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Primary Source: Gay and Proud film/video

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Primary Source: Gay and Proud film/video

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This short film was taken on the one year anniversary of Stonewall during the Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade. This film displays the unity of diverse LGBTQ+ members marching the streets with posters and some short answers from members who were questioned by reporters.

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About this Item

Title

Gay and Proud

Contributor Names

Vincenz, Lilli

Created / Published

1970

Subject Headings

- Documentary films

Genre

Documentary films

Notes

- Summary: Footage of one of the earliest Gay Pride demonstration marches, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City, New York, on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

- Credits: Photography and editing, Clifton R. Witt, Lilli M. Vincenz.

Medium

Film, Video

Call Number/Physical Location

Mavis identifier: 1991430

Source Collection

Lilli M. Vincenz Collection

Repository

Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division

Online Format

image

video

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Credit Line: Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division.

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Chicago citation style:

Vincenz, Lilli. Gay and Proud. 1970. Video. https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs01991430/.

APA citation style:

Vincenz, L. (1970) Gay and Proud. [Video] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs01991430/.

MLA citation style:

Vincenz, Lilli. Gay and Proud. 1970. Video. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/mbrs01991430/>.

More Films, Videos like this

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Title Gay and Proud Contributor Names Vincenz, Lilli Created / Published 1970 Subject Headings - Documentary films Genre Documentary films Notes - Summary: Footage of one of the earliest Gay Pride demonstration marches, the first Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, held in New York City, New York, on June 28, 1970, to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

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Primary Source: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson in the 1973 LGBTQ+ rally in New York

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Primary Source: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson in the 1973 LGBTQ+ rally in New York

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This photo is of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson during the 1973 LGBTQ+ rights rally in New York. This photograph depicts their partnership that they had together, as we know they both fought for transgender rights after Stonewall.

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This source provides a set of multiple police records that took place on June 28,1969 during the Stonewall Riots. Among the set is a couple of police reports on a couple men and women who were arrested at Stonewall, as well as a report of an “unusual occurrence.”

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Arrest Reports From the 1969 Stonewall Uprising

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A set of police records gathered by OutHistory.org, a Web site run by the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center. The records concern the start of the Stonewall uprising in the early morning of June 28, 1969.

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Primary Source: An article written by journalist Howard Smith who was present during the Stonewall Riots and barricaded in the Inn with police

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Primary Source: An article written by journalist Howard Smith who was present during the Stonewall Riots and barricaded in the Inn with police

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This source contains an article that was written for a local newspaper in New York by a journalist who was present and emerged in the Stonewall Riots. He experienced the riot by being barricaded in Stonewall with police as he took notes on the events that were occurring inside and outside the walls.

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Update, June 26, 2015:

This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex marriage ( read the full ruling and early reactions here). In a statement, New York mayor Bill de Blasio credited the Stonewall Inn for starting the LGBT rights movement:

"Today, this country is richer - filled with more equality, more acceptance, and more love than yesterday," de Blasio said. "And for the people of this city, where the movement for LGBT rights began in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, we can be proud that we helped blaze the trail to this great victory."

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper also announced today that his show, AC 360, would broadcast at 8 p.m. tonight outside the Stonewall.

* * *

Update, June 23, 2015:

Today, the Stonewall Inn was granted landmark status after a unanimous vote by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

* * *

Original story, June 27, 2014:

Saturday, June 28, 2014, marks the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. To mark the occasion, we've excavated "Full Moon Over the Stonewall," Voice columnist Howard Smith's account of the night he spent on "the wrong side of the blue line," barricaded inside the Stonewall Inn with police.

Smith, who dutifully cataloged the city's cultural flotsam in his "Scenes" column starting in 1966 and continuing through 1983, passed away on May 1 of this year at the age of 77.

During the "gay power" riots at the Stonewall last Friday night I found myself on what seemed to me the wrong side of the blue line. Very scary. Very enlightening.

I had struck up a spontaneous relationship with Deputy Inspector Pine, who had marshalled the raid, and was following him closely, listening to all the little dialogues and plans and police inflections. Things were already pretty tense: the gay customers freshly ejected from their hangout, prancing high and jubilant in the street, had been joined by quantities of Friday night tourists hawking around for Village-type excitement. The cops had considerable trouble arresting the few people they wanted to take in for further questioning. A strange mood was in the crowd - I noticed the full moon. Loud defiances mixed with skittish hilarity made for a more dangerous stage of protest; they were feeling their impunity. This kind of crowd freaks easily.

