A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. J. Michael Grey Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. We didn't want to come on, you know, wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick, you know, and being freaks. Maureen Jordan Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. It was fun to see fags. hide caption. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? 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. Because he was homosexual. Ellen Goosenberg Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. It was done in our little street talk. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. We had been threatened bomb threats. "Don't fire. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Daniel Pine So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. You know, it's just, everybody was there. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. 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. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. 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. A medievalist. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. I really thought that, you know, we did it. John Scagliotti The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. Based on Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. 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. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. 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. But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. Sophie Cabott Black In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Doug Cramer Janice Flood They would bang on the trucks. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. It was a horror story. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. NBC News Archives But we couldn't hold out very long. Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. Creating the First Visual History of Queer Life Before Stonewall Making a landmark documentary about LGBTQ Americans before 1969 meant digging through countless archives to find traces of. Judy Laster Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution Richard Enman (Archival):Present laws give the adult homosexual only the choice of being, to simplify the matter, heterosexual and legal or homosexual and illegal. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. First you gotta get past the door. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. Susana Fernandes Eventually something was bound to blow. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". All the rules were off in the '60s. Do you understand me?". This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. 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. 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. And gay people were standing around outside and the mood on the street was, "They think that they could disperse us last night and keep us from doing what we want to do, being on the street saying I'm gay and I'm proud? And then as you turned into the other room with the jukebox, those were the drag queens around the jukebox. Greg Shea, Legal I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. 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. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) I was proud. Well, it was a nightmare for the lesbian or gay man who was arrested and caught up in this juggernaut, but it was also a nightmare for the lesbians or gay men who lived in the closet. (c) 2011 And they started smashing their heads with clubs. Just let's see if they can. Doing things like that. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. Jerry Hoose:I remember I was in a paddy wagon one time on the way to jail, we were all locked up together on a chain in the paddy wagon and the paddy wagon stopped for a red light or something and one of the queens said "Oh, this is my stop." Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. All I knew about was that I heard that there were people down in Times Square who were gay and that's where I went to. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. But you live with it, you know, you're used to this, after the third time it happened, or, the third time you heard about it, that's the way the world is. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. The ones that came close you could see their faces in rage. And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. I had never seen anything like that. Alexis Charizopolis And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. The Underground Lounge We were thinking about survival. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. We were scared. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. Fred Sargeant Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. 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. And she was quite crazy. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. Mafia house beer? Noah Goldman And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Transcript Enlarge this image 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. But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. We don't know. My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. 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. They were to us. Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. It was an age of experimentation. All rights reserved. I mean they were making some headway. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. Hugh Bush And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. John DiGiacomo Daily News Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. We were winning. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. He said, "Okay, let's go." June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. Martin Boyce:The day after the first riot, when it was all over, and I remember sitting, sun was soon to come, and I was sitting on the stoop, and I was exhausted and I looked at that street, it was dark enough to allow the street lamps to pick up the glitter of all the broken glass, and all the debris, and all the different colored cloth, that was in different places. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. WGBH Educational Foundation It eats you up inside. Not able to do anything. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had been in some gay bars either for a story or gay friends would say, "Oh we're going to go in for a drink there, come on in, are you too uptight to go in?" As kids, we played King Kong. And the police were showing up. The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. Frank Kameny It was right in the center of where we all were. Raymond Castro Like, "Joe, if you fire your gun without me saying your name and the words 'fire,' you will be walking a beat on Staten Island all alone on a lonely beach for the rest of your police career.
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