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The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America
On September 23, 1970, a group of antiwar activists staged a robbery at a bank in Massachusetts, during which a police officer was killed. While the three men who participated in the robbery were soon apprehended, two women escaped and became fugitives on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, eventually landing in a lesbian collective in Lexington, Kentucky, during the summer of 1974. In pursuit, the FBI launched a massive dragnet. Five lesbian women and one gay man ended up in jail for refusing to cooperate with federal officials, whom they saw as invading their lives and community. Dubbed the Lexington Six, the group's resistance attracted national attention, inspiring a nationwide movement in other minority communities. Like the iconic Stonewall demonstrations, this gripping story of spirited defiance has special resonance in today's America.
Drawing on transcripts of the judicial hearings, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, hundreds of pages of FBI files released to the author under the Freedom of Information Act, and interviews with many of the participants, Josephine Donovan reconstructs this fascinating, untold story. The Lexington Six is a vital addition to LGBTQ, feminist, and radical American history.
Drawing on transcripts of the judicial hearings, contemporaneous newspaper accounts, hundreds of pages of FBI files released to the author under the Freedom of Information Act, and interviews with many of the participants, Josephine Donovan reconstructs this fascinating, untold story. The Lexington Six is a vital addition to LGBTQ, feminist, and radical American history.
- GenresNonfictionLGBTHistory
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2020
5 people are currently reading
132 people want to read
About the author
Josephine Donovan
39 books20 followersJosephine Donovan is the author of twelve books of nonfiction and the editor of four. A complete list of her publications is available on her web site:
http://english.umaine.edu/people/jose.... Her fields of specialization include animal ethics, feminist criticism and theory, American women’s literature (especially nineteenth-century), and early modern women’s literature. Her work has been translated into seven languages (Japanese, French, Turkish, Swedish, Greek, German, and Chinese).
Her most recent books are: Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story (2022); The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America (2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Aware; and The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animals. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016). Recently published: a second, revised edition of Women and the Rise of the Novel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013) St. Martin’s, 1999; paperback, 2000). It was termed “a work of extraordinary significance” by the Choice reviewer, who wrote, “Donovan has defined the field clearly, forthrightly, often brilliantly. All future discussion of the subject begins here” (October 2000). Also recently published was European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres (Bloomsbury, 2010), a work in comparative literature.
Donovan’s best-known book, Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, first published in 1985, is now in its fourth edition (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) Amazon.com notes, “this book has established itself as the classic survey and analysis of the roots and development of feminist theory.” A selection of other reviews of Donovan’s books may be found on her web site.
Two of her books, Sarah Orne Jewett and Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love have recently been reprinted in revised editions on-line and in “print-on-demand” form by Cybereditions.
Born in Manila in 1941, Donovan was evacuated from the Philippines with her mother a few months before Pearl Harbor. Her father, a Captain in the U. S. Army, remained in the Philippines where he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, remaining a P.O.W. for the duration. His memoirs, edited by his daughter, were recently published as P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II.
She graduated, cum laude, from Bryn Mawr College in 1962 with a major in history, after spending her Junior Year in Europe. After graduation she worked as a Copy Desk clerk at The Washington Post and Time Magazine and as a general assignment reporter on a small newspaper in upstate New York. During this period she completed a course in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967 and 1971, respectively. She has held academic positions at several universities and worked for a time as a Copy Editor for G. K. Hall in Boston. She is Emerita Professor of English at the University of Maine.
http://english.umaine.edu/people/jose.... Her fields of specialization include animal ethics, feminist criticism and theory, American women’s literature (especially nineteenth-century), and early modern women’s literature. Her work has been translated into seven languages (Japanese, French, Turkish, Swedish, Greek, German, and Chinese).
Her most recent books are: Animals, Mind, and Matter: The Inside Story (2022); The Lexington Six: Lesbian and Gay Resistance in 1970s America (2020), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Aware; and The Aesthetics of Care: On the Literary Treatment of Animals. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016). Recently published: a second, revised edition of Women and the Rise of the Novel (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013) St. Martin’s, 1999; paperback, 2000). It was termed “a work of extraordinary significance” by the Choice reviewer, who wrote, “Donovan has defined the field clearly, forthrightly, often brilliantly. All future discussion of the subject begins here” (October 2000). Also recently published was European Local-Color Literature: National Tales, Dorfgeschichten, Romans Champêtres (Bloomsbury, 2010), a work in comparative literature.
Donovan’s best-known book, Feminist Theory: The Intellectual Traditions, first published in 1985, is now in its fourth edition (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012) Amazon.com notes, “this book has established itself as the classic survey and analysis of the roots and development of feminist theory.” A selection of other reviews of Donovan’s books may be found on her web site.
Two of her books, Sarah Orne Jewett and Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Evil, Affliction, and Redemptive Love have recently been reprinted in revised editions on-line and in “print-on-demand” form by Cybereditions.
Born in Manila in 1941, Donovan was evacuated from the Philippines with her mother a few months before Pearl Harbor. Her father, a Captain in the U. S. Army, remained in the Philippines where he was captured by the Japanese in 1942, remaining a P.O.W. for the duration. His memoirs, edited by his daughter, were recently published as P.O.W. in the Pacific: Memoirs of an American Doctor in World War II.
She graduated, cum laude, from Bryn Mawr College in 1962 with a major in history, after spending her Junior Year in Europe. After graduation she worked as a Copy Desk clerk at The Washington Post and Time Magazine and as a general assignment reporter on a small newspaper in upstate New York. During this period she completed a course in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in comparative literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967 and 1971, respectively. She has held academic positions at several universities and worked for a time as a Copy Editor for G. K. Hall in Boston. She is Emerita Professor of English at the University of Maine.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 10, 2021
I learned of this book via a podcast interview with the author on The New Books in History podcast feed. The interview was interesting so I got the book and am so glad that I did. It is a very detailed recounting of five lesbians and one man who were interviewed by the FBI in connection with the on-going investigation into the whereabouts of two fugitives from a bank robbery in Brighton, MA in 1970 during which a police officer was murdered. The six people targeted by the FBI did not have any information about the fugitives (who had lived briefly in Lexington, KY and befriended the six people). The Lexington Six knew the fugitives under their aliases and were later shocked when they learned that the two women they had known were, in fact, wanted for armed robbery and murder. The book documents how the Lexington Six were abused and harassed by the FBI and the judge who presided over the grand jury impaneled to question them. The FBI outed the Lexington Six to their family members and some of them were completely abandoned by their families as a result. Extended family members of Lexington Six member Carey Junkin, who eventually died of AIDS in the 1990s, offered to Carey's father, a retired US Army officer, to shoot and kill Carey if he wanted. (They were KKK members.) The attorney for the Lexington Six had never seen parents abandon their children like this and was convinced that the lack of family support affected the judge in the proceedings. Author Josephine Donovan makes a convincing case that the resistance to abuse by governement officials by the Lexington Six was akin to the resistance shown by patrons of the Stonewall Inn to police harassment and was a critical contributor to the gay liberation movement. Highly recommend this book for anyone interested in LGBTQIA+ history.
June 22, 2022
Love all the references to historical local places in Kentucky! Shines a light on police brutality and homophobia in a way that many Kentuckians will recognize and resonate with. Encourage everyone to give this a look!
July 4, 2024
fuck yeah. my mothers
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews