Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Nineteen-year-old Columbia University student Morty Manford thought it was just another night at the Stonewall Inn, but then the police swept in and the raid was on. Morty shared his memories of that night with Eric Marcus in this archival interview from 1989.  Visit our website for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join o...

A rebroadcast of Eric’s 1989 interview with Marsha P. Johnson and Randy Wicker. Hear conflicting perspectives on Stonewall from this pair of unlikely roommates. Marsha co-founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries after Stonewall; Randy had led the way in the earlier homophile movement. Visit our website for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Ma...

What made Stonewall different? How can we carry the lessons of the uprising with us today? Eric is joined by one archivist and four activists to answer those questions in an intergenerational conversation recorded at the Stonewall Inn on May 23, 2019. Visit our episode webpage for background information, photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon...

Like so many other acts of queer resistance, the 1969 Stonewall riots could have become a footnote in history. But the protests and organizing that followed launched a new phase in the fight for LGBTQ rights. Hear how queer anger found its voice and how joy propelled the first Pride marches. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive M...

The Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. Revisit that moment, and the hours and days that followed, with voices from the Making Gay History archive. Relive in vivid detail the dawning of a new chapter in the fight for LGBTQ rights. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus cont...

Conflict has context. In the first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall 50 season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle for LGBTQ rights. We travel back in time to hear voices from the turbulent 1960s and take you to the tinderbox that was Greenwich Village on the eve of an uprising. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exc...

A special season of Making Gay History to mark the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Hear the voices of the rioters, and of the activists who turned a riot into gay liberation—a new and expansive phase in the LGBTQ rights movement. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ———

Brooklyn-born Martha Shelley was a rebel. She didn’t like being told what to do, wear, or say. She hated the lesbian bars, and even after joining the Daughters of Bilitis she strained against the self-imposed limits of the homophile movement. All along, the 1960s revolution called to her. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Maki...

Dick Leitsch came to New York City in the early 1960s to smoke cigarettes, drink cocktails, and pick up handsome young men. He got his wish and then some, but the native Kentuckian also took on the police and political power brokers to successfully fight entrapment and discrimination. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making G...

Ernestine Eckstein is an iconic figure from the 1960s homophile movement—from photos showing her as the only African American woman at the earliest protests, to her trailblazing cover story in The Ladder. Now we can put a voice to those images with a never-before-heard 1965 interview. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making G...

Bayard Rustin was a champion of the Black civil rights movement—mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. But because he was gay and out, he faced bigotry inside and outside the movement. The FBI and Sen. Strom Thurmond tried to destroy him. But he persisted. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclu...

Reed Erickson was a trans man with a big checkbook, a pet leopard, big dreams for a better world for gay people and trans folks—and he single-handedly financed ONE Incorporated and founded the first trans rights organization. Morgan M Page and AJ Lewis join MGH to help bring Reed’s story to life. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclus...

“I’m a bisexual ki-ki s.o.b. butch-femme.” Stella Rush railed against rules and binaries: butch/femme, gay/straight. Fighting for social survival and wielding a pen, Stella (aka Sten Russell) carved out a place for herself on ONE magazine’s mostly male 1950s masthead and on the pages of The Ladder. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For excl...

ONE, the first national gay magazine, attracted the attention of the FBI and was at the heart of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case. Dorr Legg, Martin Block, and Jim Kepner were key to ONE’s success. But don’t expect them to agree on its origin story. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our...

Investigated by the FBI, blackmailed, but bold enough to keep going, Billye Talmadge was one of the early members of the earliest lesbian rights organization in the U.S., the Daughters of Bilitis. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ———

Harry Hay had a vision, and that vision led to the founding of the first sustained gay rights organization in the United States—the Mattachine Society, in 1950. Mattachine (and Harry’s) first task—establishing a gay identity. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ———

More than a century ago, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld chose to take a stand for LGBTQ rights, founding a movement, providing a safe space, and seeking justice through science. The Nazis crushed his vision, but not his legacy. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ———

Our fourth season is about beginnings. So we’re going to start at the beginning and hear from the activists and visionaries who got the ball rolling for LGBTQ civil rights. In this episode, meet some of the trailblazers who will guide us from 1897 in Germany to the eve of the Stonewall uprising, including Magnus Hirschfeld, Harry Hay, Ernestine Eckstein, Bayard Rustin, and Martha Shelley. For excl...

Making Gay History is coming back with all new episodes that bring queer history to life through the voices of the people who lived it. Hear the trailer now.  For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ———

May 11, 1935 - Jun 22, 2018. Dick Leitch, Kentucky native, New Yorker at heart, one-time president of the Mattachine Society of New York, was an early gay rights advocate who challenged police entrapment and championed the right of gay people to get a drink without fear of harassment or prison. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusiv...

Join us as Making Gay History pulls up a chair at Kay Tobin Lahusen’s monthly gay dinner table. Spend some time with this gang of elders and hear how love, friendship, and activism live on for these trailblazers—even in their retirement community.  Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠P...

The right to love and be loved for who we are has always been a driving force in the fight for LGBTQ civil rights. Eric shares four special love stories from his archive featuring activists who helped change the course of history. First aired February 14, 2017.  Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus conten...

Morty Manford was one of thousands of young people who joined the fight for gay liberation in the early 1970s. As a member of the Gay Activists Alliance, he challenged New York City's mayor face to face in a successful effort to get the police off the backs of the gay community. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay His...

Greg Brock blazed a trail for LGBTQ journalists by being himself at a time when being yourself could sabotage your career or cost you your job. But Greg didn't just come out on the job, he came out to everyone on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for the first National Coming Out Day on October 11, 1988. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusi...

As a Jewish child growing up in Nazi-occupied Paris, Paulette Goodman knew what it meant to be a despised minority. After the war, her family sought refuge in the U.S. But when Paulette found out that her child was gay, she discovered that there was another battle to be fought and won. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making...