Overview

The early struggle for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and 1970s has typically been told from the perspective of the coasts—in places like New York, San Francisco, and Miami. But the Midwest town of Lawrence, Kansas, home of the University of Kansas (KU) and a thriving location for activist organizations in the 1960s, had an important role to play in the national story of LGBTQ activism in the United States.Liberating Lawrence tells the first-hand story of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front (LGLF), a KU student organization that began in 1970. Having conducted sixty-seven interviews with people who were involved at the time, author Katherine Rose-Mockry focuses on the group’s early formative years between the founding and 1979, during which time the members of LGLF had to fight for their right to exist on campus as an official student group. Inspired by a class project that led him to interview local members of the LGBTQ community, David Stout initiated the formation of the LGLF in the summer of 1970 to provide a safe space for gay students to meet each other and to establish a base of operations for student activism on campus. The group focused on educating the campus about the experience of being gay. They formed a speakers’ bureau in their opening months and gave frequent presentations at KU and nearby campuses. In addition to raising awareness and providing counseling services, the group was also self-consciously political from the start and advocated for equal protections, employment rights, and the elimination of laws criminalizing same-sex sexual activity. The university administration, however, did not welcome the formation of the LGLF. Three times the chancellor rejected their request for recognition. This led the group to file a lawsuit against the university in 1971, and the famous cause lawyer William Kunstler, who had previously defended the Chicago Seven in 1969, agreed to represent them—a development that received national media attention. While the LGLF lost the legal battle, they ultimately won the war to change the campus culture. Katherine Rose-Mockry has written the definitive history of gay and lesbian activism at the public universities of Kansas. Liberating Lawrence is a major contribution to our understanding of the fight for gay pride and LGBTQ civil rights, both locally and nationally.

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9780700637355

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Reviews

"""Katherine Rose-Mockery’s captivating narrative is built from in-depth personal interviews with the founding and early members of Gay Liberation groups in Kansas. She provides a colorful portrait of the intersections of politics, locality, personalities, identity- and community-building, and, of course, sex. This is an excellent expansion of the history of early queer organizing in the Midwest.""""—Patrick Dilley, author of Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation: Early Non-Heterosexual Student Organizing at Midwestern Universities and Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945–2000""""With its sustained romp through the archives and keen consideration of gender dynamics, Liberating Lawrence reconfirms that Kansas was integral to post-Stonewall LGBTQ politics. Rose-Mockry’s exhaustive account is important for those interested in queer campus life as well as the wide geographic reach of gay liberation across the late modern United States.""""—Scott Herring, author of Another Country, Queer Anti-Urbanism """"Liberating Lawrence is a riveting and thoroughly researched account of early LGBTQ student organizing at the University of Kansas. Despite the messiness of their early organizing efforts and opposition from many university leaders, the brave student activists profiled in this book ultimately succeeded in building a revolutionary LGBTQ student organization in the middle of the heartland. The deeply moving stories at the heart of this book serve as a reminder of the power of student activism and should surely inspire those who continue to mobilize for LGBTQ equality today.""""—Jonathan S. Coley, author of Gay on God’s Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities """"Gay and lesbian stories of the 1960s–80s come alive in this deeply researched history. Illustrating the importance of campus organizations to the larger project of LGBTQ+ liberation, Rose-Mockry illuminates how the Great Plains served as a center of gay activism and cultural life. The result offers a fresh perspective on movements for social justice.""""—Amanda L. Izzo, coeditor of Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s """"In Liberating Lawrence, Katherine Rose-Mockry provides a comprehensive look at the history of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front and the organizing climate in which it emerged. The book documents the political, cultural, and social impact of the organization on campus and in the community, giving us deep insight into the challenges students and their allies faced, the joy they found in collaboration, the impact they had, and the fault lines within their own ranks. Informed deeply by dozens of oral history interviews, and detailed in its coverage, Liberating Lawrence is an enlightening new resource for understanding LGBTQ+ student organizing histories of the 1970s and into the 1980s.""""—David A. Reichard, author of Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California"

