It was right in the center of where we all were. Dan Martino Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. 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. TV Host (Archival):Ladies and gentlemen, the reason for using first names only forthese very, very charming contestants is that right now each one of them is breaking the law. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. And she was quite crazy. Doug Cramer There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. You cut one head off. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. I'm losing everything that I have. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. 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. Ellen Goosenberg And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. Cause I was from the streets. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. Danny Garvin:With Waverly Street coming in there, West Fourth coming in there, Seventh Avenue coming in there, Christopher Street coming in there, there was no way to contain us. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? People could take shots at us. Paul Bosche John O'Brien:The election was in November of 1969 and this was the summer of 1969, this was June. 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. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Mike Nuget Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. ITN Source 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. Sophie Cabott Black Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. 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. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. 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. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Glenn Fukushima And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. They would bang on the trucks. Clever. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. We love to hear from our listeners! Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International This time they said, "We're not going." Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. 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. Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. 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." Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) Quentin Heilbroner Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. A medievalist. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . Available via license: Content may be subject to . You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Ed Koch who was a democratic party leader in the Greenwich Village area, was a specific leader of the local forces seeking to clean up the streets. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. 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. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. First you gotta get past the door. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. For the first time the next person stood up. 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. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." And that's what it was, it was a war. Eventually something was bound to blow. Historic Films And it's interesting to note how many youngsters we've been seeing in these films. I could never let that happen and never did. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. The Underground Lounge Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. 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. Dana Kirchoff The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. Katrina Heilbroner A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. 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. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. 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. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. 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. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. They were to us. (c) 2011 Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. Audience Member (Archival):I was wondering if you think that there are any quote "happy homosexuals" for whom homosexuality would be, in a way, their best adjustment in life? Corbis In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Revealing and. Alan Lechner I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. The events. We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. Joe DeCola TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. Barney Karpfinger The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. We heard one, then more and more. Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco You knew you could ruin them for life. Not able to do anything. Leroy S. Mobley Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. The men's room was under police surveillance. Martha Babcock For those kisses. Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation 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. Frank Kameny Heather Gude, Archival Research 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?" They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. 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. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? In the Life 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. Janice Flood Ellinor Mitchell Original Language: English. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. Because he was homosexual. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. Charles Harris, Transcriptions Getty Images "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." So it was a perfect storm for the police. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. Marc Aubin 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. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. Producers Library It's not my cup of tea. American Airlines I had never seen anything like that. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. 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. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography That was our world, that block. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. 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. And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a list: Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and NPR One. Geoff Kole by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. Danny Garvin:We became a people. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets.