The Stonewall Riots, also known as the Stonewall Uprising, began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York’s Greenwich Village.
The raid sparked riots among the bar’s patrons and locals, as police violently evicted employees and regulars inside, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar, on Christopher Street, on adjacent streets and near Christopher Park.
The 1960s and preceding decades were not benign times for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. For example, demonstrating homosexual sex was perfectly illegal in New York.
For these reasons, LGBT people flocked to gay bars and clubs as places of refuge where they could express themselves openly and socialize without worry. However, the New York State Liquor Authority began sanctioning and ordering the closure of establishments that served alcohol to known or suspected LGBT people, arguing that the mere gathering of homosexuals was a public nuisance.
Thanks to the efforts of activists, this regulation was repealed in 1966 and alcohol can now be served to LGBT patrons.
On the Tuesday before the riots began, police conducted an evening raid on the Stonewall Inn, arresting some of its employees and confiscating its illegal liquor supply. As with many similar raids, the police targeted drinking establishments that did not have a proper liquor license.
After this raid, the NYPD planned a second raid for the following Friday, which they hoped would close the bar for good.
After midnight on an unusually hot Friday night, the Stonewall was packed when plainclothes police entered the bar. In addition to bar employees, they also targeted drag queens and other transvestite patrons before arresting them. In New York, impersonating the opposite sex was a crime.
More NYPD officers arrived on foot, joined by three patrol cars. Meanwhile, bar patrons, who had been released, joined the crowd of onlookers forming outside Stonewall. A police van, commonly known as a “paddy wagon” arrived and the police began loading Stonewall employees and transvestites inside.
The crowd erupted in anger after police roughed up a male-looking woman. People began taunting the officers by shouting “Pigs!” and throwing pennies and bottles at them.
According to David Carter, historian and author of Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution, the “hierarchy of resistance” in the riots began with the street kids, those young gay men who saw Stonewall as the only place where they were somewhat at home.
Two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, reportedly resisted arrest and threw the first bottle (or brick or rock) at the cops, respectively. Although Johnson later stated in a 1987 interview with historian Eric Marcus that she hadn’t yet arrived when the uprising broke out.
Knowledge of who did what isn’t precise – in part because this is a time before the age of smartphones, and documentation of the night’s events was minimal.
As the salad cart and squad cars left to drop off prisoners in the nearby Sixth Ward, the growing crowd forced the NYPD group to flee inside the Stonewall and barricade themselves inside.
Some rioters used a parking meter as a battering ram to break down the door; others threw beer bottles, trash and other objects, or made improvised Molotov cocktails with bottles, matches and lighters.
Sirens announced the arrival of more police, as well as squads from the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), the city’s riot police. As the helmeted officers marched in formation down Christopher Street, the protesters foiled their strategy by running away, then bypassing the small blocks of the neighborhood to come up behind the officers, catching them off guard.
Finally, shortly after 4 a.m., things calmed down. Surprisingly, no one died or was seriously injured on the first night of the riots, although a few officers reported injuries.
Despite being damaged by cops, the Stonewall Inn reopened the next day (although it didn’t serve alcohol). More and more supporters showed up.
Once again, police were called in to restore order, including an even larger group of TPF officers, who beat up people and gassed the crowd. The situation continued until the early morning hours, when the crowd dispersed.
Over the next few nights, gay activists continued to gather near the Stonewall, using the time to inform and build solidarity that would soon allow the gay rights movement to flourish. Although the police also returned, the atmosphere was less confrontational, with isolated skirmishes replacing the large-scale riots of the weekend.
In response to the Village Voice newspaper’s coverage of the riots, which referred to the “forces of queerness,” demonstrators invaded the newspaper’s offices.
Some called for the building to be burned down. When police drove off the attackers, the rioting began again, but did not last, ending around midnight.
On the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Inn raid, gay activists in New York City organized the Christopher Street Liberation March to close the city’s first Gay Pride Week.
As several hundred people began marching up 6th Avenue toward Central Park, they were joined by supporters of the march. The procession eventually stretched for about fifteen blocks, encompassing thousands of people.
Inspired by the New York example, activists in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago, organized gay pride celebrations that same year.
The frenzy of activism born that first night at Stonewall would eventually fuel gay rights movements in Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand, among other countries, becoming an enduring force that would endure for the next half century… and beyond.
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