Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. It was right in the center of where we all were. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. The film brings together voices from over 50 years of the LGBTQ rights movement to explore queer activism before, during and after the Stonewall Riots. WPA Film Library, Thanks to I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. One of the world's oldest and largest gay pride parades became a victory celebration after New York's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Marjorie Duffield Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. ABCNEWS VideoSource Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. They would bang on the trucks. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. It was as if an artist had arranged it, it was beautiful, it was like mica, it was like the streets we fought on were strewn with diamonds. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Marc Aubin Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Martha Shelley To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. Dick Leitsch:Mattachino in Italy were court jesters; the only people in the whole kingdom who could speak truth to the king because they did it with a smile. They were getting more ferocious. Danny Garvin:We were talking about the revolution happening and we were walking up 7th Avenue and I was thinking it was either Black Panthers or the Young Lords were going to start it and we turned the corner from 7th Avenue onto Christopher Street and we saw the paddy wagon pull up there. Richard Enman (Archival):Well, let me say, first of all, what type of laws we are not after, because there has been much to-do that the Society was in favor of the legalization of marriage between homosexuals, and the adoption of children, and such as that, and that is not at all factual at all. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Director . Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films They are taught that no man is born homosexual and many psychiatrists now believe that homosexuality begins to form in the first three years of life. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. You know, it's just, everybody was there. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Urban Stages People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. Doric Wilson:Somebody that I knew that was older than me, his family had him sent off where they go up and damage the frontal part of the brain. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. This was in front of the police. You cut one head off. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of straight America, in terms of the middle class, was recoiling in horror from what was happening all around them at that time, in that summer and the summer before. We were all there. The Stonewall riots inspired gay Americans to fight for their rights. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. Remember everything. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Paul Bosche I'm losing everything that I have. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's LGBT community. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. Barney Karpfinger I was a man. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. So if any one of you, have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual, or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick. Nobody. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. Many of those activists have since died, but Marcus preserved their voices for his book, titled Making Gay History. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. The men's room was under police surveillance. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. Windows started to break. Linton Media In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. You know. As you read, keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is a relatively new term and, while queer people have always existed, the terminology has changed frequently over the years. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. Narrator (Archival):Richard Enman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida, whose goal is to legalize homosexuality between consenting adults, was a reluctant participant in tonight's program. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:But there were little, tiny pin holes in the plywood windows, I'll call them the windows but they were plywood, and we could look out from there and every time I went over and looked out through one of those pin holes where he did, we were shocked at how big the crowd had become. National Archives and Records Administration For the first time the next person stood up. This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. Lauren Noyes. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world. Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. John van Hoesen Doric Wilson His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. That's it. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Danny Garvin:With Waverly Street coming in there, West Fourth coming in there, Seventh Avenue coming in there, Christopher Street coming in there, there was no way to contain us. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. And it's interesting to note how many youngsters we've been seeing in these films. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. Things were just changing. Clever. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. The shop had been threatened, we would get hang-up calls, calls where people would curse at us on the phone, we'd had vandalism, windows broken, streams of profanity. Samual Murkofsky It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. Doug Cramer So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Martin Boyce:It was another great step forward in the story of human rights, that's what it was. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. That this was normal stuff. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." View in iTunes. Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations I hope it was. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. Revealing and, by turns, humorous and horrifying, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotional and political spark of today's gay rights movement - the events that . Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. In a spontaneous show of support and frustration, the citys gay community rioted for three nights in the streets, an event that is considered the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. As kids, we played King Kong. The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn has undergone several transformations in the decades since it was the focal point of a three-day riot in 1969. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? Just let's see if they can. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:So you're outside, and you see like two people walking toward these trucks and you think, "Oh I think I'll go in there," you go in there, there's like a lot of people in there and it's all dark. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." NBC News Archives And then there were all these priests ranting in church about certain places not to go, so you kind of knew where you could go by what you were told not to do. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. Hugh Bush Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. Raymond Castro:So then I got pushed back in, into the Stonewall by these plain clothes cops and they would not let me out, they didn't let anybody out. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. For those kisses. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. And they were gay. We had been threatened bomb threats. Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. Yvonne Ritter:"In drag," quote unquote, the downside was that you could get arrested, you could definitely get arrested if someone clocked you or someone spooked that you were not really what you appeared to be on the outside. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing.

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