It’s June, which means it’s Pride Month in the United States. For some people all that means is that some of your favorite companies now have a rainbow colored logo on social media. However, Pride Month is a time to celebrate the progress the LGBTQ Community has made, and to recognize how much more needs to be done.
There is so much I want to write about for Pride Month that I’m going to break it down, and post a few different entries. This entry is about the history of Pride Month. And in order to tell you about the history, we should start with the Stonewall Riots of 1969.
I heard of the Stonewall Riots before, but I didn’t know much about them, and I didn’t know anything about the Stonewall Inn itself.
In 1966 a few members of the Mafia invested $3500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar. It had been a restaurant and nightclub for “heterosexuals,” but was destroyed in a fire. The newly renovated bar did not have a liquor license, (at the time most gay bars had their liquor license taken away) but worked around that little detail with an envelope of cash, given weekly to an NYPD officer.
Raids on gay bars were not uncommon in the 1960s. During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and the patrons lined up. Police checked identification cards. If you didn’t have your ID card, you were arrested. If you were dressed in full drag, you were arrested. Women were required to wear three pieces feminine clothing, and if not, they were arrested. Usually, employees and management of were arrested.
The raid on the Stonewall Inn on June, 27, 1967, didn’t go as smoothly as other raids. Four undercover officers (two women and two men) entered the bar and got visual evidence earlier in the evening. The Public Morals Squad waited for a signal. On a pay phone inside the Stonewall Inn, the undercover cops called the Sixth Precinct for backup.
As with other raids, the lights went up the music went off. However, the rest of the raid was met with resistance. Men were not giving up their identification cards. Patrons dressed as women were not following female officers into the bathrooms to confirm gender.
Eventually, the police were able to separate the “cross-dressers” from the rest. But the officers decided to take all the patrons to the police station. Officers frisked the people waiting to be taken in. Some officers sexually assaulted women while searching them.
While the police loaded the Inn’s alcohol into patrol wagon, a crowd of 100-150 people formed outside, watching. Some of the bar patrons who were outside started performing for the crowd, mocking the officers. Applause from the crowd encouraged them to continue.
Mafia members were the first people put into the wagon, cheers from the crowd followed them in. Regular employees were loaded in next. A shout of, “Gay Power,” came from the crowd. Someone else started singing, “We Shall Overcome.”
A “transvestite” hit an officer over the head with her purse after being shoved. Coins and bottles were thrown at the wagon. The crowd believed that the customers still inside the bar were being beaten.
The turning point—when the crowd became a mob—seemed to start when an unidentified, handcuffed woman escaped the wagon multiple times. Swearing and shouting for about ten minutes, she hit in the head by an officer’s baton after complaining the handcuffs were too tight. The woman looked at the crowd, and yelled, “Why don’t you guys do anything?”
Trying to restrain the mob, the police knocked down a few bystanders. Some of the people that were handcuffed in the wagon escaped when left unattended. The crowd tried to flip over the police wagon; two cop cars and the police wagon left immediately.
The crowd grew larger. Someone speculated that the bar was raided because they didn’t “pay off the cops.” Another member of the crowd shouted, “Let’s pay them off!” Coins and beer cans were thrown at the officers. The cops lashed out. Some of the crowd dispersed to a nearby construction site. By this time, the police were outnumbered by 500-600 people.
Garbage cans, rocks, bottles, and bricks were thrown at building where ten officers barricaded themselves, as well as some handcuffed detainees. The mob lit garbage on fire, and shoved it through the broken windows of the Inn.
Police inadvertently encouraged the crowd when their attempt to spray them with a fire hose failed due to low water pressure. Rioters broke through the plywood covered windows as the officers inside pulled out their guns. They threatened to shoot when the mob broke open the door. Someone squirted lighter fluid into the bar. Fire trucks arrived as the lighter fluid was being lit.
The riot lasted about 45 minutes. Thirteen people were arrested, a few people in the crowd were hospitalized, and four police officers were injured.
Protests started again the next night, and again a few nights later. Tourists and curious bystanders watched. Many people were shocked by the “sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public.” One witness describes, "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."
Within six months of the riots, two gay activists organizations formed in New York, which focused confrontational tactics. Also, three newspapers were founded to promote gay and lesbian rights. And with a couple years, gay rights organizations were founded across the U.S. and the world.
Three years after the Stonewall Riots, on June 28, 1970, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Now, LGBT Pride events are held in June throughout the world to mark the riots.
On June 23, 2015, Stonewall Inn became a New York City Landmark, the first city landmark that honors an LGBT icon. And on June 24, 2016, President Obama designated the Stonewall National Monument. It became the first national monument for a LGBP Historic Site in the United States.
I know that the word “riot” can invoke a vision of people burning a city down, and vandalizing anything they come across. The rioters are seen as “bad” people. However, when researching the Stonewall Riots, I can’t help but be on the side of the rioters. They gay and lesbian community faced so many obstacles during that time (and even still today). They were being pushed out of the city. People that were openly gay were not allowed in many establishments. The ones they were allowed in were bars. But, like with the Stonewall Inn, police raided these places, took away their liquor licenses. Anything to push them out.
I view the Stonewall Riots as a group of people saying, “Enough. We matter, too.” And they do matter.
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