Unite to Fight
Su Negrin, Inkworks Press
USA, offset lithograph, 1976
Given by Greenwich Mural Workshop
E.152-2011
On display in room 90
This poster promotes a day of solidarity with the gay civil rights movement. The date commemorates the Stonewall riots of 28th June 1969, an event recognised by many as crucial in prompting establishment of a gay liberation movement in the United States.
The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York City. Despite weekly police payoffs, police raids were frequent. Starting in the early morning of 28th June, clientele fought back against the Police who had raided the bar. The Riots are now generally credited with being the first instance in the U.S. that LGBTQ individuals fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities.
The pink star alludes to the pink triangle badges used in Nazi concentration camps to identify men imprisoned for homosexuality. The end of the 1970s saw the pink triangle (often inverted from its Nazi usage) reclaimed as an international symbol of gay pride and liberation –drawing attention to oppression and persecution of LGBTQ people in both the past and present.
Please Note: This poster is currently on display as part of the temporary display A World to Win. Posters of Protest and Revolution which is due to close on Sunday 2nd November 2014.