The turning point came when the police had difficulty keeping a dyke in a patrol car. Three times she slid out and tried to walk away. The last time a cop bodily heaved her in. The crowd shrieked, "Police brutality!" "Pigs!" A few coins sailed through the air. I covered my face. Pine ordered the three cars and paddy wagon to leave with the prisoners before the crowd became more of a mob. "Hurry back," he added, realizing he and his force of eight detectives, two of them women, would be easily overwhelmed if the temper broker. "Just drop them at the Sixth Precinct and hurry back."

The sirened caravan pushed through the gauntlet, pummeled and buffeted until it managed to escape. "Pigs!" "Gaggot cops!" Pennies and dimes flew. I stood against the door. The detectives held at most a 10-foot clearing. Escalate to nickels and quarters. A bottle. Another bottle. Pine says, "Let's get inside. Lock ourselves inside, it's safer."

"You want to come in?" he asks me. "You're probably safer," with a paternal tone. Two flashes: if they go in and I stay out, will the mob know that the blue plastic thing hanging from my shirt is a press card, or by now will they assume I'm a cop too? On the other hand, it might be interesting to be locked in with a few cops, just rapping and reviewing how they work.

In goes me. We bolt the heavy door. The front of the Stonewall is mostly brick except for the windows, which are boarded within by plywood. Inside we hear the shattering of windows, followed by what we imagine to be bricks pounding on the door, voices yelling. The floor shudders at each blow. "Aren't you guys scared?" I say.

"No." But they look at least uneasy.

The door crashes open, beer cans and bottles hurl in. Pine and his troop rush to shut it. At that point the only uniformed cop among them gets hit with something under his eye. He hollers, and his hand comes away scarlet. It looks a lot more serious than it really is. They are all suddenly furious. Three run out in front to see if they can scare the mob from the door. A hail of coins. A beer can glances off Deputy Inspector Smyth's head.

Pine, a man of about 40 and smallish build, gathers himself, leaps out into the melee, and grabs someone around the waist, pulling him downward and back into the doorway. They fall. Pine regains hold and drags the elected protester inside by the hair. The door slams again. Angry cops converge on the guy, releasing their anger on this sample from the mob. Pine is saying, "I saw him throwing somethin," and the guy unfortunately is giving some sass, snidely admits to throwing "only a few coins." The cop who was cut is incensed, yells something like, "So you're the one who hit me!" And while the other cops help, he slaps the prisoner five or six times very hard and finishes with a punch to the mouth. They handcuff the guy as he almost passes out. "All right," Pine announces, "we book him for assault." The door is smashed open again. More objects are thrown in. The detectives locate a fire hose, the idea being to ward off the madding crowd until reinforcements arrive. They can't see where to aim it, wedging the hose in a crack in the door. It sends out a weak stream. We all start to slip on water and Pine says to stop.

By now the mind's eye has forgotten the character of the mob; the sound filtering in doesn't suggest dancing faggots any more. It sounds like a powerful rage bent on vendetta. That way why Pine's singling out the guy I knew later to be Dan Van Ronk was important. The little force of detectives was beginning to feel fear, and Pine's action clinched their morale again.

A door over to the side almost gives. One cop shouts, "Get away from there or I'll shoot!" It stops shaking. The front door is completely open. One of the big plywood windows gives, and it seems inevitable that the mob will pour in. A kind of tribal adrenaline rush bolsters all of us; they all take out and check pistols. I see both policewomen busy doing the same, and the danger becomes even more real. I find a big wrench behind the bar, jam it into my belt like a scimitar. Hindsight: my fear on the verge of being trampled by a mob fills the same dimension as my fear on the verge of being clubbed by the TPF.

Pine places a few men on each side of the corridor leading away from the entrance. They aim unwavering at the door. One detective arms himself in addition with a sawed-off baseball bat he has found. I hear, "We'll shoot the first motherfucker that comes through the door."

Pine glances over toward me. "Are you all right, Howard?" I can't believe what I'm saying: "I'd feel a lot better with a gun."

