Armando Alleyne is a painter, poet and photographer who grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City. Early experiences of homophobia led Alleyne to find the organization Gay Youth, a group of people like him who offered safety and acceptance. With camera in hand, Alleyne documented his participation in post-Stonewall LGBTQ marches as a twenty-year-old Gay Youth member. These photographs, from June 1979 and 1980, recently surfaced from his “magic file cabinet,” offering both a previously unseen aspect of Alleyne’s practice and a history of politicized LGBTQ organizations, leaders, and community in New York City just prior to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Alleyne has noted that these portraits, streets scenes, and landscapes do not depict pride parades, nor what we might associate with them today, but something more akin to a rally—charged, hopeful, and celebratory.

With its riso-printed, staple-bound production inspired by ephemeral queer publications of the era, Our Gay Children is meant to be both a photobook and historical reference supplement (with index included) that documents the struggle of a population who demanded their right to exist and be recognized for the benefit of themselves and future generations. Six of Alleyne’s original poems are interspersed as half-sheet inserts. The book’s title and cover type is sourced from a sign crafted by a rally-attending parent with the message: We Love Our Gay Children Just As They Are. 

This is the first book published under the new imprint Walk-Up Editions dedicated to New York City’s history and culture.

Editorial
Brandon Johnson, Ian Lewandowski,
Stephanie Rebonati-Cannizzo, Sylvia Epstein

Essay, scans and image processing
Ian Lewandowski

Book design
Sylvia Epstein

Numbered Edition of 250
Softcover, 122 pages + 6 half-sheet inserts
Riso interiors by LOOKNYC.CO, New York, NY
Letterpress and riso covers by Quimby’s Ink, Chicago, IL
Hand-bound by Walk-Up Editions
7.5 x 10.25" in | 19 x 26 cm