Beyond Stonewall: The Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier and Gay Liberation

Gay organizing in Buffalo, New York shows Stonewall was not the sole genesis of gay liberation.

Don Licht (left) and Donn Holley at the MSNF “Meeting of the Mayors Protest” (1972). Photo courtesy of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State.

In December of 1969, Buffalo gays and lesbians gathered in the cramped and dimly-lit back room of a gay juice and coffee bar called The Avenue, located in a…