Suzanne Poli 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. If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Seymour Wishman That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications Trevor, Post Production I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. Hugh Bush They were to us. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. Before Stonewall streaming: where to watch online? - JustWatch Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. And it was fantastic. Marjorie Duffield 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. Because if they weren't there fast, I was worried that there was something going on that I didn't know about and they weren't gonna come. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. They didn't know what they were walking into. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. I mean they were making some headway. John O'Brien:And deep down I believed because I was gay and couldn't speak out for my rights, was probably one of the reasons that I was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. He said, "Okay, let's go." BBC Worldwide Americas Stonewall: A riot that changed millions of lives - BBC News People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, and Shirley Willer, president of the Daughters of Bilitis, spoke to Marcus about being gay before the Stonewall riots happened and what motivated people who were involved in the movement. And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. Sophie Cabott Black Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. And then they send them out in the street and of course they did make arrests, because you know, there's all these guys who cruise around looking for drag queens. But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. 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. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. So it was a perfect storm for the police. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. Nobody. And this went on for hours. Linton Media And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. They were getting more ferocious. And they were gay. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. Dana Gaiser Janice Flood Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. 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. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. Chris Mara Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. Before Stonewall. Never, never, never. People could take shots at us. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. 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. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. The Underground Lounge The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. Judy Laster People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. 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. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. 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?" Alexis Charizopolis As kids, we played King Kong. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Revealing and. We were going to propose something that all groups could participate in and what we ended up producing was what's now known as the gay pride march. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. Doing things like that. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. 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. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. Martha Shelley Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. I mean does anyone know what that is? This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. 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. 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. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". There are a lot of kids here. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. Pamela Gaudiano Raymond Castro Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. Dick Leitsch:So it was mostly goofing really, basically goofing on them. John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. In the Life Judith Kuchar We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. But as we were going up 6th Avenue, it kept growing. Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. In the trucks or around the trucks. The cops were barricaded inside. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. 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. Maureen Jordan Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. 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. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. 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. 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. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. Noah Goldman A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. Martha Shelley:When I was growing up in the '50s, I was supposed to get married to some guy, produce, you know, the usual 2.3 children, and I could look at a guy and say, "Well, objectively he's good looking," but I didn't feel anything, just didn't make any sense to me. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". The award winning film Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. LGBTQ+ History Before Stonewall | Stacker But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. 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. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. Yvonne Ritter:I did try to get out of the bar and I thought that there might be a way out through one of the bathrooms. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. 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. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." 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. 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. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Even non-gay people. I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. 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. Doug Cramer Historic Films Katrina Heilbroner Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. Revisiting 'Before Stonewall' Film for the 50th Anniversary | Time And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. Liz Davis Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. The ones that came close you could see their faces in rage. Dan Bodner William Eskridge, Professor of Law:At the peak, as many as 500 people per year were arrested for the crime against nature, and between 3- and 5,000 people per year arrested for various solicitation or loitering crimes. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." They frequent their own clubs, and bars and coffee houses, where they can escape the disapproving eye of the society that they call straight. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. Mafia house beer? I mean I'm talking like sardines. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. We were all there. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. You know, it's just, everybody was there. It won the Best Film Award at the Houston International Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at Filmex, First Place at the National Educational Film Festival, and Honorable Mention at the Global Village Documentary Festival. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. We were thinking about survival. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. And it just seemed like, fantastic because the background was this industrial, becoming an industrial ruin, it was a masculine setting, it was a whole world. Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Raymond Castro:We were in the back of the room, and the lights went on, so everybody stopped what they were doing, because now the police started coming in, raiding the bar. And the cops got that. Leroy S. Mobley Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. That was scary, very scary. Virginia Apuzzo:What we felt in isolation was a growing sense of outrage and fury particularly because we looked around and saw so many avenues of rebellion. 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. So I got into the subway, and on the car was somebody I recognized and he said, "I've never been so scared in my life," and I said, "Well, please let there be more than ten of us, just please let there be more than ten of us. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. 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. A sickness of the mind. Over a short period of time, he will be unable to get sexually aroused to the pictures, and hopefully, he will be unable to get sexually aroused inside, in other settings as well. For those kisses. But the . You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. This is every year in New York City. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. I'm losing everything that I have. For the first time, we weren't letting ourselves be carted off to jails, gay people were actually fighting back just the way people in the peace movement fought back. Dana Kirchoff Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. View in iTunes. Ellen Goosenberg 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. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. It was an age of experimentation. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Diana Davies Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. Director . The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? Just let's see if they can. "We're not going.". And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:If someone was dressed as a woman, you had to have a female police officer go in with her. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. Alexis Charizopolis Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:The Stonewall, they didn't have a liquor license and they were raided by the cops regularly and there were pay-offs to the cops, it was awful. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. 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." For the first time the next person stood up. It was done in our little street talk. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Before Stonewall | Apple TV They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Available via license: Content may be subject to . Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' That's more an uprising than a riot. Martin Boyce I was proud. We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. I had never seen anything like that. This was in front of the police. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives Quentin Heilbroner Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. Not able to do anything. One never knows when the homosexual is about. The Stonewall riots inspired gay Americans to fight for their rights. Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary "Before They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. It was right in the center of where we all were. Things were just changing. Joe DeCola Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. Where did you buy it? And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. Before Stonewall (1984) - full transcript New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. 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. 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. Doric Wilson Frank Simon's documentary follows the drag contestants of 1967's Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, capturing plenty of on- and offstage drama along the way. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park.

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