Gay and lesbian life in Bloomington in the summer of 1969 responded to the same currents that moved similar communities nationwide. The Stonewall Riots did not result in a sudden break with past, but they did inspire a new wave of activism and new forms of organizing that gradually gathered strength. Within a year of Stonewall, Bloomington had a Gay Liberation Front; over the next decade it experienced many of the same successes and failures that characterized queer experience elsewhere in the United States: a new sense of pride and visibility, the first wave of community-based service organizations, contentious intra-community struggles over sexism and racism, disagreements about politics, and a serious right-wing backlash that overturned some early civil rights victories.