Naff has compiled a series of his award-winning Blade editorials, organized by topic and chronology, to clearly illustrate how these battles for civil rights were achieved. For context, Naff has included new material that connects and frames each topic, making his 20-years of reporting relevant today. Hoping to engage and educate young LGBTQ members, and remind older LGBTQ members, of how and what the community has achieved, Naff’s goal is to help young people actively engage in the war against their civil rights with as much passion and dedication as those that came before them did. Marriage equality, AIDS medical breakthroughs, repealing of DADT, Title VII protections, and societal acceptance all hang by a thread as Republicans savagely and systematically work to reverse these gains.
“It is my hope that this book serves as an important history lesson for young LGBTQ people. They must know their own community’s history because it’s not taught in schools, and they need to see how critical it is for them to become involved in protecting the rights others before them have earned through blood, sweat and tears over the last 20 years. I’m concerned that complacency and ignorance of our history may destroy the world they take for granted,” says Naff. It cannot be overstated the importance of reminding those who lived through the last 20 turbulent years what has been accomplished, and also of educating younger LGBTQ people of how easily it can all be taken away.
Kevin Naff is editor and co-owner of the Washington Blade, the oldest and most acclaimed LGBTQ news publication in the United States, founded in 1969; and is a co-founder and owner of Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia, which publishes the Blade and owns ancillary businesses, including the Los Angeles Blade. He is an award-winning journalist, honored for 10 consecutive years by the Society of Professional Journalists for his editorial writing.
