Tom Brokaw's latest book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, claims to offer "an epic portrait of another defining era in American history" that examines "how individual lives and the national mindset were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today."

But gay activists quickly noted that gay history was sparse in the book's account of the 60's. Events like the Stonewall riots and the work of gay civil rights groups like The Council on Religion and the Homosexual and The Mattachine Society are absent from the book, which loosely defines the Sixties as 1963-1974.

Those omissions prompted gay activist Frank Kameny (who, as a co-founder of the Mattachine Society, was a part of many of the events that Brokaw skips) to write an open letter to Brokaw about the portion of the era that Brokaw misses. Kameny writes: 

The Sixties were a period of unprecedented rapid social and cultural upheaval and change. We gays were very much a part of all that. A reader of your book would never have the slightest notion of any of that. In your book, no boom; only your silence. 

At the start of the Sixties gays were completely invisible. By the end, and especially after Stonewall, we were seen everywhere: in entertainment, education, religion, politics, business, elsewhere and everywhere. In BOOM our invisibility remains total. 

The only allusions to us, in your entire book are the most shallow, superficial, brief references in connection with sundry heterosexuals. Where are the gay spokespeople? We are certainly there to speak for ourselves. But in your book, only silence.

Brokaw has yet to officially respond to Kameny, but Radar magazine notes that the former NBC News anchor discussed his exclusion of gays on CNN's Reliable Sources, where Brokaw claimed that gay equality didn't become a movement until the Seventies.

That's certainly an odd excuse, since the Sixties include several milestones in gay history that continue to affect us to this day. However, if Brokaw's history of the Sixties includes events from as far as 1974, his claim that LGBT advances came after the period he chronicled seems even more disingenuous.

After all, in 1974 a major event turning point for gays happened when the American Psychiatric Association officially changed its view of homosexuality as a mental disorder (a victory that happened, Kameny notes in his letter, because of efforts started in the Sixties). And Stonewall, widely held to have kickstarted the gay rights movement in this country, happened in 1969 (clearly in the sixties, no matter how loosely you choose to define them).

In the end, it sounds like Brokaw's book fails to fully tell the story it promises.

A group of LGBT activists (including Scott Hall, Frank Kameny, US Representative Barney Frank and Amazing Race winner Chip Arndt) are working towards the creation of a memorial to victims of anti-gay hate crimes. The effort, Gay American Heroes, aims to "honor and remember LGBT victims of hate crimes" while also seeking to increase awareness about violent crimes against LGBT people. The exhibit will show pictures of hate crime victims, along with their names and stories, on a 100 foot long display of rainbow colored panels. Included will be the recently murdered Michael Sandy pictured here.

The exhibit is meant to travel and be displayed in college campuses, gay pride events and other communities. It will include interactive elements including an "Adopt-A-Hero" program that will send a card to friends and family of the Hero, letting them know that their loved one has not been forgotten. Visitors will also be able to submit the name of a friend, family member or lover who was lost to a hate crime or print out information about one of the exhibit's Heroes to take home.

More information about the project can be found at the Foundation's website. The exhibit hopes to be completed in December.

The power of an exhibit like this is that it makes people see hate crime victims as people, rather than statistics. By hearing stories of the Heroes, strained claims that adding LGBT people to hate crime protections will stifle the free speech of anti-gay activists lose their power. I'm reminded of Lavender Liberal's video tribute to Hate Crime victims, which made it hard not to see the tragedy of all these lives interrupted by intolerance, a powerful message.

Meanwhile, a similar effort is being spearheaded by Pam's House Blend contributor TerranceDC. He is writing Wikipedia entries on hate crime victims, to make sure those stories are easily found and can be referenced in debating hate crime legislation. As always, humanizing the issue and showing that it has happened to people they could imagine knowing and loving is a very potent argument.

Thanks to Towleroad.com for the head's up.