In 1966 – three years before New York’s Stonewall riots – Kansas City was the scene of the first national gathering of gay rights groups. From that meeting arose the city’s first organization devoted to gay and lesbian rights, the Phoenix Society of Individual Freedom. Initial President Drew Shafer was a driving force in the five years that the Society published its own magazine, organized social events, and sent speakers to college campuses and radio shows.

Drawing from newly discovered sources at the Gay and Lesbian Archive of Mid-America (GLAMA), historian Kevin Scharlau examines Kansas City’s instrumental role in fostering gay identity locally and the movement’s growth outside of San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles.

Scharlau is a graduate student in history at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.