Two WGS faculty members were interviewed as part of the Harvard Gazette's 50th-anniversary overview of the significance of the Stonewall riots in new York City, Stonewall then and now. The article features WGS Professor Michael Bronski and Standing Committee member Evelynn Hammonds, who reflected on the events and legacy of the 1969 uprising at Stonewall Inn.

Both Bronski and Hammonds situate Stonewall in the context of other civil rights and liberation movements at the time. "There had been previous riots in the U.S. involving gays and lesbians fed up with routine harassment, but Stonewall, erupting when it did amid protests over the Vietnam War and civil rights and gender equality, marked a decisive break from the more passive sexual-orientation politics of the day, said Bronski, who has written extensively on LGBTQ culture and history."

Hammonds addressed links between Stonewall and the women's movement. “At the time of what we now call the Stonewall Rebellion, what was also happening was the second wave of the women’s movement. And while there were lots of tensions in some women’s organizations between lesbians and straight women, there was also a great deal of unity, and people were coming together around a shared desire for greater equality for women and gay people,” she said.

Interested to learn more? Read the full story.