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"It may well be the case that years from now, when social historians write their accounts of the homophile movement, June 28, 1969 will be viewed as a turning point in the fight for equality for homosexuals." This was the prescient declaration of Philadelphians Carole Friedman and Ada Bello, writing in the Homophile Action League Newsletter shortly after the Stonewall riots.
In 1994, however, as we mark the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, the rebellion is rarely characterized as a turning point in the homophile movement. Instead, it is most often depicted as the first act of lesbian/gay political resistance ever. While younger African-American, student, peace, and women's movement activists in the 1960s either critiqued or dismissed the value of earlier activism, perhaps in no movement was a prior tradition of political organizing so completely denied.
Uncovering the resistance of lesbians and gay men in the years leading up to Stonewall helps us to understand the making of social movements. By decentering the location of lesbian/gay activism to the many cities engaged in what we now view as movement building, we can better understand that Stonewall was not the beginning, the first act, but a crucial moment that was taken up as a symbol of resistance by activists around the world.
The history of lesbians and gay men in Philadelphia in the years before and just after the Stonewall rebellion, for example, reveal a complicated and complicating picture of homophile and liberationist activism.
The Janus Society and DRUM Magazine
Organized "homophile" activism began in Greater Philadelphia in 1960 with an unprecedented police raid on a meeting called to establish a chapter of the national Mattachine Society, the group founded in Los Angeles in 1950. In 1962, after Mattachine's headquarters severed ties to local chapters, Philadelphians founded the Janus Society, named for the twofaced Roman god. Like Mattachine Philadelphia, and unlike most Mattachine chapters elsewhere, Janus was initially led by a lesbian president and featured mixed-sex leadership and membership.
Philadelphia's unique mixed-sex political organizing changed after Clark Polak became Janus president in late 1963 and the group began publishing DRUM magazine in 1964. Edited by Polak and named for Henry David Thoreau's "different drummer," DRUM combined hard-hitting news and features, the raw, risque, and campy comic...