Celebrating World Pride And Stonewall 50 Together

 I went to the World Pride parade in the Chelsea section of Manhattan yesterday. Boy, was it crowded and super long. When the parade ended, it was almost 12:30 in the morning!

A recent sighting: Propped up outside one of the display windows of the Bank Street Bookstore, an Upper West Side of Manhattan establishment that specializes in children's books, was a small black message board with removable letters of the alphabet. On it was this message, with one letter missing: "[I]T'S PRIDE BITCHES. SHAKE YA ASS!" It was placed in front of a display of Pride-themed children's books.

I couldn't resist the urge to put it in my tote bag and take it home where it will be put in a prominent place because it is such a novelty item. I may even take a photo of it and put it in one of my photo albums.

Happy Pride Month

Today is the first day of Pride Month! I hope everyone will have a happy Pride Month. I'm looking forward to the Stonewall 50 celebrations, which will probably last until the end of the year.

This month also marks the twentieth anniversary of  the publication of Fighting Words: Essays by Black Gay Men, an anthology I edited. It was published in 1999 by Avon Books.

Stonewall 50 Commemoration At The New York Public Library

The Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50 exhibition is slated for viewing at the New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, from February 14 to July 14, 2019. It will be on the third floor, in the Rayner Special Collections Wing & Print Gallery.

"This exhibition," announced the New York Public Library Now magazine (Winter/Spring 2019)," illustrates this history [of gay liberation] through the photographs of Kay Tobin Lahusen and Diana Davies, who captured the pivotal events of this era and changed the ways that LGBTQ people perceived themselves."

Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50 will also, continued Now, the library publication, feature "other items from the Library's vast archival holdings in LGBTQ history, including ephemera, periodicals, and more."