Tinderbox : the untold story of the Up Stairs Lounge fire and the rise of gay liberation / Robert W. Fieseler.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York, NY : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company, [2018]Edition: First editionDescription: xxxviii, 343 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781631491641
- 1631491644
- Gays -- Violence against -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
- Mass murder -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
- Gay bars -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
- Arson -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
- Homophobia -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
- Gay liberation movement -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History -- 20th century
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | NonFiction | 364.1523 F467 | Available | 33111009206687 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of thirty-one men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue- collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community. The aftermath was no less traumatic--families ashamed to claim loved ones, the Catholic Church refusing proper burial rights, the city impervious to the survivors' needs--revealing a world of toxic prejudice that thrived well past Stonewall. Yet the impassioned activism that followed proved essential to the emergence of a fledgling gay movement. Tinderbox restores honor to a forgotten generation of civil-rights martyrs.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: History reclaimed -- Act I: Fire -- Brotherhood of men -- Sunday service -- Gay liberation -- United we stand -- Act II: Fallout -- Mayhem -- Call for aid -- Liberation descends -- Visions -- Fun house -- Firetraps -- In memoriam -- Act III: Legacy -- Deliverance -- Downfall -- Rally forth -- Last resort -- Coda: Second line.