Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explains how and why the events at the Stonewall Inn in June 1969 acquired tremendous salience to the gay movement while other similar events did not. This paper argues that collective memories can be understood to be historically contingent achievements produced through collective mobilization. In contrast to prior understandings of the production of collective memory, this approach, which draws on social movement theory and theories of events and place, sees collective memory not only as a product of human activity but as a product of collective action.