The Role of Public Relations in the Gay Rights Movement, 1950–1969

Abstract

This study examines public relations strategies of the gay and lesbian rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s when most homosexuals remained deeply closeted to avoid the social stigma associated with the same-sex lifestyle. The analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of public relations strategies and focuses on activists who spearheaded these efforts to gain recognition for this social minority. As this study shows, public relations played a vital role in the early stages of the gay rights movement. It concludes that though gay and lesbian activists of the 1950s and 1960 had no formal training in PR, they made a concerted effort to influence public opinion using fundamental public relations strategies more than a decade before the Stonewall riots that marked the beginning of the modern Gay Liberation Movement.

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Notes on contributors

Edward Alwood

EDWARD ALWOOD is a professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. A former CNN correspondent, he received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. As a Fulbright scholar, he taught and conducted research in Bulgaria. He is the author of Straight News: Gays, Lesbians and the News Media (Columbia University Press, 1996) and Dark Days in the Newsroom: McCarthyism Aimed at the Press (Temple University Press, 2008).