The Stonewall Riots would have a long-lasting impact on gay rights in the United States. The Stonewall Reader was originally published 25 years after the riots to document the before, during, and after impacts. This book has been re-issued for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

This book includes first-hand accounts of life before the riots, during, and after the riots. The beginning essays convey the difficulty of being gay before having any rights and how difficult it was to make connections with others. There were no places to meet and no community that would be generally known. Bars could not serve same-sex couples and they were also dissuaded from dancing at the clubs. Certain bars came up with a solution by staying open later and serving the gay clientele, but they would also have to pay off the local police to do so. Stonewall Inn was one of these bars. After too many raids in too short of a time period, the community rioted. The gay community beating back cops sent a message everywhere. They are a force to be reckoned with. This would have a cascading effect demonstrated here in the after Stonewall essays. The creation of Gay bookstores, marching for civil rights, being accepted as a minority population rather than deviants. It was a major breakthrough. The year after the riot began the celebration of the Liberation of Christopher Street. The gay pride celebrations would arrive thereafter with Gay Pride Day, Week, and month. The struggle for rights still persist, but the progress would not have even started without Stonewall.

Essays here include Audre Lorde, Samuel R. Delaney, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Penny Arcade and more.

THE STONEWALL READER is edited by Jason Baumann for The New York Public Library. He indicates that the "purpose of this anthology has been to allow the reader[s] to sort out ... for themselves by reading the memoirs and testimony of the participants and those immediately touched by these historic events." He divides the work into before, during and after the Stonewall uprising so as to describe first some historical context, share the stories of participants, and highlight the activist organizations that developed in the years afterwards. This three-hundred-page book contains firsthand accounts and incredible primary sources, often sourced from The New York Public Library archives. Baumann has taken special care to ensure that a variety of viewpoints is included; he also provides suggestions for websites and books for more research. THE STONEWALL READER received a starred review from Library Journal.

If you only read one book this Pride season (Stonewall 50), let it be the amazing stories, The Stonewall Reader edited by Jason Baumann (NYPL). This is the real deal. Primary source material on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender heroes before, during, and after Stonewall. And each chapter is an essay or a piece of a chapter or interview. So even slow readers like me make progress quickly. We already have this in our library's collection. Must-read.

I cannot express how much I loved this book! I enjoyed the excerpts from writings from members of the LGBT community and learned a lot about the history of the LGBT rights movement. I will definitely be purchasing this book when it is released and recommending it to others. This book is very important and needed!