Craig Rodwell

In June 2019, Rodwell was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

In March 1993, Rodwell sold his bookshop. Rodwell died at St. Vincent's Hospital on June 18, 1993 of stomach cancer at 52.

Rodwell was the recipient of the 1992 Lambda Literary Award for Publisher's Service.

In 1978 Rodwell was one of the creators and organizers of Gay People in Christian Science (GPICS). Rodwell credits Kay Tobin with suggesting the idea for the group. One reason for the creation of the group was that three of its members had been recently excommunicated from the local branch church. In 1980 the group began to demonstrate by leafletting at the church's Annual Meeting in Boston and by 1999, six years after Rodwell's death, the Christian Scientist church no longer barred openly gay or lesbian people from membership.

Rodwell is believed to have created the term heterosexism in January 1971 when he wrote:

Rodwell, already a community organizer for gay rights, was a participant in the Stonewall Riots. Early in the morning of June 28, 1969, Rodwell was on his way home with his partner, Fred Sargeant. As they passed the Stonewall Inn, they discovered a plainclothes police raid underway. As the police began to bring arrestees from the bar to a paddy wagon, Rodwell led a chant, "Gay Power!" The police retreated back into bar and the riot began. Rodwell and Sargeant called the press - The New York Times , the New York Post and the New York Daily News - to report the riot, but only The New York Times covered the story later that day. Later that morning, Rodwell and Sargeant prepared a leaflet denouncing the relationship between the police and the Stonewall's Mafia management. They continued their organizing and leafletting throughout the nights of rioting, distributing 5,000 copies of their "Get the Mafia and Cops Out of Gay Bars" flyer throughout New York City.

In November 1969, Rodwell proposed the first gay pride parade to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations meeting in Philadelphia, along with his partner Fred Sargeant (HYMN vice chairman), Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes. The first march was organized from Rodwell's apartment on Bleecker Street.

In 1968, Rodwell and noted gay rights activist Frank Kameny began to promote a slogan, based on Black is Beautiful, but instead as Gay is Good. Rodwell promoted the slogan in advertising for the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, his publication Hymnal, posting the slogan in the bookshop window, and selling buttons, patches and stickers in his bookshop. The slogan, denoting pride, was an early step toward gay visibility.

When Rodwell opened the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967, Milk dropped by frequently, and after moving to San Francisco Milk expressed his intention to Rodwell of opening a similar store "as a way of getting involved in community work." Milk eventually opened a camera store that also functioned as a community center, much like Rodwell's bookshop had as a community gathering place.

Also in 1967, Rodwell began the group Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhood (HYMN) and began to publish its periodical, HYMNAL. Rodwell conceived of the first yearly gay rights protest, the Annual Reminder picketing of Independence Hall held from 1965–1969; Homophile Youth Movement rallies in 1967, and was present at the Stonewall Riots in 1969. He was active in the Mattachine Society until April 1966 and in several other early homophile rights organizations. At the Mattachine Society, where most members chose pseudonyms to protect themselves from law enforcement surveillance, Rodwell did not. Rodwell was a radical in the generally cautious homophile movement.

On April 21, 1966, Rodwell, along with Mattachine President Dick Leitsch and John Timmons engaged in a demonstration then called a "Sip-In" at Julius, a bar in Greenwich Village, to protest the New York State Liquor Authority rule against the congregation of gays in establishments that served alcohol. Rodwell had at an earlier date been thrown out of Julius for wearing an "Equality for Homosexuals" button. Rodwell and the others argued that the rule furthered bribery and corruption of the police. The resultant publicly led eventually to the end of the SLA rule.

On April 18, 1965, Rodwell led picketing at the United Nations Plaza in New York to protest Cuban detention and placement into workcamps of gays, along with Wicker, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and about 25 others.

In early 1964 Rodwell, a Mattachine Society of New York volunteer and vice president, organized Mattachine Young Adults and was also an early member of Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ECRHO) and the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO).

On September 19, 1964, Rodwell, along with Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, Renee Cafiero, and several others picketed New York's Whitehall Street Induction Center to protest the military's practice of excluding gays from serving and, when discovered serving, dishonorably discharging them.

In 1962, Rodwell had a romantic relationship with Harvey Milk, who went on later to become one of the first openly gay politicians elected to high office. It was Rodwell's first serious relationship. Rodwell's relationship with Milk ended in part due to Milk's conflicted reaction to Rodwell's early activism and his introduction to Milk of "strange new ideas that tied homosexuality to politics, ideas that both repelled and attracted the thirty-two-year-old Milk." Milk believed that Rodwell had been responsible for Milk contracting an STD. After Rodwell's arrest and incarceration when picked up cruising in Washington Square Park, Milk ended their romantic involvement. Shortly after, Rodwell attempted suicide.

After graduating from the Chicago Junior School, Rodwell attended Sullivan High School in Chicago, IL. Rodwell continued studying Christian Science by enrolling in Sunday school at the 16th Church of Christ, Scientist. He later studied ballet in Boston before finally moving to New York City in 1958. It was in New York that he first volunteered for a gay rights organization, The Mattachine Society of New York. Rodwell settled in Greenwich Village in New York after someone, intending to discourage him from going to the area, told him "that's where all the queers are!" He got a job at a popular gay restaurant in Greenwich Village, but later quit and got a clerical job. Although he was active with the Mattachine Society, he eventually became disillusioned with them as he felt they were too conservative and fearful.

Craig L. Rodwell (October 31, 1940 – June 18, 1993) was an American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop on November 24, 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors, and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City pride demonstration. Rodwell is considered by some to be the leading gay rights activist in the early homophile movement of the 1960s.