Gay history is not being taught in schools to our youth. Some say there is no such thing, and others who do acknowledge gay history treat it as insignificant, unworthy of recording and retelling. It is not the story of one nation, ethnicity or gender, so it remains largely unwritten and unobserved. What we all fail to realize is that Gay History is the story of multiple nations, ethnicities and genders: it is the story of a fight for the basic civil right of people to love who they love. If I don't tell you, no one else may ever attempt it. Fellow queers, this is where you come from. This is your history. Please learn it, and pass it on.
Event: The Stonewall Riots
Date: 6/28/1969
Time: 1:20AM
Address: The Stonewall Inn
51 and 53 Christopher Street,
New York City, NY 10014
Short story:
Police raided a gay bar. The queers lost their shit. This riot started the gay rights movement in the United States. Every June, Gay Pride Month is celebrated in its honor.
Moderate story:
The Stonewall Inn was owned by mafia members, specifically the Genovese Family, specifically to target the gay population. It was the country's largest gay establishment, and was popular with the poorest and most hated members of Greenwich Village: gay men, drag queens, transvestites, transgenders, lesbians and homeless queer youth. Its biggest attraction was the ability to actually dance in the bar: gay bars were not typically permitted to allow dancing. As it had no liquor license, once a week the police would arrive to pick up an envelope of cash as a bribe to let the bar remain open.
The police raids, being fairly common in the 1960's, usually started the same way it did that night: The Public Morals Squad had dispatched 4 undercover, plain clothes policemen and women, who arrived at The Stonewall Inn to get visual evidence of homosexual activity. With around 200 patrons in the bar, they signaled the rest of the Squad outside...4 plain clothes officers, 2 uniformed officers, a detective and an inspector. They turned on the lights, turned off the music, and announced "Police. We're taking the bar."
Police would often beat and harass those being arrested, and would notify the press of their raids so that pictures could be taken for the next morning's paper. Patrons were to be lined up, made to present their identification, and sorted into two groups: those who were definitely being arrested, and those who needed further scrutiny. Individuals dressed like women were to be taken into a bathroom by a female police officer to have their gender verified. Any men dressed as women were immediately arrested. Those identified as lesbians were also immediately arrested, and were fondled by officers as they were being frisked. Those few not being arrested were pushed or kicked out of the bar. The bar's liquor would be seized by the police, loaded into police vehicles and hauled away. Most of the patrons at Stonewall that night had no idea what was happening as the police took over the bar, and though confusion spread, something else was spreading, too.
Trouble began slowly: transvestites and transgendered folks refused to go with the officers to have their genitals inspected. Men in line to be arrested refused to give up their identification. A crowd was gathering outside, and not just of patrons who had been let go by police: passersby and neighbors began collecting to watch the raid. First, the mafia members were loaded; the crowd cheered. Next, the bar employees; the crowd hushed, and someone yelled "Gay Power!" As the patrons began being loaded, the gathering group of spectators got increasingly hostile, singing "We Shall Overcome" and cheering the freed patrons that were mocking the police.
A butch lesbian, bleeding from the head after being hit with a billy club for complaining that her handcuffs were too tight, looked at a gathering crowd in front of the Stonewall Inn. No one knows her name, and no picture of her exists, but her question sparked a fight, turning a crowd into a mob and a spontaneous resistance into a riot.
"Why don't you guys do something?"
A police officer picked her up and threw her into the back of the wagon.
The crowd exploded with anger.
The homeless youth that slept in nearby Christopher Park led the charge, and hundreds of queer people followed. Beer cans, coins and rocks began being thrown; police vehicles had their tires slashed. Fights between citizens and police officers began, culminating in screaming protesters chasing police officers for blocks. Officers barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall Inn for safety, but to no avail. Bricks and garbage cans were used to break windows into the bar; a parking meter was used as a makeshift battering ram. Lighter fluid was poured into a broken window, and a fire was set to smoke the police out. Weapons drawn, police opened the door and took aim; luckily the fire trucks arrived and prevented gun fire. The riot has swelled to nearly 600 people, destroying property and fighting police. As riot police arrived, lines of rioters formed a chorus line, kicking their legs and singing in the face of the helmeted, shielded task force officers. The riot police line clashed violently with the kick line, and the battle raged on. Street fighting ended around 4AM that morning, and began the next day as both sides antagonized each other.
No one can say what combination of events set the whole riot into motion; after all, these people did not really know each other, and did not know about the raid ahead of time. Police raids were common, but this one ended differently than all others before it. Some say it was the oppressive heat of the New York City summer, while others claim it was the particular brutality of the police that night. Some even claim that the gay community's grief over Judy Garland's death just days before the riot was partly to credit. What *is* known is that it went on for days, and began an annual day of remembrance for those who fought against the tide of hate and intolerance that night. The repeated cries from the gay community during that weekend, in New York and across America, to get the "mafia and cops out of gay bars" began a trend of gay establishments being opened and run by members of the gay community. Destroyed by the riot and blackened from fire, The Stonewall Inn was boycotted by local gays in New York for its mafia ties and closed later that same year. Throughout the years, it became home to many different restaurants and other businesses, and was named a National Historic Landmark in 2000. In the late 90's, The Stonewall Inn was purchased and run as a bar until 2006, when it folded under mismanagement. In 2007, it re-opened under new ownership as a gay bar, and has flourished ever since.
Long story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
