Homosexuality in the Heartland: Alternative Print Media from 1970s Kansas City

Abstract

The 1960s and 1970s were full of cultural, political, and social change in the United States in which activism for civil rights became widespread. These decades are remembered as a time when ideas about counterculture permanently changed, a time when African Americans fought for equal recognition, when young Americans who did not want to conform to the ideals of their elders created their own culture, and when average Americans stood up against what they believed was an immoral war. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the Vietnam War, and the Kent State massacre are events often discussed from this period. However, one area of American activism is often overshadowed: the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual (LGBT) community and its fight for equal rights.