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:
- NY Times runs Stonewall Rebellion Veterans Association story (6/8/15) profiling Williamson L. Henderson, director of the STONEWALL Rebellion Veterans' Association stonewallvets.org
- Jack Nichols biography with blurb of my book review (2/17/13) - Nichols introduced me to some of the Stonewall veterans including Randolfe Wicker and Williamson L. Henderson featured in the N.Y. Times article mention above
- Oregon same-sex marriage vote and Pope resigns hits front page (2/21/13) includes the following links to previous posts on W. Dorr Legg at OSU:
- W. Dorr Legg OSU archives records 1935-1942 (7/31/10)
- FBI files on gay OSU professor 1956 (7/7/10)
- OSU W. Dorr Legg homosexual marriage 1953 vs. CA Prop 8 2010 (8/22/10)
- Gay Oregon Professor 1935 (9/16/06)
- OSU professor recognized equality hypocrisy decades ago (6/5/12)
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."