I can only see the arm at the window. It squirts a liquid into the room, and a flaring match follows. Pine is not more than 10 feet away. He aims his gun at the figures.

He doesn't fire. The sound of sirens coincides with the whoosh of flames where the lighter fluid was thrown. Later, Pine tells me he didn't shoot because he had heard the sirens in time and felt no need to kill someone if help was arriving. That was close.

While the squads of uniforms disperse the mob out front, inside we are checking to see if each of us all right. For a few minutes we get the post-tension giggles, but as they subside I start scribbling notes to catch up, and the people around me change back to cops. They begin examining the place.

It had lasted 45 minutes. Just before and after the siege I picked up some more detached information. According to the police, they are not picking on homosexuals. On these raids they almost never arrest customers, only people working there. As of June 1, the State Liquor Authority said that all unlicensed places were eligible to apply for licenses. The police are scrutinizing all unlicensed places, and most of the bars that are in that category happen to cater to homosexuals. The Stonewall is an unlicensed private club. The raid was made with a warrant, after undercover agents inside observed illegal sale of alcohol. To make certain the raid plans did not leak, it was made without notifying the Sixth Precinct until after the detectives (all from the First Division) were inside the premises. Once the bust had actually started, one of Pine's men called the Sixth for assistance on a pay phone.

It was explained to me that generally men dressed as men, even if wearing extensive makeup, are always released; men dressed as women are sometimes arrested; and "men" fully dressed as women, but who upon inspection by a policewoman prove to have undergone the sex-change operations, are always let go. At the Stonewall, out of the five queens checked, three were men and two were changes, even though all said they were girls. Pine released them all anyway.

As for the rough-talking owners and/or managers of the Stonewall, their riff ran something like this: we are just honest businessmen who are being harassed by the police because we cater to homosexuals, and because our names are Italian so they think we are part of something bigger. We haven't done anything wrong and have never been convicted in no court. We have rights, and the courts should decide and not let the police do things like what happened here. When we got back in the place, all the mirrors, jukeboxes, phones, toilets, and cigarette machines were smashed. Even the sinks were stuffed and running over. And we say the police did it. The courts will say that we are innocent.

Who isn't, I thought, as I dropped my scimitar and departed.

Full Moon Over Stonewall by tessaestuart

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Full Moon Over the Stonewall: Howard Smith's Account of the Stonewall Riots - The Village Voice

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Update, June 26, 2015: This morning, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of same-sex marriage ( read the full ruling and early reactions here).

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Secondary Source: From Stonewall to the Present, Fifty Years of L.G.B.T.Q. Rights. From The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast

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Secondary Source: From Stonewall to the Present, Fifty Years of L.G.B.T.Q. Rights. From The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast

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In this podcast, many interviews occur that explain events that have took place to lead up to the Gay Rights Movement, events that occured afterwards, and events that are still taking place today.  Although progress has been made for LGBTQ+, which many of their wins are mentioned in this progress, there is still much radical work to be done.

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It's been 50 years since the uprising at the Stonewall Inn-an event that is widely considered to be the catalyst for the LGBTQ civil rights movement.

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Secondary Source: Stonewall Forever - A Documentary about the Past, Present and Future of Pride

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Secondary Source: Stonewall Forever - A Documentary about the Past, Present and Future of Pride

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This source is a short documentary that takes the voices of members that participated in the Stonewall Riots over 50 years ago and voices of younger LGBTQ+ members who describe how the gay rights movement grew and is continuing to grow. It also addresses how there was division within the LGBTQ+ community, especially with transgenders and people of color, despite that they fought side by side for gay liberation. Now more than ever, we find unity within the community but there is also an understanding that LGBTQ+ members have a duty to continue to educate the rest of the world about their importance to society and gain acceptance.

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Stonewall Forever - A Documentary about the Past, Present and Future of Pride

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This source gives a biography of Sylvia Rivera, a transgender Gay rights activist who participated in the Stonewall Riot of 1969 and continued activism work up until her death. She addressed gay injustices and discriminations within the LGBTQ+ community to stop division. This article gives an insight into Sylvia Rivera's life as a transgender woman and the legacy that she left after her passing.

