Protest Movements

Considered the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement, the Stonewall Uprisings were sparked on June 28, 1969. While in 1966, New York overturned laws that prohibited bars from serving liquor to suspected homosexuals, and the gathering of LGBTQ+ individuals was no longer criminalized, there were still sanctions against "public acts of homosexuality" -- including, but not limited to, dancing together, holding hands, kissing, etc. The Stonewall Inn located in Greenwich Village, owned by the Genovese crime family, was a private club which required membership and considered a "bottle bar", which meant that the establishment had no liquor license but members could bring their own spirits. Because of Stonewall's relationship to the Genoveses, the owners were often warned before a police raid would take place. On June 28th, however, they weren't and the club was raided resulting In the arrest of 13 patrons and employees. A group of patrons gathered outside retaliating against the police -- some of whom were being violent against the folks they were arresting. To escape the growing crowd, the police barricaded themselves Inside the bar. Some rioters used a parking meter as a battering ram to break through the door; others threw beer bottles, trash and other objects, or made impromptu firebombs with bottles, matches and lighter fluid. This night ended without much Injury, but the bar was trashed. Still, It opened the next day, prompting the police to return and six more days of stand offs between LGBTQ+ activists and law enforcement ensued.

A year later, the first Gay Pride Parade was held and the Christopher Street Liberation March, which amassed thousands of participants and stretched 15 city blocks began at The Stonewall Inn. Many gay liberation Icons were present and Involved In the Stonewall Uprising -- Including Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Stormé DeLarverie

While every week on CBS June Cleaver wore a string of pearls as she served dinner on her perfectly polished china, more than 40% of American women over the age of 16 were working outside of the home. The public image of the perfect wife and mother being the only image that women should or could aspire to was not truly indicative of what the country was growing to look like. In Betty Friedan’s seminal book The Feminine Mystique she wrote, “I think this has been the unknown heart of a woman’s problem in America for a long time, this lack of a private image. Public images that defy reason and have very little to do with women themselves have the power to shape too much of their lives.” The fact was, women were working but the problem was they weren’t working for equal pay, in comparable or meaningful jobs and were even expected, in the case of stewardesses, to retire by 32 so that they could start a family.

Even though women were working, they still couldn’t do basic things such as get a credit card in their names, serve on a jury in most states, get an Ivy League education and be in charge of their own reproductive concerns.

Feminist leaders like Betty Friedan, Robin Morgan and Simone de Beauvoir had started a new conversation to address these and other women’s rights around the world. These women, and other organizers, began forming groups such as the New York Radical Women and the National Organization for Women (or NOW!). Borrowing tactics from the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, these organizations were mirrored after SCLC and SNCC. And though these organizations served as a blueprint for the women’s movement, many women inside these organizations were being met with discrimination and were expected to do things like bring Martin Luther King coffee and make copies. And while there were Black women also organizing with white feminist leaders, they were also often excluded from the mainstream narrative.

Other, larger, movements had taken place – five thousand women dressed in black had marched on Washington in protest of the Vietnam War. When asked why there had been very little press coverage, the managing editor Clifton Daniel said that there was little chance of violence and therefore no need to cover it. The success, however, of the 1968 Miss America protest had hinged on the fact that 1) there were already news cameras covering the event, 2) the request for female reporters only rippled into another conversation about the lack of women in media and ultimately led to more women being employed as journalism and 3) the massive coverage became the launch of the Second Wave of Feminism.

By the end of the 1960s, women were being admitted into Yale University, a government agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, had been formed to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited job discrimination had changed the sexist practices in the flight attendant workforce, Muriel Siebert became the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange - leading the way for more women to infiltrate male dominated fields - and June Cleaver was no longer on television.