But I'm wearing this police thing I'm thinking well if they break through I better take it off really quickly but they're gunna come this way and we're going to be backing up and -- who knows what'll happen. National Archives and Records Administration 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. A medievalist. I was a homosexual. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. So it was a perfect storm for the police. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. 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. Ellen Goosenberg I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. For those kisses. Yvonne Ritter:It's like people who are, you know, black people who are used to being mistreated, and going to the back of the bus and I guess this was sort of our going to the back of the bus. They could be judges, lawyers. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. I mean it didn't stop after that. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. 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. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Cause I was from the streets. 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. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. First you gotta get past the door. Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. But we couldn't hold out very long. 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. Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. Alexis Charizopolis Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films Martha Babcock Giles Kotcher And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. "We're not going.". 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. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. 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. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. 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. People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." 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. 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. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. They can be anywhere. Danny Garvin:We became a people. It's like, this is not right. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? Just making their lives miserable for once. Lilli M. Vincenz Scott McPartland/Getty Images 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. Sophie Cabott Black 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. Lauren Noyes. Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. We were all there. Dana Gaiser And she was quite crazy. 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. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. I had never seen anything like that. Raymond Castro This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. 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. Things were just changing. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Glenn Fukushima It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. This is every year in New York City. Mafia house beer? And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. I'm losing everything that I have. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. 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. Alexis Charizopolis The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Greg Shea, Legal We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Liz Davis Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. 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. 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. 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. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. But as we were going up 6th Avenue, it kept growing. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. I guess they're deviates. Nobody. 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." Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. There are a lot of kids here. Joe DeCola The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. 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. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? 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 gay community. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. We had been threatened bomb threats. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. 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. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. Danny Garvin Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. Katrina Heilbroner Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. The New York State Liquor Authority refused to issue liquor licenses to many gay bars, and several popular establishments had licenses suspended or revoked for "indecent conduct.". It was as if they were identifying a thing. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. 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. It was right in the center of where we all were. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. 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. 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. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. 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. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. Beginning of our night out started early. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. Don't fire until I fire. I said, "I can go in with you?" They were the storm troopers. And we had no right to such. Martin Boyce William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. Jay Fialkov Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. It was like a reward. And I had become very radicalized in that time. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. Jorge Garcia-Spitz Linton Media Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. 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. It was fun to see fags. 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 mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE They were to us. Urban Stages Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors 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. They would bang on the trucks. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. Dan Martino They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. 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. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. 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. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. The idea was to be there first. 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. 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. MacDonald & Associates Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors 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. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. The Underground Lounge A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. Doug Cramer So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. He said, "Okay, let's go." The Catholic Church, be damned to hell.
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