Vincenz, Lilli, Film Director, Cinematographer, Film Editor, Craig L Rodwell, Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and Martha Taylor. The Second Largest Minority. produced by Tucker, Nancy M.Uction Personnel [1968] Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/2024603227/.
This source presents a rare video perspective of ray rights activists in the 1960s and provides a glimpse into the culture of the time period. This resource has many applications in English, social studies, and sociology classrooms, from providing an example of how to produce a text or piece of media to communicate your ideas using multiple perspectives and rhetorical strategies, to examining comparisons between various civil rights movements in the twentieth century. Students can examine how movements used similar strategies and built on each others’ successes and failures to advocate for their rights.
This short documentary clip features a protest in Philadelphia with interviews with some prominent gay rights activists. It highlights some of the discrimination faced by LGBTQIA+ individuals in the twentieth century. The presence of these interviews on video, along with footage of the protest, provide an invaluable resource and view into LGBTQIA+ history.
- Throughout most of the twentieth century, homosexuality was illegal and LGBTQIA+ individuals faced various forms of discrimination.
- Though the Gay Rights Movement is often considered to have started after the Stonewall Riots in 1969, many groups existed and spoke out against discrimination and for LGBTQIA+ rights in the decades before that.
- Activists like Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings (featured in the film), and many others vocally spoke out for gay rights.
- What strategies and rhetorical strategies do activists use to advocate for their rights?
- What are some connections between the Gay Rights Movement and the Civil Rights Movement?
Academic Standards for English Language Arts-Pennsylvania
CC.1.2.8.G - Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using different mediums (e.g. print or digital text, video, multimedia) to present a particular topic or idea.
- Students can discuss the format of this resource as a documentary versus a written interview or still image, examining the differing impact on the reader/viewer and discussing why/how the format is important to the message.
CC.1.2.8.H - Evaluate authors’ argument, reasoning, and specific claims for the soundness of the arguments and the relevance of the evidence.
- Students can identify and evaluate examples of rhetorical devices used in interviews with activists or rewrite weak claims.
- Teachers can have students identify examples of rhetorical devices using this resources from ReadWriteThink.
- Educators can have students caption stills from the video, similar to this activity for the Civil Rights Movement.
- Educators can use this as a highlight as part of a timeline of LGBTQIA+ history, such as this activity from GLSEN. Other primary sources can be used to supplement this timeline or compare events to other prominent historical events during the same time period.
- Those with a moral or religious opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights or those who are against the teaching of LGBTQIA+ history in schools may take issue with this resource, as it advocates for LGBTQIA+ rights and displays the feelings of those facing discrimination in the mid-twentieth century.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- Resources such as those from Kent State can provide some talking points about the importance of learning about this history.
- Photo of Bayard Rustin - Rustin was a colleague of Martin Luther King Jr., during the Civil Rights Movement, provides a highlight into both civil rights and gay rights, as Rustin was gay.
- Interview with Frank Kameny - Details Kameny’s military service to the country while highlighting limitations for LGBTQIA+ individuals.
- NCTE Resources for Pride Month blog post
- NCTE blog post on teaching LGBTQIA+ history in the ELA classroom