Katherine Rose-Mockery’s captivating narrative is built from in-depth personal interviews with the founding and early members of Gay Liberation groups in Kansas. She provides a colorful portrait of the intersections of politics, locality, personalities, identity- and community-building, and, of course, sex. This is an excellent expansion of the history of early queer organizing in the Midwest.""""—Patrick Dilley, author of Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation: Early Non-Heterosexual Student Organizing at Midwestern Universities and Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945–2000""""With its sustained romp through the archives and keen consideration of gender dynamics, Liberating Lawrence reconfirms that Kansas was integral to post-Stonewall LGBTQ politics. Rose-Mockry’s exhaustive account is important for those interested in queer campus life as well as the wide geographic reach of gay liberation across the late modern United States.""""—Scott Herring, author of Another Country, Queer Anti-Urbanism """"Liberating Lawrence is a riveting and thoroughly researched account of early LGBTQ student organizing at the University of Kansas. Despite the messiness of their early organizing efforts and opposition from many university leaders, the brave student activists profiled in this book ultimately succeeded in building a revolutionary LGBTQ student organization in the middle of the heartland. The deeply moving stories at the heart of this book serve as a reminder of the power of student activism and should surely inspire those who continue to mobilize for LGBTQ equality today.""""—Jonathan S. Coley, author of Gay on God’s Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities """"Gay and lesbian stories of the 1960s–80s come alive in this deeply researched history. Illustrating the importance of campus organizations to the larger project of LGBTQ+ liberation, Rose-Mockry illuminates how the Great Plains served as a center of gay activism and cultural life. The result offers a fresh perspective on movements for social justice.""""—Amanda L. Izzo, coeditor of Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s """"In Liberating Lawrence, Katherine Rose-Mockry provides a comprehensive look at the history of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front and the organizing climate in which it emerged. The book documents the political, cultural, and social impact of the organization on campus and in the community, giving us deep insight into the challenges students and their allies faced, the joy they found in collaboration, the impact they had, and the fault lines within their own ranks. Informed deeply by dozens of oral history interviews, and detailed in its coverage, Liberating Lawrence is an enlightening new resource for understanding LGBTQ+ student organizing histories of the 1970s and into the 1980s.""""—David A. Reichard, author of Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California

"""Katherine Rose-Mockery's captivating narrative is built from in-depth personal interviews with the founding and early members of Gay Liberation groups in Kansas. She provides a colorful portrait of the intersections of politics, locality, personalities, identity- and community-building, and, of course, sex. This is an excellent expansion of the history of early queer organizing in the Midwest.""--Patrick Dilley, author of Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation: Early Non-Heterosexual Student Organizing at Midwestern Universities and Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Men, 1945-2000 ""With its sustained romp through the archives and keen consideration of gender dynamics, Liberating Lawrence reconfirms that Kansas was integral to post-Stonewall LGBTQ politics. Rose-Mockry's exhaustive account is important for those interested in queer campus life as well as the wide geographic reach of gay liberation across the late modern United States.""--Scott Herring, author of Another Country, Queer Anti-Urbanism Liberating Lawrence is a riveting and thoroughly researched account of early LGBTQ student organizing at the University of Kansas. Despite the messiness of their early organizing efforts and opposition from many university leaders, the brave student activists profiled in this book ultimately succeeded in building a revolutionary LGBTQ student organization in the middle of the heartland. The deeply moving stories at the heart of this book serve as a reminder of the power of student activism and should surely inspire those who continue to mobilize for LGBTQ equality today.""--Jonathan S. Coley, author of Gay on God's Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities ""Gay and lesbian stories of the 1960s-80s come alive in this deeply researched history. Illustrating the importance of campus organizations to the larger project of LGBTQ+ liberation, Rose-Mockry illuminates how the Great Plains served as a center of gay activism and cultural life. The result offers a fresh perspective on movements for social justice.""--Amanda L. Izzo, coeditor of Left in the Midwest: St. Louis Progressive Activism in the 1960s and 1970s ""In Liberating Lawrence, Katherine Rose-Mockry provides a comprehensive look at the history of the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front and the organizing climate in which it emerged. The book documents the political, cultural, and social impact of the organization on campus and in the community, giving us deep insight into the challenges students and their allies faced, the joy they found in collaboration, the impact they had, and the fault lines within their own ranks. Informed deeply by dozens of oral history interviews, and detailed in its coverage, Liberating Lawrence is an enlightening new resource for understanding LGBTQ+ student organizing histories of the 1970s and into the 1980s.""--David A. Reichard, author of Here Are My People: LGBT College Student Organizing in California"

Author Information

Katherine Rose-Mockry is the former director of the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity at the University of Kansas.

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