GAY LIBERATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Small packet of photomechanically-reproduced material, circa 1970, intended to educate students at the University of Minnesota about the "New Homosexual in America and the Gay Movement": "You must be informed because you are ignorant – ignorant of sexuality and human nature. It is time you learned the truth about Homosexuality and realize your ideas about us are based on ignorance, prejudice and fear." The nine pages of material were distributed by an organization called FREE (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression) and aimed at the Young Socialist Alliance on campus. FREE became an officially recognized student organization, founded following the highly publicized firing in March 1969 of Gale Chester Whittington from the States Steamship Company in San Francisco for being an open homosexual, as well as the police shooting in Berkeley of two gay men and subsequent demonstrations. "Since then, we have had literature tables, dances for Gay people, and made numerous appearances on radio and television." Attached to the double-sided message is a photocopied article titled "Homosexual" by Martin Hoffman, an article titled "The Young Homosexual and the Draft" by Michael Cooke, and a reproduction of a newspaper opinion piece titled "A Defense of Homosexuality" printed in the July 22, 1969, Minnesota Daily, by James McCormick, a University of Minnesota graduate student in English. FREE asked its fellow students to re-examine their attitudes: "Treat your gay brothers and sisters as the valuable and dignified human beings they are." In 2021 Noah Barth, public historian, produced a documentary: "FREE You: Minnesota’s Fight for Gay Liberation" about the group. He said that although it disbanded by the mid-1970s, it was deeply influential. The materials are photomechanically reproduced on 8 1/2" x 11" paper in various colors and stapled in the upper lefthand corner. There is some toning to the blank verso of the final page.…