WebHIS 100 Module Four Activity Template: Historical Narratives Xavier Bethea Locate an additional secondary source relevant to your historical event. This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. The Stonewall was also not the only bar in town being frequently raided. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. . But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. June 28, 2019 The Stonewall Inn is a sacred place for many in the LGBTQ community. All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". Two of the pages posted online were obtained in 1988 by Michael Scherker, a writer who sued the city to obtain some police records from the time of the uprising, and who has since died. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. David Carter And I just didn't understand that. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. (Close reading) According to this document, which groups of people had strong attachments to the Stonewall Inn? John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. Older groups such as the Mattachine Society, which was founded in southern California as a discussion group for gay men and had flourished in the 1950s, soon made way for more radical groups such as the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). 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. 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. Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Mike Nuget most fun and fascinating nights of my life. John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. I had never seen anything like that. Was he present at the Stonewall Riots? 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. 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. Producers Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The Web site OutHistory.org has obtained police records from the start of the Stonewall Geoff Kole WebWhile police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. consists of actual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Dana Kirchoff Doric Wilson And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. Lots of gay men in those days had enough experience with the police to conceal their true identities According to all of these documents one of the main causes of these riots were sparked whenever they failed to pay off the cops. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. 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. Article by a village voice reporter who was at Stonewall. 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. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. Doug Cramer They can be anywhere. For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising - the most significant event in the gay liberation movement and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. have been published previously, Mr. Katz said. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. But we're going to pay dearly for this. But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. He was not present at the riot. They put some people on the street right in front ofThe Village Voiceprotesting the use of the word fag in my story. Stream thousands of hours of acclaimed series, probing documentaries and captivating specials commercial-free in HISTORY Vault. Arrest Reports From the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, City University of New York Graduate Center, photographs taken by The New York Times from the final night of the riots, Litter and Graffiti Show Norwoods Distress, Tavern on the Green Seeks Publics Support. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. They were to us. were wrongplain and simple.. Website support provided by Margaret Paz. John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. Aaron Lecklider Journal of American History, Volume 107, Issue 3, December 2020, Pages 794796, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaaa438 Published: 01 December 2020 PDF Split View Cite Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. WebFor the first time, in the seven documents obtained by Katz, the names of those arrested are not blacked out, providing the public and historians with important new evidence about Edmund White (Foreword by); New York Public Library (Editor), Phyllis Lyon/Del Martin And The Daughters Of Bilitis, Arrest Reports from the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, Stonewall and It's Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement, Stonewall 50: Library of Congress Panel Discussion on LGBTQ+ Research, Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee Bulletin and Reports, Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Foreword Reviews "The Stonewall Riots is an invaluable addition to the existing literature on the LBGT movement and the sexual revolution. Doric Wilson:In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, "I'm a faggot," was horren--, nobody, nobody was ready to do that. For LGBT periodicals, seeLGBT Life with Full Text(EBSCO),Archives of Sexuality and Gender(Gale), and theOutHistorywebsite. 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. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. Jeremiah Hawkins But that night, for some unknown reason, people fought back. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. Although the Stonewall riots cannot be said to have initiated the gay rights movement as such, it did serve as a catalyst for a new generation of political activism. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Anger erupted after New York City police arrested 13 people during a raid at the Stonewall Inn, a bar and safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. It was a raid. Why We Remember Stonewall. And I had become very radicalized in that time. Primary sources related to the Black Nite Brawl in August 1961 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stonewall Riots informativespeechoutline.docx - In the Civil Rights Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. 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?" The 1960s and preceding decades were not welcoming times for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. Looking through the Lilli Vincenz and Frank Kameny Papers in the Manuscript Reading Room, researchers can find planning documents, correspondence, flyers, ephemera and more from the very first Pride marches in 1970. The Underground Lounge Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. You had no place to try to find an identity. For those kisses. Martin Boyce:All of a sudden, Miss New Orleans and all people around us started marching step by step and the police started moving back. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. And we all relaxed. Stonewall The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. 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. ( New York : New York University Press , 2019 . And they started smashing their heads with clubs. WebOn June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. Daily News Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. (Doc. One chapter covers bars and policing from 1965 to 1969; two address LGBT Even non-gay people. Bars were one of the few places LBGTQ+ people could gather in public, and these spaces were frequently raided throughout the 1950s-1970s. Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. Use all four of your sources (two primary and two secondary) to answer the questions below. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." A Police Department report from the early morning of June 28, 1969, at the start of the Stonewall uprising, is part of a small collection of newly released documents. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Martha Babcock And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Tires were slashed on police cars and it just went on all night long. The day is now celebrated globally to honor the brave individuals who stood up to the system and protested for equality in 1969. . The lasting impact of the Stonewall Riots. documented as participants in the riot, and indeed, no womans arrest had previously been documented, though several eyewitnesses had long stated that resistance to the police intensified after a lesbian A word that would be used in the 1960s for gay men and lesbians. It was the law. And it was fantastic. We had been threatened bomb threats. Mr. Carter also said the documents corroborated information that had been provided to him by Seymour Pine, the police inspector who led the raid on the Stonewall Inn (and later expressed regret about the nature and 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. . It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." Colonial House This set uses primary sources to explore the events preceding and surrounding the Stonewall Inn uprising as well as the aftermath of the riots in the gay liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. The reference to these events as riots was initially used by police to justify their use of force. The Stonewall Riots : A Documentary History edited by Marc Stein provides John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. WebJamie Tucker March 20, 2022 HIS 200 3-2 Writing Plan Progress Check 3 Topic of Interest: For my historical event I have chosen The Stonewall Riots. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. manner of the way the police conducted themselves. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Just making their lives miserable for once. Gay Pride Week and March, was meant to give the community a chance to gather together to, "commemorate the Christopher Street Uprisings of last summer in which thousands of homosexuals went to the streets to demonstrate against centuries of abuse.from government hostility to employment and housing discrimination, Mafia control of Gay bars, and anti-Homosexual laws" (Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee Fliers, Franklin Kameny Papers). It meant nothing to us. Pamela Gaudiano Forty-five years later, over six million people annually participate in 115 Pride parades across the United States. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. It is important to note that in addition to arresting LGBTQ+ people, first-hand accounts reveal the violence that police enacted on those they had arrested. Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. Raymond Castro Police violence and bar raids did not end after Stonewall. Danny Garvin:We became a people. On June 24, 1969, the Public Morals squad of Manhattans First Police Division raided the Stonewall Inn. Charles Harris, Transcriptions You know. John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. 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. Not even us. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. In this lesson, students analyze four documents to answer the question: What caused the Stonewall Riots? In the last three weeks five gay bars in the Village area that I know of have been hit by the police (The Summer of Gay Power and the Village Voice Exposed, COME OUT, 1969). How do you Ensure Based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files and over a decade of intensive research, Stonewall tells the definitive story of this singular event in history. Most importantly, this anthology shines a light on forgotten figures who were pivotal in the movement, such as Lee Brewster, head of the Queens Liberation Front and Ernestine Eckstine, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s.