Jack Nichols
Jack Nichols did not consider himself a leader. According to J. Louis Campbell, “he was, however, comfortable with the term pioneer, because it was a more objective term directly connected to what a person did in a historical context.” And Jack Nichol’s life was nothing, if not historical. In addition to being a journalist (a highlight was his SCREW column entitled “Homosexual Anarchist”), he was an activist. Nichols was co-founder of the Mattachine Society and the editor of the first weekly gay newspaper, with which he was still involved up to his cancer-related death in 2005.
As Campbell illustrates, Nichols began voraciously reading at a young age, taking to memory encyclopedia entries by the age of eight and spending entire days at the Library of Congress by the age of fourteen. He was close with his family, specifically his grandparents, whose reading habits rubbed off on the young boy. Nichols publicly campaigned long before the Stonewall riots of 1969 and would later successfully lobby the American Psychiatric Association to rescind the definition of “homosexuality” as a mental illness.
His every move was affected by music, literature, world events and the people around him; the same influences that would ultimately bring the gay rights movement – and Nichols himself – to the forefront of civil activity.
In this first-rate recollection of the man, Campbell presents Jack Nichols to a privileged generation, one that can barely remember a time in which homosexuality was marginalized to the point of invisibility. The account not only presents the life of the man, but also brings into focus the turbulent time in which Nichols relentlessly fought for the welfare of future generations; this is the biography of a warrior, activist, and founder: a cornerstone of the modern gay rights movement.
This first edition includes a forward by Dr. George Weinberg, friend to Jack Nichols and coiner of the term “homophobia,” a designation he says wouldn’t be here today had it not been for Jack. The biography ends with a beautiful memorial poem written by author Perry Brass, also a friend of the late Nichols. Included is a striking collection of captioned photos that follow particular events during the activist’s life. Essential for anyone interested in the history of the gay rights movement, this seminal work raises the bar in an ever-growing canon of literature on the subject.
My review of Jack Nichols was first published by Edge on October 15, 2007.
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