Stonewall: Core Reading for the Past, Present, and Future
The Library's Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50 exhibition invites people—in New York and around the world—to delve into the history of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which mobilized thousands of people and turned LGBTQ civil rights into a widespread national movement.
To learn more about Stonewall specifically, and the history of LGBTQ activism in general, check out these core texts from the Library’s collections. Online, you can also find amazing archival photographs by Kay Tobin Lahusen and Diana Davies and more in our Digital Collections, plus a specialized Stonewall 50 research guide and extensive electronic resources for a deeper research dive.
Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman
Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis by Kevin Mumford (2016)
Transgender History by Susan Stryker (2008)
And two titles written for teens:
Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker, art by Julia Scheele
Stonewall: Breaking Out in the Fight for Gay Rights by Ann Bausum
NYPL's Stonewall Books
The New York Public Library has a tradition of original publication about LGBTQ history and the events surrounding Stonewall.
Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, ed. by Jason Baumann and photographs by Kay Tobin Lahusen and Diana Davies, with a foreword by Roxane Gay
The Stonewall Reader, ed. by The New York Public Library, with a foreword by Edmund White
Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of Lesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century America by Molly McGarry, Fred Wasserman, and Mimi Bowling
New Releases
Some of the best new writing about Stonewall is centered around the 50th anniversary. Check out some new titles—including picture books and YA nonfiction!—that are recently released and/or coming out soon.
- The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History by Marc Stein
- We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown
- Pride: Photographs after Stonewall by Fred McDarrah
New books for kids and teens:
- What Was Stonewall? by Nico Medina, art by Jake Murray
- The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets by Gayle Pitman
- Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution by Rob Sanders, art by Jamey Christoph
- Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag by Rob Sanders, art by Steven Salerno
For more core reading, check out our extensive list of recommended LGBTQ+ memoirs. And for more books about the history of the LGBTQ movement, check out our When We Rise reading list, too.
---
Have trouble reading standard print? Many of these titles are available in formats for patrons with print disabilities.
Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!