“Progress can be precarious and must be carefully guarded and maintained” (p. 10). Katherine Rose-Mockry’s observation in the introduction to Liberating Lawrence: Gay Activism in the 1970s at the University of Kansas rings true amid contemporary political attacks on higher education in the United States. Released just before the current onslaught against equity programs accelerated, the volume does not directly address machinations to misrepresent and gut educational initiatives that support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) students. Rather, Rose-Mockry asks readers to consider why a history of gay activism at a prominent Midwest institution in the 1970s is relevant now, fifty years on. The answer is familiar. Understanding battles of the past in their own contexts sharpens one’s ability to gauge how conditions have changed over time, be alert to regression, and shine a light on strategies that might be adapted to present circumstances. More than a well-deserved celebration of significant cultural change driven by the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front (LGLF), Liberating Lawrence equips readers with critical knowledge about a foundational part of the gay rights movement.

Rose-Mockry chronicles the history of the LGLF in six chapters framed by an introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 provides useful context regarding what it was like to be gay in the 1960s as well as context on the countercultural movement in Lawrence and how anti-war activism and civil rights demands met with conflict at the University of Kansas (KU) in 1970. The next four chapters trace a trajectory of the LGLF over its first decade, from early gatherings in June 1970, to multiple efforts to secure status as an official student group at the university, to becoming an established presence on campus by 1980. Rose-Mockry details the goals, guiding principles, challenges, and strategies that characterized each phase she identifies—from initial steps to establish an LGBTQ community through political battles for recognition and inclusion on campus. Chapter 6 sketches a brief overview of how the LGLF transitioned through the next decades, facing increasing hostility and harassment in the 1980s and engaging in a broader multicultural movement in the 1990s. The group changed its name frequently, adopted policy initiatives and programs that were sweeping the nation, and through its advocacy, convinced the university to establish the KU Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity in 2014. Three appendices list key individuals in the book, analyze the KU lesbian feminist community, and contrast the extent of LGLF’s activism on LGBTQ issues to that of other Kansas universities. Building on the work of Beth Bailey, Patrick Dilley, and others, Liberating Lawrence reinforces the notion that, although frequently overlooked in the literature on early LGBTQ activism, the Midwest was a central player in the gay rights movement. The LGLF, in fact, served as a national hub connecting LGBTQ students across the country.

Rose-Mockry builds her case study on a foundation of sixty-seven interviews with former students, faculty, community members, and others involved in the LGLF’s history, triangulated with substantial reference to KU archival material. The interview sources are impressive in terms of their expansive reach as well as the seamless way that Rose-Mockry weaves them into the narrative. A good example surfaces in the first chapter, where she connects student recollections of the stress they experienced in navigating homophobic environments with scholarly references on LGBTQ identity development in hostile circumstances. This chapter is also effective in situating the emergence of the LGLF among the intersecting elements of anti-war activism and student protests against racism on campus. Throughout, Rose-Mockry offers a balanced analysis of the divisions that arose within the LGLF community, and highlights examples of behind-the-scenes support from faculty and administrators alongside the more obvious barriers that university officials threw in the way of LGBTQ students seeking equity. This approach allows one to appreciate the complexities that embody this history.

Liberating Lawrence is a rich compendium detailing the development of one of the first LGBTQ student organizations in the United States. It unfolds, generally, in chronological order, although the titles for chapters 2 and 3 confuse this arrangement a bit. In many ways chapter 4, on the unsuccessful lawsuit to force the university to recognize the LGLF as an official student organization, sits at the center of analysis. It would be helpful to put this KU legal fight in the context of similar lawsuits as they were developing across the country. Aside from a brief paragraph in the introduction, Rose-Mockry does not offer explicit commentary on the historiography of LGBTQ student groups in higher education. More has been published since Brett Beemyn’s 2003 assessment of the state of the field, including a number of articles by Michael Hevel and Timothy Cain on key legal battles waged by LGBTQ student organizations on college campuses. Perhaps more confounding in terms of missed opportunities is the decision to include “The Power of Connections: Lawrence Lesbian Communities in the 1970s” as Appendix B rather than as an integrated part of the main text—or even as the subject of a whole chapter. The placement of this piece seems to run counter to Martha Boyd’s recollection of women fighting against marginalization in the LGBTQ movement: “We’re not the ‘and also participated’” (p. 229). And yet, one has to elect to read Appendix B to find some of the most powerful gender analysis in the book.

Speaking at the fiftieth reunion of the LGLF in 2021 (actually the fifty-first, since the celebration was delayed a year), co-founder Michael Stubbs addressed the “need to embrace the unity that was a hallmark of the early days of GLF in order to fight the antidemocratic forces descending on the world today” (p. 222). In this important volume, Rose-Mockry offers a solid historical account from which readers may distill any number of lessons about persistence, cultivating a broad base of alliances, working within and outside institutional structures, challenging authority fearlessly, and confronting misperceptions by welcoming people into community. Liberating Lawrence deepens our understanding of the twentieth-century gay rights movement, just as the stories it contains enlighten our broader struggles.