Pre-Stonewall gay organizing
Impact of early Black civil rights struggle
By Leslie Feinberg


All five founders of Mattachine had at least some training in Marxism. Harry Hay, as a long-time teacher of the Marxist analysis of the development of society and the science of change, had the most theoretical experience. So rather than merely organizing to form an activist group, historian John D’Emilio points out, “The founders also brought to their planning meetings a concern for ideology that grew out of their leftist politics.”

And, D’Emilio adds, “the worldview of its adherents rested on an analysis of society that saw injustice as rooted in the social structure. Exploitation and oppression came not from simple prejudice or misinformation, but from deeply embedded structural relationships.”