In a New Century: Essays on Queer History, Politics, and Community Life

Acknowledgments

263 Ac­ knowl­ edg­ ments Al­ though in one sense these es­ says grow out of ­ decades of re­ search, writ­ ing, teach­ ing, and so­ cial jus­ tice ac­ ti­ vism, they are also very much ­ rooted in the ex­ pe­ ri­ ence and re­ la­ tion­ ships of the past ­ decade, dur­ ing which I have lived in Chi­ cago and ­ taught at the Uni­ ver­ sity of Il­ li­ nois at Chi­ cago (UIC). There are many peo­ ple from this ­ stretch of time who de­ serve my ­ thanks. At UIC, I have been ­ blessed with a suc­ ces­ sion of stu­ dent as­ sist­ ants, both grad­ u­ ate and under­ grad­ u­ ate, who have ­ brought great skill and lots of en­ thu­ siasm to their work, ­ thereby fa­ cil­ i­ tat­ ing my re­ search and writ­ ing in more ways than they know. Huge ­ thanks go to Katie Batza, Va­ nessa So­ leil, Lara Kel­ land, Zai­ quiri Blair, Ga­ brielle An­ der­ son, Ste­ phen Seely, Jason Sto­ dolka, Cat Jac­ quet, and Boyd Bel­ linger. For many years, Mary Beth Rose and Linda Vavra have been the team that has made the In­ sti­ tute for the Hu­ man­ ities at UIC a splen­ did place for re­ search, think­ ing, dis­ cus­ sion, and writ­ ing. My two fel­ low­ ship years there, one to work on the ­ Bayard Rus­ tin biog­ ra­ phy and an­ other to work on ­ Chicago’s his­ tory, were ex­ tremely pro­ duc­ tive, in no small part due to them.­ Thanks also go to Tracy Baim, the pub­ lisher and ed­ i­ tor of Windy City Times, for giv­ ing me a com­ mu­ nity plat­ form for my writ­ ing about epi­ sodes in ­ Chicago’s LGBT his­ tory. Mandy ­ Carter’s work with the Na­ tional Black Jus­ tice Co­ ali­ tion, plan­ ning a ton of ­ events ­ around the coun­ try for the bi­ cen­ ten­ nial of ­ Bayard ­ Rustin’s birth, gave me op­ por­ tu­ nities to speak on Rus­ tin and to con­ sider the les­ sons his life of­ fers today. ­ Thanks spe­ cif­i­ cally to Megan Car­ ney and Mar­ tha Lang for the in­ vi­ ta­ tions to de­ liver key­ note Acknowledgments 264 ad­ dresses at con­ fer­ ences on Rus­ tin at UIC and Guil­ ford Col­ lege, re­ spec­ tively. And then, of ­ course, there is Sue Hyde, con­ fer­ ence or­ ga­ nizer ex­ traor­ di­ naire. For al­ most three ­ decades she has been the driv­ ing force be­ hind the Creat­ ing ­ Change Con­ fer­ ence of the Na­ tional Gay and Les­ bian Task Force. In­ vi­ ta­ tions from her to ad­ dress ple­ nary ses­ sions in 2005 and 2009­ pushed me to pull to­ gether my think­ ing about the state of the LGBT move­ ment in the ­ twenty-first cen­ tury. My ­ thanks also go to those ed­ i­ tors who have in­ vited me to con­ trib­ ute to a num­ ber of an­ thol­ o­ gies on his­ tory, so­ cial move­ ments, and LGBT pol­ i­ tics: Jill Aus­ tin, Nan Al­ a­ milla Boyd, Jen­ ni­ fer Brier, Jim Downs, H. N.­ Hirsch, Chris­ to­ pher ­ Phelps, Craig Rim­ mer­ man, Ho­ ra­ cio N. Roque­ Ramírez, and Clyde Wil­ cox. A spe­ cial word of ­ thanks goes to Rich­ ard Schnei­ der, the ­ long-time and amaz­ ing ed­ i­ tor of the Gay and Les­ bian Re­ view World­ wide, who has con­ sis­ tently wel­ comed my con­ tri­ bu­ tions. From the be­ gin­ ning, the Uni­ ver­ sity of Wis­ con­ sin Press has been a pleas­ ure to deal with, and its staff has en­ cour­ aged and fa­ cil­ i­ tated my work on this vol­ ume. I es­ pe­ cially want to thank Ra­ phael Kad­ u­ shin, Mat­ thew Cosby, and ­ Sheila McMa­ hon. Then there are the close ­ friends and com­ rades whose sup­ port, con­ ver­ sa­ tions, in­ tel­ lec­ tual in­ sight, and af­ fec­ tion make it pos­ sible for me to do the work I do: Ruth Ei­ sen­ berg, A. Finn Enke, Nan En­ stad, Es­ telle Freed­ man, Bert Han­ sen, Amber Hol­ li­ baugh, Jon­ a­ than Ned Katz, and Ur­ va­ shi Vaid. Thank you all! Fi­ nally...