Last week I talked about Cleveland’s first annual Gay Pride celebration, Pride ’89. It was such a different world back then! This week I present a series of videos with interviews from YouTube describing gay life over the four decades leading up to Cleveland’s 1989 celebration.

The interviews are conducted by high school and college students. The people interviewed include activists of their era like Phyllis Lyon who, with Del Martin, founded the Daughters of Bilitis. Subjects include the impact of McCarthyism, Stonewall, the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot (to be covered here next week), AIDS and more.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

Title image: Photo by Kay Tobin, © The New York Public Library. Used with permission.

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