense of history.
Campbell did his research carefully and presents us with a book full of depth and insight. For a sense of who we are, it is important to understand where we came from and what we have been through. This is a book that helps to provide that information.

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