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A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements. Throughout her life, she fought against the exclusion of transgender people, especially transgender people of color, from the larger movement for gay rights.

Rivera was born in New York City in 1951 to a father from Puerto Rico and a mother from Venezuela. She was assigned male at birth. Rivera had an incredibly difficult childhood. Her father was absent and her mother died by suicide when Rivera was 3 years old. Raised by her grandmother, Rivera began experimenting with clothing and makeup at a young age. She was beaten for doing so and, after being attacked on a school playground in sixth grade by another student, suspended from school for a week. Rivera ran away from home at age 11 and became a victim of sexual exploitation around 42nd Street.

In 1963, Rivera met Marsha P. Johnson and it changed her life. Johnson, an African American self-identified drag queen and activist, was also battling exclusion in a movement for gay rights that did not embrace her gender expression. Rivera said of Johnson that "she was like a mother to me." The two were actively involved in the Stonewall Inn uprising on June 28, 1969 when patrons of the Stonewall Inn-a gay bar in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan-rebuffed a police raid and set a new tone for the gay rights movement. Rivera said in an interview in 2001 that while she did not throw the first Molotov cocktail at the police (a long-enduring myth), she did throw the second. For six nights, the 17-year-old Rivera refused to go home or to sleep, saying "I'm not missing a minute of this-it's the revolution!"

Rivera resisted arrest and subsequently led a series of protests against the raid. Yet this was not the first time Rivera was directly involved in activism. She said in a 1989 interview that, "Before gay rights, before the Stonewall, I was involved in the Black Liberation movement, the peace movement...I felt I had the time and I knew that I had to do something. My revolutionary blood was going back then. I was involved with that."

The Stonewall Inn uprising was also a turning point in the visibility of the gay rights movement. The first pride parades started in 1970, but Rivera and other transgender people were discriminated against and discouraged from participating. In 1973, Rivera participated in the Gay Pride Parade but was not allowed to speak, despite the amount of work and advocacy she had done. She grabbed the microphone anyway, telling the spectators and other marchers, "If it wasn't for the drag queen, there would be no gay liberation movement. We're the front-liners." She was booed off the stage.

Throughout the 1970s, she frequently tangled with gay rights leaders who were hesitant to include transgender people in their advocacy work. The Gay Activist Alliance (GAA), which formed in response to Stonewall, frequently rejected the role transgender people-the majority of whom were people of color-had played in the uprising. Rivera also fought against the exclusion of transgender people from the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act in New York. The final bill passed in 2002 and prevents discrimination "on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation in employment, housing, public accommodations, education, credit, and the exercise of civil rights."

Along with Marsha P. Johnson, Rivera started the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) around 1971. The group became a space to organize and discuss issues facing the transgender community in New York City and they also had a building, STAR House, that provided lodgings for those who needed it. Rivera explained in 1998 that she and Johnson "decided it was time to help each other and help our other kids. We fed people and clothed people. We kept the building going. We went out and hustled the streets. We paid the rent." Although only 19, Rivera became a mother to many of the residents of STAR House. While short-lived, STAR House was an important space for those who needed it.

The troubles she experienced as a child followed her into adulthood. Rivera frequently experienced homelessness and had problems with substance abuse. At one point, Rivera attempted suicide. Her friend Johnson brought her to the hospital and helped her get healthy again. After this experience, Rivera left New York City and activism behind for a bit. She returned to the city in 1992 after the death of Johnson.

Once back in the city, Rivera got involved again with the fight for the inclusion and recognition of transgender individuals. She started Transy House, modeled off STAR House, in 1997 in Park Slope, Brooklyn. She also reconciled with the gay rights movement that was now expanding to embrace the LGBTQ+ community. She was given a place of honor in the 25th Anniversary Stonewall Inn march in 1994. Rivera said in a 1995 interview with The New York Times of participating in this parade, "the movement had put me on the shelf, but they took me down and dusted me off...Still, it was beautiful. I walked down 58th Street and the young ones were calling from the sidewalk, 'Sylvia, Sylvia, thank you, we know what you did.'" In 2001, she was marching in New York City Pride Parades and living in Transy House.

Silvia Rivera died of liver cancer in St. Vincent's Manhattan Hospital in 2002 at the age of 50. Her partner, Julia Murray, was with her at the time of her death.

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project continues her legacy, working to guarantee "all people are free to self-determine their gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence." The intersection of Christopher and Hudson streets in Greenwich Village, two blocks from The Stonewall Inn, was renamed "Sylvia Rivera Way." In 2015, a portrait of Rivera was added to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., making her the first transgender activist to be included in the gallery. In 2021, New York City will unveil a monument to Rivera and Johnson. It will be the city's-and according to New York City, the world's-first monument dedicated to transgender individuals.

Published March 2021.

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A veteran of the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising, Sylvia Rivera was a tireless advocate for those silenced and disregarded by larger movements.

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Secondary Source: Marsha "Pay it no Mind" Johnson

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Secondary Source: Marsha "Pay it no Mind" Johnson

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This source provides a small biography about Marsha “Pay it no Mind” Johnson who was a trans woman and an active participant in the Stonewall Riots. Partnered with Sylvia Rivera, these women began a movement after Stonewall for the transgender community and created an organization called STAR which stood for Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.

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By Tyler Born

Marsha P. Johnson was a transwoman who became an important face to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in New York City. She was recognized by being herself and fearing no judgment of the harassment and ridicule of dressing and living as a woman, while having the masculine features of a man. The hardships of a transgender individual were nothing new to Marsha who herself was living on the streets of New York without a permanent home or financial and living arrangements. This tended to be a normal struggle of transgender individuals. Marsha P. Johnson felt these people who wanted nothing more than to be their selves deserved support from the growing LGBT community in New York. Along with fellow transgender activist Sylvia Rivera she founded the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help others out there facing the struggles of an unaccepting society.

Born a male and named Malcolm Michaels, Marsha legally changed her name after 1966, when she moved from New Jersey to Greenwich Village permanently, to Marsha P. Johnson. When people would ask her what her middle name was, she replied, "Pay it no mind." This response was intended to be a rhetorical answer to the question many had on their minds as to whether she was male or female. By putting "pay it no mind" in her name it deterred the public from asking the question she hated to receive.

Marsha was an eccentric woman who was known for her exotic hats and jewelry which stood out to the public and attracted attention to her. When she was wearing these items or any female clothing she was Marsha P. Johnson. But there were times when she went back to her male persona of Malcolm. As Robert Heide, an acquaintance of Marsha, explains, "He sometimes saw a demon emerge especially when she was in her male persona of Malcolm. I think we all have that to some degree, but apparently in Malcolm/Marsha's case there was this real duality and it would take hold. There was a schizophrenic personality at work, for Malcolm Michaels could become a very nasty, vicious man, looking for fights"[1].

She was more comfortable and happy in her female persona as Marsha, and among others who also felt more comfortable in a persona that is different than the one they were born into she felt she could help. She lived in New York City's Greenwich Village from 1966 until her death in 1992. Marsha was devoted to the alternative lifestyle she lived and the support of others who wanted to live their lives that way. Acceptance was not always easy to come by even living in the socially liberal part of the largest city in the United States. The rejection of this culture turned violent in 1969 during the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village of New York City which was known for the LGBT subculture.

Throughout Greenwich Village there were establishments such as bars and nightclubs that were controlled by the mafia and where people could buy drugs and have a place to do them. Gay bars and clubs had their place in Greenwich Village and to the growing number of LGBT individuals it meant acceptance and salvation. There were now places to meet others who were experiencing the same bigotry and become friends with more people rather than foes. On the night/morning for June 28, 1969 police in Greenwich Village raided a known gay bar The Stonewall Inn, which Marsha P. Johnson had been at, and a violent riot followed. Robert Heide remembers the role Marsha played the night of the riots, "just saw her in the middle of the whole thing, screaming and yelling and throwing rocks and almost like Molly Pitcher in the Revolution or something"[2]. Heide and several others interviewed for David Carter's book, Stonewall, claim that Marsha was the person who "really started it" on the first night of the riots[3]. Sylvia Rivera recalls about the night of the Stonewall riots, "This was started by the street queens of that era, which I was part of, Marsha P. Johnson, and many others that are not here"[4]. The Stonewall Riots had become the spark that ignited transgender rights and activism through the efforts of Marsha P. Johnson and other fellow activists and supporters.

Along with fellow transgender activist and friend, Sylvia Rivera, they founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). They were able to organize with homeless and or runaway transgender individuals to build a community and live together. According to Rivera, "STAR was for the street gay people, the street homeless people, and anybody that needed help at that time"[5]. Keeping other transgenders off the streets was the primary goal of STAR. Many transgenders face violence on the streets from intolerant people. The responsibilities of the "children" or "youth" of the house were to find food for the house, a relatively safe responsibility compared to prostitution that Marsha had experienced in her youth to pay rent where violence occurred regularly and lives were always at risk. Marsha referred to anyone brought off the streets into the STAR homes as "children." She was referred to as the Queen Mother. The Queen aspect came from her love of dressing in drag and performing at drag balls. The Mother aspect came from the matriarchal structure of the STAR house as a way to not live under patriarchal structure where the man is the head of the household.

Another activist group Marsha became a part of after the Stonewall Riots was the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The GLF sought political action and protection for citizens based on their sexual orientation or behavior against oppressive laws and unequal ethics. A 1970s newspaper titled Come Out stated, "Gay Liberation Front welcomes any gay person, regardless of sex, race, age or social behavior. Though some other gay organizations may be embarrassed by drags or transvestites, GLF believes that we should accept all of our brothers and sisters unconditionally[6]. GLF gave acceptance to individuals like Marsha and Sylvia, who did not identify as gay, but rather transgender.

Along with STAR and GLF activism, Marsha posed for a collection of artist Andy Warhol's paintings and photographs. "Ladies and gentleman" was the title of one of Warhol's works that Marsha posed for in 1975. In the painting Marsha is not mentioned by name, or any of the male to female transgenders. Taro Nettleton explains why, "If 'giving face' through portraiture implies the recognizability of an individual, then this portfolio was doomed from the start, for the ladies and gentlemen pictured here have no proper names. Insofar as attaining face and face necessarily involved getting, having, or making a name for oneself, these sitters will never be stars. Hence their anonymity is of an entirely different order than 'the anonymous identity of the stars.'[7]" Andy Warhol was a pop artist who lived in Greenwich Village and was popular among a variety of people but influential to the LGBTQ community. Warhol was gay and successful which inspired many throughout the community. Posing for Warhol meant Marsha would be seen by millions who view Warhol's work who displayed the beauty and femininity of Marsha.

Marsha passed away on July 6, 1992. Her body was found in the Hudson River in New York. Police and investigators ruled her death as a suicide, but people who knew her and were close to her insisted she was not suicidal. Witnesses saw Marsha being harassed earlier in the day and wanted a full investigation of her death as a murder. There has been no criminal investigation to the death of Marsha P. Johnson.

Today Marsha's legacy lives on within the LGBTQ community and beyond. On May 10, 2012 the second annual Chloe Awards were held in New York City. The Chloe Awards remember and honor ancestors of activism and activists that work today. At the event there are performances, a ceremony, and a dance party to celebrate those who paved the way for transgender activism. The awards were named after Chloe Dzubilo who was an HIV positive male to female transgender activist and artist who lived in the same neighborhood or New York as Marsha Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, and was the cultural and activist successor of Marsha and Sylvia. In 2011 Chloe passed away and as a tribute to her life and activism there began a public remembrance and celebration of the lives of others within the transgender community.

References

1. Carter, David. Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin's, 2004.

2. Ibid., 298

3. Ibid., 298

4. Rivera, Sylvia. "Sylvia Rivera's Talk at LGMNY, June 2001 Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, New York City." Centro Journal 19.1 (2007): 117-23

5. Feinberg, Leslie. "Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries." Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Workers World, 24 Sept. 2006. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/>.

6. Ibid.,

7. Nettleton, Taro. "White-on-White: The Overbearing Whitness of Warhol Being." Art Journal 62.1 (2003): 14-23.

Links

Kasino, Michael, director/producer. "Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson." Video accessed June 1, 2015 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjN9W2KstqE

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Challenging Gender Boundaries: A Trans Biography Project by Students of Catherine Jacquet

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By Tyler Born Marsha P. Johnson was a transwoman who became an important face to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in New York City. She was recognized by being herself and fearing no judgment of the harassment and ridicule of dressing and living as a woman, while having the masculine features of a man.

