Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Just let's see if they can. It was tremendous freedom. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Vanessa Ezersky Do you understand me?". I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. And I just didn't understand that. Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Read a July 6, 1969excerpt fromTheNew York Daily News. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. 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. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. 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. The events. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. 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 LGBT community. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. So if any one of you, have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual, or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick. All the rules were off in the '60s. That never happened before. The police weren't letting us dance. J. Michael Grey Clever. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center "Daybreak Express" by D.A. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:There were complaints from people who objected to the wrongful behavior of some gays who would have sex on the street. We were all there. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors Yvonne Ritter:"In drag," quote unquote, the downside was that you could get arrested, you could definitely get arrested if someone clocked you or someone spooked that you were not really what you appeared to be on the outside. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man.
"BEFORE STONEWALL" - MetroFocus Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International 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.
PDF BEFORE STONEWALL press kit - First Run Features Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong.
Before Stonewall | Apple TV Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. He pulls all his men inside. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines.
Before Stonewall - Wikipedia Meanwhile, there was crowds forming outside the Stonewall, wanting to know what was going on. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village.
Watch Before Stonewall | Prime Video - amazon.com Things were just changing. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. 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. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. Oh, tell me about your anxiety.
Why 'Before Stonewall' Was Such a Hard Movie to Make - The Atlantic Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. I mean I'm talking like sardines. 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. Other images in this film are Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. I never believed in that.
Revisiting 'Before Stonewall' Film for the 50th Anniversary | Time Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Revealing and. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. They were the storm troopers. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". Colonial House I was a homosexual. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. We were thinking about survival. Eventually something was bound to blow. Dana Kirchoff Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn has undergone several transformations in the decades since it was the focal point of a three-day riot in 1969. 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) Pamela Gaudiano Danny Garvin Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. Ellen Goosenberg We were winning.
Before Stonewall (1984) - IMDb And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. MacDonald & Associates But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. Katrina Heilbroner And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. Jeremiah Hawkins They would bang on the trucks. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. David Carter Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. 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. 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. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. The windows were always cloaked. "Don't fire. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Getty Images This is every year in New York City. It's like, this is not right. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. Chris Mara Director . The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true.
Transcript of Re-Release: The Stonewall | Happy Scribe William Eskridge, Professor of Law:In states like New York, there were a whole basket of crimes that gay people could be charged with. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:But there were little, tiny pin holes in the plywood windows, I'll call them the windows but they were plywood, and we could look out from there and every time I went over and looked out through one of those pin holes where he did, we were shocked at how big the crowd had become. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Almost anything you could name. There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. 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. In the trucks or around the trucks. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Samual Murkofsky 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. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. Trevor, Post Production Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. Dan Bodner Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. And then they send them out in the street and of course they did make arrests, because you know, there's all these guys who cruise around looking for drag queens. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. I mean they were making some headway. Not able to do anything. Martin Boyce Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. 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.". John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. W hen police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969 50 years ago this month the harassment was routine for the time. The medical experimentation in Atascadero included administering, to gay people, a drug that simulated the experience of drowning; in other words, a pharmacological example of waterboarding. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. Based on Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. The New York Times / Redux Pictures 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. Geoff Kole And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. 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. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. ITN Source Richard Enman (Archival):Well, let me say, first of all, what type of laws we are not after, because there has been much to-do that the Society was in favor of the legalization of marriage between homosexuals, and the adoption of children, and such as that, and that is not at all factual at all. View in iTunes. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:At a certain point, it felt pretty dangerous to me but I noticed that the cop that seemed in charge, he said you know what, we have to go inside for safety. Before Stonewall (1984) - full transcript 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. I have pondered this as "Before Stonewall," my first feature documentary, is back in cinemas after 35 years. Historic Films I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. We had been threatened bomb threats. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. As kids, we played King Kong. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. It was like a reward. Even non-gay people. Daily News And the police were showing up. It was an age of experimentation. A medievalist.
Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Louis Mandelbaum And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed.
Stonewall: A riot that changed millions of lives - BBC News archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Before Stonewall 1984 Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg Synopsis 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. Hugh Bush The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Because if they weren't there fast, I was worried that there was something going on that I didn't know about and they weren't gonna come. 1984 documentary film by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg, "Berlinale 2016: Panorama Celebrates Teddy Award's 30th Anniversary and Announces First Titles in Programme", "Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary 'Before Stonewall', "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Before Stonewall - Independent Historical Film", Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Restored), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Before_Stonewall&oldid=1134540821, Documentary films about United States history, Historiography of LGBT in the United States, United States National Film Registry films, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 19 January 2023, at 05:30. (c) 2011 National Archives and Records Administration Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. Scott McPartland/Getty Images John O'Brien:The election was in November of 1969 and this was the summer of 1969, this was June. Martha Shelley Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. Quentin Heilbroner Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall.
Before Stonewall | The New York Public Library The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications
Before Stonewall streaming: where to watch online? - JustWatch And we had no right to such. 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? And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall.