by Jim Downs
University of Georgia Press
2/1/2022, paperback
SKU: 9780820356440
With Stand by Me, Jim Downs rewrites the history of gay life in the 1970s, arguing that the decade was about much more than sex and marching in the streets. Drawing on a vast trove of untapped records at LGBT community centers in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, Downs tells moving, revelatory stories of gay people who stood together--as friends, fellow believers, and colleagues--to create a sense of community among people who felt alienated from mainstream American life.
Reviews:
"Downs draws on LGBTQ materials long underrepresented in superficial media accounts of gay life. Past chronicles have defined the gay community by focusing on 'free love' and HIV/AIDS. Downs upends this, detailing more inclusive and representative subjects, tracing the history of gay rights as part of the ongoing battle for civil rights, and covering the gay religious movement....A valuable addition to LGBT and social-change collections." -- Whitney Scott "ALA Booklist"
"The sheer act of Downs' acknowledging that not all gay men subscribed to the popular 'three Big Bs' of the time--'the Bars, Beaches, and Baths'--and found their identity validated and articulated through the communal practices of Christian worship and cultural hubs (like the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop) is a refreshing and invigorating experience. Stand By Me proves a deeply moving read, one that passionately and urgently argues for us to acknowledge some of the forgotten history of gay liberation." -- Nathan Smith "San Francisco Chronicle"
About the Author:
Jim Downs is the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of History at Gettysburg College, a 2025-26 Guggenheim Fellow, and the director of the African American History Program at the Library Company of Philadelphia. In addition to coediting Beyond Freedom: Disrupting the History of Emancipation and Connexions: Histories of Race and Sex in North America, he has authored Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine; and Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering During the Civil War and Reconstruction.