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[Virtual] Making Change: A History of LGBTQ Activism

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John D’Emilio will trace the history of LGBTQ activism from its start in the 1950s, to the early 21st century, when LGBTQ people were more visible and more integrated into society than ever before.

Since the 1950s, massive change has occurred in the lives of LGBTQ people in the United States and in the social and institutional response to them. This talk will trace the history of LGBTQ activism from its start in the 1950s, when the oppression was most harsh and pervasive, to the early 21st century, when LGBTQ people were more visible and more integrated into society than ever before. It will explore the impact of the 1960s and the Stonewall Uprising that gave birth to a “gay liberation” movement; the dramatic increase in mobilization sparked by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s; and growing presence in popular culture that emerged in the 1990s.

A pioneer in the field of LGBTQ history and the history of sexuality, John D’Emilio is a retired Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author or editor of almost a dozen books including Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970; Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin; and Intimate Matters:  A History of Sexuality in America, co-authored with Estelle B. Freedman and now in its third edition. His biography of Bayard Rustin was a finalist for the National Book Award.  He recently served as President of the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives in Chicago, and his newest book, Queer Legacies: Stories from Chicago’s LGBTQ Archives, was published in 2020 by the University of Chicago Press. His memoir – Memories of a Gay Catholic Boyhood: Coming of Age in the Sixties – will be published in the fall of 2022 by Duke University Press.

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