Description
Book SynopsisWe Set the Night on Fire is the story of Martha Shelley’s roots as the daughter of refugees and undocumented immigrants in New York in the 1940s and '50s, and her development as a political activist and a central figure in the intersection of the gay and women’s movements of the 1960s and '70s. Shelley describes her childhood during the McCarthy era and subsequent civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and her struggles coming out as a lesbian at a time when being gay made her a criminal.
She rose to become a public speaker for the Daughters of Bilitis, organized the first gay march in response to Stonewall, and then cofounded the Gay Liberation Front. She coproduced the newspaper,
Come Out!, worked on the women’s takeover of
Rat newspaper, and took a central role in the Lavender Menace action.
Martha Shelley’s story is a lesbian document that gives context and necessary humanity in the historical record.Table of ContentsIntroduction
Prologue
1. A Small Act of Rebellion
2. Origins
3. Snakes in the Grass
4. Race, and the Race to Space
5. The Body Adolescent
6. Oh Baby!
7. When College Was Free
8. Are You Now or Were You Ever?
9. Wrestling with Women
10. Theresa Saves My Ass
11. A Cult in the City
12. Odd Jobs, Odd Girls
13. What Happened in Harlem
14. A Salute to the Pioneers
15. From the Bars to Barnard
16. The Closets of Academe
17. The Night We Set on Fire
18. “We Will Be Back!”
19.
WE Are the Gay Liberation Front!
20. Some Private Affairs
21. Fighting on All Fronts
22.
RAT Newspaper—and Some Real Rats
23. Occupying the Porn Factory
24. A Menace Grabs the Mic
25. No Gay Dancing Allowed
26. “You’re on the Wrong Side!”
27. The Radical Radishes
28. My Brief Radio Career
29. Backpack, Mic, and Tampons
30. A Brawl on a Boat
31. Escape from New York
32. Code Blue
33. With Wrench in Hand
34. A Dream of Flying
35. Martha Got Her Guns
36. In Print and on the Road
37. Narrow Escapes
38. A Dream Comes Undone
39. The Debate in Detroit
40. With Max in the Red Beetle
41. Misogyny and Hospitality
42. Badly Behaved House Guests
43. In Exile
Afterword: Discovering Jezebel
Acknowledgments
Notes
