GLBT patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York City, spontaneously rebelled against a police raid that had been preceded by years of police raids of gay bars in the city. For the first time, sexual minorities rebelled in numbers and with force against systematic oppression, inspiring pride and sparking the modern movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights.
In New York City in 1969, the rights of gays and lesbians to congregate and to express their sexuality in public were at best tentative. It was not unusual that gay and lesbian bars were raided and then closed for a period of up to three weeks. The Stonewall Inn, a GLBT bar in Lower Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, came under the jurisdiction of the New York Police Department’s new commanding officer for the sixth precinct, a commander who soon initiated the raid on the Stonewall Inn.
The Stonewall Inn, Christopher Street, New York City, 1969.
Said to be the only gay bar in the city at the time that allowed same-gender dancing, the Stonewall Inn, located at 53 Christopher Street,
Around midnight on Friday, June 27, two plainclothes detectives and two undercover female police officers from the sixth precinct entered the Stonewall Inn to observe the employees. At about 1:20
A commemorative flyer with news stories covering the Stonewall Rebellion.
The last customer to be guided out, a lesbian, put up a struggle. As the police subdued her, the crowd grew unruly and exploded into rebellion. A rain of coins was released on the police, suggesting the financial payoffs they were rumored to receive. Some threw beer bottles and pulled cobblestones from the street, tossing them in all directions. The eight police officers, severely outnumbered, sought refuge in the empty bar; reporter Howard Smith,
Eventually, the police gained control over the neighborhood. Thirteen men were arrested on charges of harassment, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. Four police officers were injured in the melee; the most serious injury was a broken wrist. The uprising itself began shortly after 3:00
The following evening, Saturday, June 28, throngs of young men congregated at the site of the burned-out bar to read a condemnation of police behavior. Graffiti on the boarded-up windows read “Support Gay Power” and “Legalize Gay Bars.” Tensions mounted as the night progressed, and, by midnight, several hundred people gathered to resume the protest against police.
Police from the Charles Street Station House were unable to control the crowds, and so Tactical Patrol Force units again were called in to help. The units poured into the area shortly after 2:00
Those two nights outside the Stonewall Inn set in motion the modern movement for gay and lesbian rights. The impulse to fight for equal rights in American society had been strong but latent; the Stonewall Rebellion was a major catalyst that created an immediate and extensive response.
On Sunday, June 29, New York’s Mattachine Society,
The uprising received cursory coverage in the interior pages of The New York Times on Sunday and Monday, June 29 and 30. The coverage there and in The Village Voice, while scornful, fueled awareness and commitment among not only gays, lesbians, and transgender people but also the people of New York City who supported the cause.
The gay and lesbian rights movement developed with rapid speed. Gay Liberation Front chapters were established and organized in New York and San Francisco, and branches were soon founded in major cities and universities in not only the United States but also Canada, Europe, and Australia. The uprisings at the Stonewall Inn and environs in June of 1969 permanently changed the way GLBT people cope with and confront societal attitudes concerning sexuality and also changed the way society understands and accepts sexual minorities and same-gender sexuality. Also, the rebellion led to mandated sensitivity training for the New York Police Department.
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Carter, David. Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004. -
D’Emilio, John. Sexual Battles, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940-1970. 2d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. -
Duberman, Martin B. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, 1993. -
Marcus, Eric. Making History: The Struggles for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990: An Oral History. New York: HarperCollins, 1992. -
Miller, Neil. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. -
Stonewall Veteran’s Association. http://www .stonewallvets.org. An excellent resource that includes media clippings and personal testimony from those who were part of the rebellion. -
Williams, Walter, and Yolanda Retter. Gay and Lesbian Rights in the United States: A Documentary History. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003.
November 17, 1901: Police Arrest “Los 41” in Mexico City
March 15, 1919-1921: U.S. Navy Launches Sting Operation Against “Sexual Perverts”
June 30-July 1, 1934: Hitler’s Night of the Long Knives
August, 1966: Queer Youth Fight Police Harassment at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco
July 31, 1969: Gay Liberation Front Is Formed
June 28, 1970: First Lesbian and Gay Pride March in the United States
December 31, 1977: Toronto Police Raid Offices of The Body Politic
October 12-15, 1979: First March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
February 5, 1981: Toronto Police Raid Gay Bathhouses
October 11, 1987: Second March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights
April 24, 1993: First Dyke March Is Held in Washington, D.C.
April 25, 1993: March on Washington for Gay, Lesbian, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation
June, 1994: Stonewall 25 March and Rallies Are Held in New York City
June 19, 2002: Gays and Lesbians March for Equal Rights in Mexico City