Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer,

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, and

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , 3 ...

activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Herbert Lehman College in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, New York City.

Early life

Duberman was born into a Jewish family. His father, born in Ukraine, was initially a manual laborer but later founded a successful clothing business that sold uniforms to the government during World War II. His family used the money to move to

Mount Vernon, New York Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, Westchester County, New York (state), New York, United States. It is an inner suburb of New York City, immediately to the north of the Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. As of t ...

and send Martin to the

Horace Mann School , motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails , address = 231 West 246th Street , city = The Bronx , state = New York , zipcode = 10471 , count ...

, an elite private prep school. He would later graduate from

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Activism

In 1968, he signed the "

Writers and Editors War Tax Protest Tax resistance, the practice of refusing to pay taxes that are considered unjust, has probably existed ever since rulers began imposing taxes on their subjects. It has been suggested that tax resistance played a significant role in the collapse of ...

" pledge to refuse tax payments in protest against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. He was jailed, as a member, for a sit-in protest on the floor of the US Senate. His numerous essays on "The Black Struggle," "The Crisis of the Universities," "American Foreign Policy," and "Gender and Sexuality" have been collected in two volumes of his essays: ''The Uncompleted Past'' and ''Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion, 1964–1999''. He came out as a gay man in an essay (December 10, 1972) in ''The New York Times''. A founder and keynote speaker of the Gay Academic Union (1973), he later founded and served as first director (1986–1996) of the

Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies (formerly known as ''Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies'' or ''CLAGS'') was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study ...

at the CUNY Graduate School. In 1997 he edited two volumes, "A Queer World" and "Queer Representations" containing selections from the Center's conferences. He was also a member of the founding boards of the

National Lesbian and Gay Task Force The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy Non-profit organization, non-profit Community organizing, organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known a ...

, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, and Queers for Economic Justice.

Writing

He has written more than 25 books on subjects such as

James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets that ri ...

(a National Book Award finalist in 1966),

Charles Francis Adams, Sr. Charles Francis Adams Sr. (August 18, 1807 – November 21, 1886) was an American historical editor, writer, politician, and diplomat. As United States Minister to the United Kingdom during the American Civil War, Adams was crucial to Union effor ...

(Bancroft Prize winner in 1961),

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...

in the book '' Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community'',

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...

, the

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

Howard Zinn Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian, playwright, philosopher, socialist thinker and World War II veteran. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political scien ...

, and the

Haymarket affair The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square (C ...

, ''The Martin Duberman Reader''-2013 and the memoir ''Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey'', 1991, 2002. His 2007 book ''The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein'' was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize. Duberman's play ''In White America'' won the

Vernon Rice/Drama Desk Award The Drama Desk Award is an annual prize recognizing excellence in New York theatre. First bestowed in 1955 as the Vernon Rice Award, the prize initially honored Off-Broadway productions, as well as Off-off-Broadway, and those in the vicinity. Fol ...

for Best Off-Broadway Production in 1963. Two of his other plays, "Visions of Kerouac" (about writer

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

; Little Brown, 1977) and ''Mother Earth'' (about activist

Emma Goldman Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...

; St. Martins Press, 1991) have received multiple productions. An anthology of his plays, ''Radical Acts: Collected Political Plays'' (The New Press, 2008), includes those mentioned, as well as ''Posing Naked.'' Duberman edited (1994–1997) two series (a total of 14 books), "The Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians," and "Issues in Gay and Lesbian Life." He also won three

Lambda Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

s one for ''Hold Tight Gently:

Michael Callen Michael Callen (April 11, 1955 – December 27, 1993) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, author, and AIDS activist. Callen was diagnosed with AIDS in 1982 and became a pioneer of AIDS activism in New York City, working closely with h ...

Essex Hemphill Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957 – November 4, 1995) was an openly gay American poet and activist. He is known for his contributions to the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1980s, and for openly discussing the topics pertinent to the African-Am ...

, and the Battlefield of AIDS'' in 2015, and two for ''Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past'', an anthology he co-edited; a special award from the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

for his "contributions to literature", 1988 winner of the Manhattan Borough President's Gold Medal in Literature, 1989 winner of the NYPL's George Freedley Memorial Award for "best book of the year" for "Paul Robeson". His numerous other awards include the 1995 Public Service Award from the Association of Lesbian and Gay Lawyers, the 1996 Public Service Award from the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists, the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Historical Association, the Founding Father award, HGLC, the 2008 Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement in Non-Fiction,

Bill Whitehead Award The Bill Whitehead Award is an annual literary award, presented by Publishing Triangle to honour lifetime achievement by writers within the LGBT community. First presented in 1989, the award was named in honour of Bill Whitehead, an editor with ...

, 2009, Disting. Writing award, ''

The Antioch Review ''The Antioch Review'' is an American literary magazine established in 1941 at Antioch College in Ohio. The magazine was published on a quarterly basis. One of the oldest continuously published literary magazines in the United States prior to it b ...

'', 2010. In 2012 Amherst College conferred on him an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, the Lambda Literary Award for Best Book of LGBTQ Nonfiction for ''Hold Tight Gently'', 2014, the American Library Association's Stonewall Honor Book for Non-Fiction, 2015. Duberman received an honorary

Doctor of Letters Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, May, 2017. Duberman's novel, ''Jews Queers Germans'', was published by

Seven Stories Press Seven Stories Press is an independent American publishing company. Based in New York City, the company was founded by Dan Simon in 1995, after establishing Four Walls Eight Windows in 1984 as an imprint at Writers and Readers, and then incorpora ...

in March, 2017. His most recent novel, ''Luminous Traitor: The Just and Daring Life of Roger Casement, a Biographical Novel'', was published by the University of California Press in November 2018. His two most recent books are: ''

Naomi Weisstein Naomi Weisstein (October 16, 1939 – March 26, 2015) was an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, author and professor of psychology. Weisstein's main area of work was based in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience. She consider ...

: Brain Scientist, Rock Band Leader, Feminist Rebel'' (Levellers Press, 2020), a collection of essays edited by Duberman, and the critical biography ''Andrea Dworkin: The Feminist as Revolutionary'' (The New Press, 2020).

References

External links

Martin B. Duberman papers, 1917–2010
at the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

Martin Duberman Collection, 1933–1980
at the State Archives of North Carolina Western Regional Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Duberman, Martin 21st-century American historians Historians of the United States Historians of LGBT topics Gender studies academics LGBT Jews Jewish American historians American male non-fiction writers American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American tax resisters Place of birth missing (living people) 1930 births Living people American gay writers Horace Mann School alumni Graduate Center, CUNY faculty Paul Robeson Lehman College faculty Lambda Literary Award winners Bancroft Prize winners Historians from New York (state) Harvard University alumni Yale College alumni

Early life

Activism

Writing

See also

References

External links