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. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. You were alone. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? We'll put new liquor in there, we'll put a new mirror up, we'll get a new jukebox." Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. Revealing and. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. They could be judges, lawyers. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. Mike Nuget It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? Joe DeCola Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. Samual Murkofsky Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. First you gotta get past the door. We had been threatened bomb threats. Dana Gaiser "Daybreak Express" by D.A. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. We were all there. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips . Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. 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. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. Chris Mara, Production Assistants I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. It was an age of experimentation. He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. Jerry Hoose:I remember I was in a paddy wagon one time on the way to jail, we were all locked up together on a chain in the paddy wagon and the paddy wagon stopped for a red light or something and one of the queens said "Oh, this is my stop." Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. 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? Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. 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) And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. Paul Bosche I mean it didn't stop after that. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". The shop had been threatened, we would get hang-up calls, calls where people would curse at us on the phone, we'd had vandalism, windows broken, streams of profanity. 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. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films William Eskridge, Professor of Law:All throughout the 60s in New York City, the period when the New York World's Fair was attracting visitors from all over America and all over the world. But I'm wearing this police thing I'm thinking well if they break through I better take it off really quickly but they're gunna come this way and we're going to be backing up and -- who knows what'll happen. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Raymond Castro:If that light goes on, you know to stop whatever you're doing, and separate. Alan Lechner Dick Leitsch:New York State Liquor Authority had a rule that one known homosexual at a licensed premise made the place disorderly, so nobody would set up a place where we could meet because they were afraid that the cops would come in to close it, and that's how the Mafia got into the gay bar business. 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. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. [1] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. They didn't know what they were walking into. A word that would be used in the 1960s for gay men and lesbians. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. Maureen Jordan Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . Danny Garvin Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. Bettye Lane A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. 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. Over a short period of time, he will be unable to get sexually aroused to the pictures, and hopefully, he will be unable to get sexually aroused inside, in other settings as well. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. I hope it was. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Cause I was from the streets. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a list: Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and NPR One. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Windows started to break. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. That was scary, very scary. They can be anywhere. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Queer was very big. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. Heather Gude, Archival Research 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. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. That's more an uprising than a riot. David Carter Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. 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. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. You know. John O'Brien One of the world's oldest and largest gay pride parades became a victory celebration after New York's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. But that's only partially true. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. I mean does anyone know what that is? Producers Library Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." Never, never, never. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. We don't know. Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. Liz Davis Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. Fred Sargeant:We knew that they were serving drinks out of vats and buckets of water and believed that there had been some disease that had been passed. Read a July 6, 1969excerpt fromTheNew York Daily News. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." Not even us. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. Even non-gay 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. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. It meant nothing to us. It was tremendous freedom. Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. Noah Goldman Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. This was in front of the police. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. This book, and the related documentary film, use oral histories to present students with a varied view of lesbian and gay experience. Because he was homosexual. Chris Mara There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. Other images in this film are It eats you up inside. I was proud. If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. 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. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. Before Stonewall. Sophie Cabott Black and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. But you live with it, you know, you're used to this, after the third time it happened, or, the third time you heard about it, that's the way the world is. So it was a perfect storm for the police. America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. 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.". Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. And that's what it was, it was a war. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. Meanwhile, there was crowds forming outside the Stonewall, wanting to know what was going on. John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. 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. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". It was a 100% profit, I mean they were stealing the liquor, then watering it down, and they charging twice as much as they charged one door away at the 55. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. hide caption. BBC Worldwide Americas William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Ed Koch who was a democratic party leader in the Greenwich Village area, was a specific leader of the local forces seeking to clean up the streets. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. And gay people were standing around outside and the mood on the street was, "They think that they could disperse us last night and keep us from doing what we want to do, being on the street saying I'm gay and I'm proud? Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. Martha Babcock It was a horror story. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. It was as if they were identifying a thing. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. 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. Dr. Socarides (Archival):I think the whole idea of saying "the happy homosexual" is to, uh, to create a mythology about the nature of homosexuality. Jorge Garcia-Spitz At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. I could never let that happen and never did. I mean they were making some headway. And the police were showing up. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Alexis Charizopolis The award winning film Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. Don't fire until I fire. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Before Stonewall 1984 Unrated 1 h 27 m IMDb RATING 7.5 /10 1.1K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 2:21 1 Video 7 Photos Documentary History The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. In the trucks or around the trucks. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. Martha Shelley The events. I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Do you understand me?". And she was quite crazy. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. We were thinking about survival. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. I just thought you had to get through this, and I thought I could get through it, but you really had to be smart about it. That was our world, that block. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. In the Life A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. 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. It must have been terrifying for them. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:Most raids by the New York City Police, because they were paid off by the mob, took place on a weeknight, they took place early in the evening, the place would not be crowded. 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. 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. We were going to propose something that all groups could participate in and what we ended up producing was what's now known as the gay pride march. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And by the time the police would come back towards Stonewall, that crowd had gone all the around Washington Place come all the way back around and were back pushing in on them from the other direction and the police would wonder, "These are the same people or different people?". Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. Barney Karpfinger Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. All rights reserved. Almost anything you could name. And that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chik-n-Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the Village. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. And they were gay. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. 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. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. John O'Brien:There was one street called Christopher Street, where actually I could sit and talk to other gay people beyond just having sex. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. And we all relaxed. I'm losing everything that I have. It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. Beginning of our night out started early. 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:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. 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. And I just didn't understand that. 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. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. 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. Danny Garvin:We were talking about the revolution happening and we were walking up 7th Avenue and I was thinking it was either Black Panthers or the Young Lords were going to start it and we turned the corner from 7th Avenue onto Christopher Street and we saw the paddy wagon pull up there. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. Robin Haueter Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. And it was fantastic. 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. Trevor, Post Production Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Nobody. [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]. Doric Wilson:Somebody that I knew that was older than me, his family had him sent off where they go up and damage the frontal part of the brain.
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