A group of gay residents Monday night presented the Oklahoma City School Board with a collection of homosexual-themed books for high school libraries.
Openly gay teacher Joe Quigley presented copies of 'Lost Prophet: The Life of Bayard Rustin' and 'Stonewall: The Riot that Sparked the Gay Revolution' for display in each of the district's high schools.
Quigley said both books are nonfiction and are age appropriate for high school libraries. The books were presented during the section of the meeting reserved for public comment.
...
Sherry Fair, district spokeswoman, said the school system treats gifts of books the same as books bought with district money. Before books are stocked in libraries, they must have at least one favorable review in a professional library publication and support district curriculum.
From American Historical Review Feb2005 vol. 110 issue 1 p183--about Lost Prophet:
... One learns a great deal about the internal politics of the nonviolent movement without being burdened by page after page of minutia. This is an excellent study of an important black leader.
Also reviews in Blacck Issues Book Review, New York Review of Books, as well as the New Republic and the Nation (among many others).
From Publishers Weekly 5/13/2004 vol. 251, issue 22--about Stonewall:
While the centerpiece here is undoubtedly his hour-by-hour relating of the explosive June 1969 riots, Carter, an editor of Allen Ginsberg's interviews (Spontaneous Mind, 2001), also provides an extended prelude that highlights the places, activists and others who come to play key roles. Carter's beloved Greenwich Village and what he calls its "queer geography," which enabled gay culture to form, flourish and consolidate itself, emerges as an inimitable, finely detailed hero. But for Carter, the most audacious, energetic and enterprising of riot participants were the drag queens, homeless queer youths and other gender transgressors whose position on the farthest margins of society enabled their radical response to oppression. What they and others managed to do, Carter renders with fresh care and enthusiasm, getting new quotes and offering unfamiliar perspectives, such as the Mafia's role both as a patron of the gay scene in New York City (including the Stonewall Inn, which it owned and operated) and as a blackmailer of famous homosexuals. He ends appropriately with the emergence of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activist Alliance, as well as the first gay pride parade, held in June 1970. While it may distract readers interested only in the story of gay liberation, Carter's logistical history of what gay author Edmund White called "our Bastille Day" will become a permanent addition to the great histories of the civil rights era. (June)
As well as additional reviews in Library Journal, Booklist, and the New York Times.
So it looks like OKC Public Schools are getting new books, right?
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