Season 12 — Preview
Preview Notes
The decade between Stonewall and the 1979 March on Washington lives in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and all that came after. In this six-part season, Eric Marcus explores the heady years of gay liberation and the backlash that followed against the backdrop of his own coming of age as a gay teen.
Preview first published April 6, 2023.
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Preview Transcript
Madeline Davis: Wow, what to say? You gave me, like, two and a half minutes—and there’s years of things to say.
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Eric Marcus Narration: In the aftermath of the Stonewall uprising, and before the desperate fight against AIDS, there’s an all too often overlooked decade of our movement.
But that decade—the 1970s—is an essential piece of the puzzle if we’re going to understand how we got from Stonewall to a full-scale, all-hands-on-deck, national battle to confront the AIDS crisis, and how we got to where we are today.
The 1970s was a transformative decade. It was also a decade that began with a promise of liberation…
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Sylvia Rivera: Revolutionary love to all my sisters and brothers and half-sisters and half-brothers!
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EM Narration: … and ended with so much work left to do.
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Pat Collins: Suppose your child came to you and said, “Mother, Dad, I am homosexual.”
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Bob Kunst: And Anita, we really thank you, we couldn’t have done it without you.
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Jeanne Manford: I pledge to you that, as parents, we will sustain the fight alongside you. Gay liberation shall come closer and closer.
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EM Narration: It was the decade I came of age, fell in love for the first time, found myself, lost myself, and ultimately began to get my bearings as a gay man in a post-Stonewall world.
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Shane O’Neill: So, like, please, if you don’t want to remember something or dive into something, obviously, Eric, I hope you would know that you can say, “I don’t wanna talk about that,” or redirect it in a way that, that you feel comfortable.
Eric Marcus: There is nothing that I would redirect.
SO: Okay, great.
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EM Narration: In this season of Making Gay History, I’ll share some of the moments and the characters that shaped the decade that shaped me.
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Marsha P. Johnson: Darling, I want my gay rights now!
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EM Narration: A decade that exploded into being with rights demanded and achieved…
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Jim Owles: Proud homosexuals, Gay Activists Alliance, …
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EM Narration: Progress almost wiped out in a backlash…
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Anita Bryant: The war goes on to save our children, because the seed of sexual sickness that germinated in Dade County has already been transplanted by misguided liberals in the U.S. Congress.
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EM Narration: A movement galvanized in tragedy, coalescing in the closing months of the decade for the first truly national show of strength and claiming our place in the American civil rights story.
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Unidentified Speaker: We just got another estimate. If the police estimated approximately 250,000, then we know there’s gotta be at least 3 to 400,000 of us here! We know!
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EM Narration: Join me for this journey through time for “Coming of Age During the 1970s.” Look for chapter one wherever you listen to podcasts from April 13. New chapters every other week.
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Unidentified Speaker: Come out now, avoid the rush later. [Cheering.]
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