On Friday evening,
June 27, 1969, the New York City tactical police force raided a
popular Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn. Raids were
not unusual in 1969; in fact, they were conducted regularly without
much resistance. However, that night the street erupted into violent
protest as the crowds in the bar fought back. The backlash and several
nights of protest that followed have come to be known as the Stonewall
Riots.
Prior to that summer
there was little public expression of the lives and experiences
of gays and lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of
the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression
of gays and lesbians into calls for pride and action. In the past
twenty-five years we have all been witness to an astonishing flowering
of gay culture that has changed this country and beyond, forever.
Featured here are
clippings from the local New York City press reporting the "melee"
in 1969, along with firsthand accounts published in later years
about that night.
Case Displays
June 29, 1969 |
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Martin Duberman. Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey.
New York: Penguin, 1991.
Martin Duberman. Stonewall. New York: Penguin,
1993.
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From: Duberman, Cures, p. 161
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Chant sung "Rockette style" by a "chorus
line of mocking queens." Duberman, Stonewall, p. 200.
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June 30, 1969
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NY Post, June 28, 1969 |
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"At this point I
had already discovered the bars. I suppose my gay life pretty
much revolved around going to the bars, even though there
was always the threat of bar raids--everyone heard about
them. But the only raid where I was actually inside the
bar was at the Stonewall. That was in late June 1969. The
Stonewall was my favorite place. It was a dive. It was shabby,
..." (Click
for more ...)
Eric Marcus. Making History: The
Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990.
New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
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July 3, 1969 |
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July 3, 1969 "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square,"
(View from Outside) by Lucian Truscott IV, Village Voice,
7/3/69:
"Sheriden Square this weekend
looked like something from a William Burroughs novel, as the
sudden specter of 'gay power' raised its brazen head and spat
out a fairy tale the likes of which the area has never seen
..." Page Images -- Transcription
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Photos from p. 1 of the Village Voice, 7/3/69
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"Full Moon over the Stonewall," (View from Inside)
by Howard Smith, Village Voice, 7/3/69:
"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..." (More)
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Gay Freedom 1970: A Commemorative
Pictorial Essay of the First Anniversary of the Gay Liberation
Movement. By the Editors of QQ Magazine. New York:
Queen's Quarterly Publishing Co., 1970.
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Laud Humphreys. Out of the Closets: The Sociology
of Homosexual Liberation. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, 1972.
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Humphreys, Out of the Closets,
p. 5
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Donn Teal. The Gay Militants. New York: Stein
and Day, 1971. |
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The Gay Militants, jacket photograph
of the June 1970 Christopher Street Liberation
Day
celebration in Central Park by Diana Davies/Bethel
Agency.
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