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Citation: Medina, Nico. What Was Stonewall?. United States, Penguin Young Readers Group, 2019.

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Children's Book: What Was Stonewall? by Nico Medina

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Children's Book: What Was Stonewall? by Nico Medina

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This book takes us through the background of what it was like to be queer during this time in terms that are clearly defined for young children to understand. Being queer at this time was met with unjust treatment, especially from police, which forced those in the community to hide their identities and create places that was safe for them to gather but one safe place was known as Stonewall which became a target for police raids and the LGBTQ+ community had become weary of their treatment and fought back. This book describes the events that lead up to the Stonewall Riot and its aftermath impact it had for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Citation: Sanders, Rob, and Jamey Christoph. Stonewall: A Building. an Uprising. A Revolution. Random House, 2019. 

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Children's Book: Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution.

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Children's Book: Stonewall: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution.

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This children's non-fiction book describes what the neighborhood of Greenwood Village was like when it first developed as being a neighborhood of diversity and in 1967, the Stonewall Inn opened its doors for members of the LGBTQ+ community to gather. It had become illegal for these members to show their queerness and in 1969 police raided the Inn. This story talks about the Stonewall Riot and how this riot helped the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

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Citation: Duberman, Martin B. Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America. Plume, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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Adult Nonfiction Book: Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America

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Adult Nonfiction Book: Stonewall: The Definitive Story of the LGBTQ Rights Uprising That Changed America

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Author Martin Duberman tells about the events of LGBTQ+ history through the lives of 6 key members who lived through the Stonewall era. The story of these 6 LGBTQ+ individuals help us capture a picture of what life for those in the community was like at the time and although Stonewall was not the beginning or end of queer struggle, it created a solidarity in their community to begin pushing for their rights. Although all 6 protagonists walked in different paths, they all found themselves to be active participates of the Gay March of 1970 and trickled a positive change for the LGBTQ+ community.

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Stonewall Riots Original: May 31, 2017 Updated: June 25, 2021

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This site provides an overview of what gay rights, or the lack of rights, looked like before Stonewall. It was illegal to be gay so LGBTQ+ members flocked to gay bars for peace but the constant harassment of police lead to the occurrences of multiple raids that consisted of busting cross-dressers by checking their private parts, removing bootlegged liquor, and roughing up the patrons. The consistent raids lead to a riot and uprising of the LGBTQ+ members when they were raided June 28, 1969 that contributed to the gay rights movement and left an everlasting legacy.

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Constant Raids at Gay Bars

The 1960s and preceding decades were not welcoming times for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. For instance, solicitation of same-sex relations was illegal in New York City.

For such reasons, LGBT individuals flocked to gay bars and clubs, places of refuge where they could express themselves openly and socialize without worry. However, the New York State Liquor Authority penalized and shut down establishments that served alcohol to known or suspected LGBT individuals, arguing that the mere gathering of homosexuals was "disorderly."

Thanks to activists' efforts, these regulations were overturned in 1966, and LGBT patrons could then be served alcohol. But engaging in gay behavior in public (holding hands, kissing or dancing with someone of the same sex) was still illegal, so police harassment of gay bars continued and many bars still operated without liquor licenses-in part because they were owned by the Mafia.

Gay Rights Before Stonewall

The first documented U.S. gay rights organization, The Society for Human Rights (SHR), was founded in 1924 by Henry Gerber, a German immigrant. Police raids forced them to disband in 1925, but not before they had published several issues of their newsletter, "Friendship and Freedom," the country's first gay-interest newsletter. America's first lesbian rights organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, was formed in San Francisco on September 21, 1955.

In 1966, three years before Stonewall, members of The Mattachine Society, an organization dedicated to gay rights, staged a "sip-in" where they openly declared their sexuality at taverns, daring staff to turn them away and suing establishments who did. When The Commission on Human Rights ruled that gay individuals had the right to be served in bars, police raids were temporarily reduced.

The Stonewall Inn

The crime syndicate saw profit in catering to shunned gay clientele, and by the mid-1960s, the Genovese crime family controlled most Greenwich Village gay bars. In 1966, they purchased Stonewall Inn (a "straight" bar and restaurant), cheaply renovated it, and reopened it the next year as a gay bar.

