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In this article, Kayla Newman explains what led up to the Stonewall Uprising and what happened during the six-day protest.
The Stonewall Uprising
The Stonewall Uprising
By Kayla Newman
By Kayla Newman
The fight for LGBT rights has been a long hard battle. A fight that has been waging since 1924 when the Society for Human Rights (SHR) published America’s first gay newsletter, “Friendship and Freedom”. It wasn’t until the 1969 Stonewall Uprising that the Gay rights movement finally gained traction.
Photo from PBS
In the 20th century, the State Liquor Authority would revoke an establishment's liquor license if they serve or hire a person who is suspected to be gay. Within 25 years, the State Liquor Authority managed to close down hundreds of bars under the guise of being “disorderly”. Due to this, many bars shunned LGBT patrons.
The suppressed community wanted a place where they could be themselves. The mafia ran gay bars and gave this to them. It is important to note that the mafia did not care for the clientele (especially at the Stonewall) and only used them for profit. It was normal for them to cut profits where they could: for example, the Stonewall lacked a fire exit, had no running water behind the bar, charged top dollar for watered-down drinks, paid corrupt cops, and blackmailed their wealthy patrons. In a PBS documentary called Stonewall Uprising, Jerry Hoose, a gay man who frequented the Stonewall says, “The bar itself was a toilet. But it was a refuge. It was a temporary refuge from the street.”
The June 28, 1969 raid on the Stonewall was very unusual. In the past, the Police would warn the Mafia (due to being paid off). They would raid on weeknights and early in the evening when the place was not bustling. This time, though, the Mafia was not warned and it happened late on a Saturday night. The goal of this raid was to permanently shut down the Stonewall, seize liquor, and arrest people in drag (people wearing three or more clothing not from their gender). In Stonewall Uprising, Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD states, “there were no instructions except: put them out of business.”
Patrons were angered by unrelenting discrimination and harassment from the police. So they fought back. They refused to show ID and patrons in drag refused to prove their gender. It is hard to pinpoint what truly started the uprising. Many of the eyewitnesses recount different things happening. One thing led to another and the crowd started to scream and throw objects that ranged from pennies to bricks at the cops.
Photo by BBC
The raiding police were overwhelmed by the crowd and had to call in reinforcements and barricade themselves in the Stonewall Inn. It is difficult to know how large the crowd grew that night, but it is estimated that it reached upwards of five hundred people. They managed to breach the barricade multiple times and even tried to burn down the bar at one point. It was not until reinforcements arrived that the barricaded police managed to escape. The rioting crowd soon waned and dispersed for the night, only to return to continue the protesting for five more nights.
Photo from CBS News
Thankfully, during all of this, no one died-- unless you count a cab driver who had a heart attack when a few people from the crowd started shaking his cab. Throughout the six-day protest, police and citizens involved were injured and about 21 people were arrested. The Stonewall Uprising was not the first of its kind and it is important to still recognize the other protests that happened before the Stonewall, such as the 1955 Pepper Hill Club Raid in Baltimore, Maryland, the 1959 Coopers Do-Nut Raid in Los Angeles, California, and the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria Raid in San Francisco, California. These are just a few of the protests that happened before the Stonewall Uprisings.
Sources:
Sources:
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/stonewall/#transcript
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/stonewall/#part01
- https://www.yesmagazine.org/topic/social-justice/page/2
- https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/28/us/1969-stonewall-riots-history/index.html
- https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/an-amazing-1969-account-of-the-stonewall-uprising/272467/
- https://dv2oc5tyj18yr.cloudfront.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/2019/05/stonewallfactsheet-1.pdf
- https://www.britannica.com/event/Stonewall-riots
- https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/stonewall-era
- https://pflag.org/blog/stonewall
- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-scholars-reflect-on-the-history-and-legacy-of-the-stonewall-riots/
- https://civilrights.org/2009/06/22/stonewall-riots-the-beginning-of-the-lgbt-movement/
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-why-did-mafia-own-bar/#:~:text=At%20the%20time%20of%20the,by%20the%20New%20York%20Mafia.&text=Organized%20crime%20families%20owned%20the,lasted%20throughout%20the%20late%201960s.
- https://www.history.com/news/stonewall-riots-timeline
- https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots
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