Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community

Histories of gay and lesbian urban life typically focus on major metropolitan areas like San Francisco and New York, opportunity-filled destinations for LGBTQ migrants from across the country. Yet there are many other queer communities in economically depressed cities with majority Black and Hispanic populations that receive far less attention. Though just a few miles from New York, Newark is one of these cities, and its queer histories have been neglected--until now. Queer Newark charts a history in which working-class people of color are the central actors and in which violence, poverty, and homophobia could never suppress joy, resistance, love, and desire. Drawing from rare archives that range from oral histories to vice squad reports, this collection's authors uncover the sites and people of Newark's queer past in bars, discos, ballrooms, and churches. Exploring the intersections of class, race, gender, and sexuality, they offer fresh perspectives on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, community relations with police, Latinx immigration, and gentrification, while considering how to best tell the rich and complex stories of queer urban life. Queer Newark reveals a new side of New Jersey's largest city while rewriting the history of LGBTQ life in America.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Whitney Strub Chapter 1: Sodom on the Passaic: Excavating Early Queer Histories of Newark, 1870s-1940s Peter Savastano and Timothy Stewart-Winter Chapter 2: The View from Mulberry and Market: Revisiting Newark’s Forgotten Gay and Lesbian Nightlife Anna Lvovsky Oral History excerpt #1: John Chapter 3: Toward a Queer Newark Left: Sexuality and Activism in the New Left and Black Power Eras Whitney Strub Oral History excerpt #2: Yvonne Hernandez Chapter 4: Glitter on Halsey Street: Queer and Trans World-Making in Newark, 1970s-present Kristyn Scorsone Oral History excerpt #3: Angela Raine Chapter 5: Project Fire: AIDS, Erasure, and Black Queer Organizing in Newark Jason Chernesky Chapter 6: Ballroom Interlude The Queer Newark Oral History Project Chapter 7: At Home in the Hood: Black Queer Women Resisting Narratives of Violence and Plotting Life at the G Corner LeiLani Dowell Oral History excerpt #4: June Dowell-Burton Chapter 8: Let’s Talk about Sex, Baby!: Queer Newark Oral Histories, La’Raine Magazine, and the Politics of Sex in the Archive Dominique Rocker Chapter 9: “Temos Muitas Coisas Pra Fazer”: Market Identities and Queer Community Building in the Brazilian Ironbound and Greater Queer Newark Yamil Avivi Oral History excerpt #5: Alicia Heath-Toby Chapter 10: “Newark Police Don’t Do Nothing for Me; They Don’t Protect and Serve”: Policing LGBTQ+ Communities Danielle M. Shields and Carse Ramos Chapter 11: “I’m Walking Here”: Reframing Queer History Through a Walking Tour Mary Rizzo and Christina Strasburger Epilogue: Remembering Sakia, Remembering Ourselves Zenzele Isoke Acknowledgments Notes References Notes on Contributors Index

About the Author :
WHITNEY STRUB is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University–Newark, where he co-directs the Queer Newark Oral History Project. His many books include Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right and Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle over Sexual Expression.

Review :
"The book snuffs out the dominant view of the city, one ethnography and endnote at a time. . . . The whole book is a marvel. . . . Books on queer life outside the largest US cities remain rare, and for Newark and New Jersey they are almost nonexistent. . . . Queer Newark is the first but, one hopes, not the last of its kind. . . . As well as preserving queer stories and scenes that might have gone undocumented, Queer Newark seeks to re-eroticize the hood. While academic queer theory too often neglects the classed dimensions of sexuality, most of the book's chapters explicitly center working-class and queer people of color struggling with the material effects of ghettoization." (n+1) "A rich and varied history. . . . The essays come alive with deeply personal accounts of individual lives across three-quarters of a century. . . . By the time I'd finished reading Queer Newark, I felt that I had not only absorbed some fascinating history but also had formed relationships with many of its key characters." (The Gay & Lesbian Review) "With the stories recorded by the Queer Newark Oral History Project, Brick City now gets its place in queer history." (Jersey's Best) "An eclectic tapestry of scholarship and reflection. . . . The work is a thought-provoking and interesting read, which packs a number of wide-ranging perspectives and history into its manageable 11 chapters. Providing intimate glimpses and provoking abstract philosophical thought, it is well worth the read." (The Newarker) "While it amazes me to be part of any history, I was honored to have been included in the queer history of Newark, New Jersey. Working with the LGBTQ+ community, I had no idea I was helping to create a stronger, more resilient story. Queer Newark documents our journeys, with the end result being this must-read tome." - Gary Paul Wright (founder and executive director of the African American Office of Gay Concerns) "Reading Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community felt like being on a treasure hunt uncovering golden nuggets of queer history that are woven in the everyday life of Newark yet hidden in plain sight. Thanks for bringing the history of the Newark queer community into the light!" - Elder Rev. Janyce Jackson Jones