of American Historians and director of the OutHistory website. His books include City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves, Sexual Injustice, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement, The Stonewall Riots, and Queer Public History.
Stein applied the “Page 99 Test” to his latest book, Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s, and reported the following:
Page 99 comes near the beginning of my fourth chapter, which is titled “Ford to Bicentennial City: Drop Dead” (a play on the famous newspaper headline addressing New York City’s potential bankruptcy). It’s August 1974 and Gerald Ford, our only non-elected U.S. president, has just replaced Richard Nixon. There’s some analysis of Ford’s first speeches as president, but my focus is primarily on what the presidential transition meant for the upcoming bicentennial. My first chapter had considered the “queer courtship” of Nixon (a Republican) and Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo (a Democrat), with Nixon receiving a valuable cross-party endorsement in his 1972 re-election campaign and Rizzo receiving presidential promises of generous federal funding for Philadelphia’s commemoration of the bicentennial. By 1974, that funding had not yet materialized, and so on page 99 I write: “Nixon’s replacement by Ford had extraordinary significance for the United States, but for Philadelphians, there were distinct implications for the bicentennial. On the one hand, Ford’s call for national reconciliation and his likely need for Pennsylvania’s votes in 1976 suggested that he might provide generous support for Philadelphia. On the other hand, his calls for reductions in government spending, his opposition to tax increases for the wealthy, and his objections to federal aid for cities hinted that he might not honor the Nixon administration’s promises.”Learn more about Bicentennial at the University of Chicago Press website.
The Page 99 Test works and doesn’t work for my book. It works insofar as Bicentennial tells the story of the “official bicentennial” and does so with attention to relationships between U.S. presidents and Philadelphia mayors, situated in larger narratives of partisan realignment and the rise of the New Right in the 1970s. Page 99 considers a moment in that story. The test doesn’t work insofar as Bicentennial also addresses counter-bicentennial activism, as expressed by African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, women, and LGBTQ+ people and by coalitional groups such as the Peoples Bicentennial Commission and the July Fourth Coalition. One of the book’s main arguments is that the bicentennial was a key moment in the history of democracy. While bicentennial planners attempted to control the commemoration narrative, they were powerfully challenged by movements representing ethnic, indigenous, racial, and religious minorities; women; and LGBTQ people, many of whom came together in a series of counter-bicentennial protests. The largest of these, organized by the People’s Bicentennial Commission and the July Fourth Coalition, were supported by broad-based and multi-issue coalitions, belying the notion that the left collapsed and divided in the 1970s. Bicentennial follows their lead, presenting “a democratic history of a democratic bicentennial.” Counter-bicentennial activism, which took multiple shapes and forms, changed the way that we think about U.S. history and politics.
The bicentennial prompted an extraordinary set of national conversations about the history and politics of the United States. After Watergate and Vietnam, and in the midst of economic and energy crises, how could the United States celebrate national greatness? How could a nation with colonial attitudes and possessions celebrate the 200th birthday of its anti-colonial revolution? Should Native Americans participate in the commemoration of a national revolution that damaged and destroyed indigenous nations? What about the many Americans whose ancestors never consented to be governed by the United States and those consistently denied the freedom, liberty, equality, and justice promised by the Declaration of Independence? Would LGBTQ+ people, newly organized and mobilized in the 1970s, be invited to the national birthday party, and if not, would they try to crash the festivities?
Some of my favorite parts of the book address Roots, Rocky, Bicentennial Minutes, “Philadelphia Freedom,” and other examples of popular culture during the bicentennial. I also love the many examples of bicentennial humor, with countless references to the “buy-centennial” and the “sell-ebration.” But I think I’m most pleased with the extensive discussions of counter-bicentennial activism. This includes dramatic protests led by African Americans, beginning in the late 1960s; the media-savvy actions of the People’s Bicentennial Commission; the Native American Trail of Self-Determination, which followed the Wagon Trail Pilgrimage as it traveled across the country; the fiery fierceness of Philadelphia’s Chinatown-based Dragon Club; and Dykes for an American Revolution protests in support of the Lesbian Feminist Declaration of Independence. The largest protest was organized by the Puerto-Rican led July Fourth Coalition (J4C), which staged Independence Day marches and rallies in multiple cities, including a particularly large one in Philadelphia. J4C brought together liberals and leftists who were determined to challenge the official bicentennial. I find what they did profoundly inspirational, and completely at odds with common narratives of collapse, division, and fragmentation on the U.S. left in the 1970s. And while it’s common to think about the bicentennial with the wisdom of hindsight—and the knowledge that the Reagan Revolution was just a few years away--counter-bicentennial activism played a role in the country’s decision in 1976 to elect Jimmy Carter as U.S. president and declare (temporary) independence from the party of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
--Marshal Zeringue
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