Stonewall Inn was registered as a type of private "bottle bar," which did not require a liquor license because patrons were supposed to bring their own liquor. Club attendees had to sign their names in a book upon entry to maintain the club's false exclusivity. The Genovese family bribed New York's Sixth Police Precinct to ignore the activities occurring within the club.

Without police interference, the crime family could cut costs how they saw fit: The club lacked a fire exit, running water behind the bar to wash glasses, clean toilets that didn't routinely overflow and palatable drinks that weren't watered down beyond recognition. What's more, the Mafia reportedly blackmailed the club's wealthier patrons who wanted to keep their sexuality a secret.

Nonetheless, Stonewall Inn quickly became an important Greenwich Village institution. It was large and relatively cheap to enter. It welcomed drag queens, who received a bitter reception at other gay bars and clubs. It was a nightly home for many runaways and homeless gay youths, who panhandled or shoplifted to afford the entry fee. And it was one of the few-if not the only-gay bar left that allowed dancing.

Raids were still a fact of life, but usually corrupt cops would tip off Mafia-run bars before they occurred, allowing owners to stash the alcohol (sold without a liquor license) and hide other illegal activities. In fact, the NYPD had stormed Stonewall Inn just a few days before the riot-inducing raid.

The Stonewall Riots Begin

When police raided Stonewall Inn on the morning of June 28, it came as a surprise-the bar wasn't tipped off this time.

Armed with a warrant, police officers entered the club, roughed up patrons, and, finding bootlegged alcohol, arrested 13 people, including employees and people violating the state's gender-appropriate clothing statute (female officers would take suspected cross-dressing patrons into the bathroom to check their sex).

Fed up with constant police harassment and social discrimination, angry patrons and neighborhood residents hung around outside of the bar rather than disperse, becoming increasingly agitated as the events unfolded and people were aggressively manhandled. At one point, an officer hit a lesbian over the head as he forced her into the police van- she shouted to onlookers to act, inciting the crowd to begin throw pennies, bottles, cobble stones and other objects at the police.

Within minutes, a full-blown riot involving hundreds of people began. The police, a few prisoners and a Village Voice writer barricaded themselves in the bar, which the mob attempted to set on fire after breaching the barricade repeatedly.

The fire department and a riot squad were eventually able to douse the flames, rescue those inside Stonewall, and disperse the crowd. But the protests, sometimes involving thousands of people, continued in the area for five more days, flaring up at one point after the Village Voice published its account of the riots.

Stonewall's Legacy

Though the Stonewall uprising didn't start the gay rights movement, it was a galvanizing force for LGBT political activism, leading to numerous gay rights organizations, including the Gay Liberation Front, Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

On the one-year anniversary of the riots on June 28, 1970, thousands of people marched in the streets of Manhattan from the Stonewall Inn to Central Park in what was then called "Christopher Street Liberation Day," America's first gay pride parade. The parade's official chant was: "Say it loud, gay is proud."

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama designated the site of the riots-Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and the surrounding streets and sidewalks-a national monument in recognition of the area's contribution to gay rights.

Photo Gallery

HISTORY Vault

Sources

A History of Gay Rights in America. CBS.
LGBTQ Activism: The Henry Gerber House, Chicago, IL. NPS.gov.

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1969 Stonewall Riots - Origins, Timeline & Leaders

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The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, took place on June 28, 1969, in New York City, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a local gay club. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes.

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Verified Website: How the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ rights movement

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Verified Website: How the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ rights movement

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This site recalled the events leading up to the Stonewall Riots and the riot itself where LGBTQ+ members participated in the fight for their rights. The members of the community knew that at the point of the riot, there was no going back and they had to proceed with full force to obtain justice. This article explains how the Stonewall Riots helped ignite a full blown movement and sparked a revolution.

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How the Stonewall uprising ignited the pride movement

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A June 1969 police raid of the New York bar erupted into a days-long rebellion that lit a fire under the fight for LGBTQ rights.

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My Personal Research Report on Stonewall

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My Personal Research Report on Stonewall

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My Counternarrative Text Set produced for teaching about the Stonewall Riots for elementary students

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My Counternarrative Text Set produced for teaching about the Stonewall Riots for elementary students