Out of the Closet and Onto the Streets

The first comprehensive photo documentation of the Gay Pride movement in New York City from the Stonewall Uprising (28 June 1969) to the present day. The Stonewall riots in NYC in 1969 are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a system that persecuted sexual minorities. They have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. Suzanne Poli, a Brooklyn native, witnessed that Stonewall and has documented the decades of the gay pride parades in New York since 1970. This book showcases Suzanne Polis photographs: more than 120 colour and black and white plates illustrating the gay rights movement, as an artistic, social, and political witness inside New York City and providing unique interpretative angles into a reality that is often misunderstood by the wider community. These images provide an on-the-street insight, exploring the emotional and social topography of a decidedly personal, sexual, social, local, and global phenomenon.