Search This Blog

Saturday, June 25, 2016

President creates national park to remember Stonewall Inn riot Jun. 28, 1969 that inspired OSU student group

VIDEO: From the United States of America The White House, "Announcing the Stonewall National Monument," White House YouTube page, posted Jun 24, 2016 - President Obama says, "I'm designating the Stonewall National Monument as the newest addition to America's national parks system. Stonewall will be our first national monument to tell the story of the struggle for LGBT rights." (See New York City gay newspaper story by Paul Schindler, "Obama Declares Stonewall National Monument at Christopher Park," gaycitynews.nyc posted June 24, 2016)

The 1969 Stonewall Inn riot has been popularly used as the "start" of the gay rights movement in America, even though the actions by earlier homophile groups were important, including those by a former Oregon State University Professor W. Dorr Legg, who left OSU during World War II and later formed the Log Cabin Republicans organization that is still in operation today.

New York gay activists created the mythology of Stonewall to spread it nationally, including Corvallis, Oregon where it helped motivate the first gay student group at OSU to be officially recognized by the administration, which is documented by the peer-reviewed history, "Corvallis, Oregon State University gay activism 1969-2004," permanently stored in the Oregon State University Scholars Archives. (For a PDF copy see tinyurl.com/j3raaug or URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1957/43450)

I hope to still be alive on June 28,, 2019 for the 50th anniversary of Stonewall!

See previous posts:

Also, as an unrelated aside note, the local professional newspaper "EDITORIAL: Roses and Raspberries for Friday, June 24," gazettetimes.com posted Jun. 24, 2016 said, "ROSES to Confluence, the Willamette Valley LGBT chorus, as it heads to Denver to participate in the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses Festival, scheduled for July 2-6. In the wake of the shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, this year's international festival likely will be particularly powerful. This is the fourth go-round for Confluence at the festival, which only takes place every four years. Considering that this is the 16th season for Confluence, that's a good record. If you can't make the trip to Denver, you always can catch the chorus during one of its frequent performances in Corvallis."