Beacon Press, founded in 1854 and a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, operates as a book publisher in the United States of America. It publishes both fiction and non-fiction, with emphasis on social justice issues, including anti-racism, anti-oppression, and gay/lesbian/gender studies. Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), in full the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in North America, is a liberal religious association of Unitarian Universalist congregations formed by the consolidation in 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America. ... A publisher is a person or entity which engages in the act of publishing. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The term Queer studies refers to scholarly study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity, particulary at the university level. ... Gender studies is a theoretical work in the social sciences or humanities that focuses on issues of sex and gender in language and society, and often addresses related issues including racial and ethnic oppression, postcolonial societies, and globalization. ...

In 1971, it published the "Senator Gravel edition" of The Pentagon Papers for the first time in book form, when no other publisher was willing to risk publishing such controversial material. Robert West, then-president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, approved the decision to publish the Papers, which resulted in two-and-a-half years of harassment and intimidation by the Nixon administration. Maurice Robert Mike Gravel (IPA: ) (born May 13, 1930), is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alaska for two terms, from 1969 to 1981. ... The Pentagon Papers is the colloquial term for United States-Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967: A Study Prepared by the Department of Defense, a 47 volume, 7,000-page, top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States political and military involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945... Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. ...

Other well-known books from Beacon Press have included Race Matters by Cornel West, Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin, and Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly. Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a prominent African-American scholar and public intellectual. ... James Baldwin, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1955 James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an African-American novelist, short story writer, and essayist, known for his novel Go Tell it on the Mountain. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Mary Daly (born October 16, 1928 in Schenectady, New York) is a radical feminist theologian. ...

In 1993 Beacon was voted "Trade Publisher of the Year" by the Literary Market Place. Beacon Press’s offices are located at 41 Mount Vernon Street on Beacon Hill in Boston, Mass.

External links

• www.beacon.org
  • About Beacon Press
  • A Brief History of Beacon Press
• Democracy Now! Special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press: Mike Gravel, Daniel Ellsberg, and Robert West (audio/video and transcript)
• Unitarian Universalist Association