Tinderbox The Untold Story of the up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation |
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Read by:
| Heitsch, Paul |
Author:
| Fieseler, Robert W. |
ISBN: | 978-1-6651-3611-2 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2021 |
Publisher: | HighBridge Company
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Book Format: | CD-Audio |
List Price: | USD $24.99 |
Book Description:
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Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of thirty-one men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue-collar gay world that flourished...
More DescriptionBuried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of thirty-one men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue-collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community. The aftermath was no less traumatic--families ashamed to claim loved ones, the Catholic Church refusing proper burial rights, the city impervious to the survivors' needs--revealing a world of toxic prejudice that thrived well past Stonewall. Yet the impassioned activism that followed proved essential to the emergence of a fledgling gay movement. Tinderbox restores honor to a forgotten generation of civil-rights martyrs.