Martin Bauml Duberman (born August 6, 1930) is an American historian, biographer, playwright, and gay rights activist. Duberman is Professor of History Emeritus at Lehman College in the Bronx, 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, and send Martin to the Horace Mann School, 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 university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Activism

In 1968, he signed the " Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. 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 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, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, and Queers for Economic Justice.

Writing

He has written more than 25 books on subjects such as James Russell Lowell (a National Book Award finalist in 1966), Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (Bancroft Prize winner in 1961), Black Mountain College in the book '' Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community'', ''Paul Robeson'', the Stonewall riots, Howard Zinn, and the Haymarket affair, ''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 for Best Off-Broadway Production in 1963. Two of his other plays, ''Visions of Kerouac'' (about writer Jack Kerouac; Little Brown, 1977) and ''Mother Earth'' (about activist

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

; 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 Awards one for ''Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, 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 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 the biography ''Paul Robeson''. Duberman's 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, 2009, Distinguished Writing award, '' The Antioch Review'', 2010. In 2012 Amherst College conferred on him an Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, the Lambda Literary Award for 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 from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in May 2017. In 2024 he received the Harvard Centennial Medal for his "contributions to society." Duberman's novel ''Jews Queers Germans'', was published by Seven Stories Press 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: 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). His 2023 memoir ''Reaching Ninety'' was shortlisted for the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir or Biography.

Selected works

* ''In White America'', 1965 * ''Paul Robeson: A Biography'', 1989 * ''Stonewall'', 1993 * ''Black Mountain: An Exploration in Community'', 1993 * ''Left Out: A Political Journey'', 1999 * ''Haymarket: A Novel'', 2004 * ''The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein'', 2007 * ''Radical Acts: Collected Political Plays'', The New Press, 2008 * ''Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left'', 2012 * ''Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS'', New Press, 2014 * ''Jews Queers Germans'', Seven Stories Press, 2017 * ''Has the Gay Movement Failed?'', 2018 * ''Luminous Traitor: The Just and Daring Life of Roger Casement, a Biographical Novel'', University of California Press, 2018 * ''Naomi Weisstein: Brain Scientist, Rock Band Leader, Feminist Rebel'', Levellers Press, 2020 * ''Andrea Dworkin: The Feminist as Revolutionary'', The New Press, 2020 * ''Reaching Ninety'', Chicago Review Press, 2023

References

External links

Martin B. Duberman papers, 1917–2010
at the New York Public Library
Martin Duberman Collection, 1933–1980
at the State Archives of North Carolina Western Regional Archives {{DEFAULTSORT:Duberman, Martin 1930 births 21st-century American historians American gay writers American male non-fiction writers American people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent American tax resisters Bancroft Prize winners American gender studies academics CUNY Graduate Center faculty Harvard University alumni Historians from New York (state) Historians of LGBTQ topics Historians of the United States Horace Mann School alumni Jewish American historians Lambda Literary Award winners Lehman College faculty Gay Jews Living people Paul Robeson Place of birth missing (living people) Yale College alumni LGBTQ socialism