Stonewall Riots: The Beginning of the LGBT Movement
At the time, there were not many places where people could be openly gay. New York had laws prohibiting homosexuality in public, and private businesses and gay establishments were regularly raided and shut down.
In the early hours of June 28, 1969, a group of gay customers at a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village called the Stonewall Inn, who had grown angry at the harassment by police, took a stand and a riot broke out. As word spread throughout the city about the demonstration, the customers of the inn were soon joined by other gay men and women who started throwing objects at the policemen, shouting “gay power.”
Police reinforcements arrived and beat the crowd away, but the next night, the crowd returned, even larger than the night before, with numbers reaching over 1000. For hours, protesters rioted outside the Stonewall Inn until the police sent a riot-control squad to disperse the crowd. For days following, demonstrations of varying intensity took place throughout the city.
In the wake of the riots, intense discussions about civil rights were held among New York’s LGBT people, which led to the formation of various advocacy groups such as the short-lived Gay Liberation Front, which was the first group to use the word “gay” in its name, and a city-wide newspaper called Gay. On the 1st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the first gay pride parades in U.S. history took place in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and near the Stonewall Inn in New York.
The Stonewall riots inspired LGBT people throughout the country to organize in support of gay rights, and within two years after the riots, gay rights groups had been started in nearly every major city in the United States.
www.civilrights.org/archives/2009/06/449-stonewall.html
The Stonewall Riot
Just after 3 a.m., a police raid of the Stonewall Inn–a gay club located on New York City’s Christopher Street–turns violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the police.Although the police were legally justified in raiding the club, which was serving liquor without a license among other violations, New York’s gay community had grown weary of the police department targeting gay clubs, a majority of which had already been closed. The crowd on the street watched quietly as Stonewall’s employees were arrested, but when three drag queens and a lesbian were forced into the paddy wagon, the crowd began throwing bottles at the police. The officers were forced to take shelter inside the establishment, and two policemen were slightly injured before reinforcements arrived to disperse the mob. The protest, however, spilled over into the neighboring streets, and order was not restored until the deployment of New York’s riot police.
The so-called Stonewall Riot was followed by several days of demonstrations in New York and was the impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front as well as other gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights organizations. It is also regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for homosexuals.
www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-stonewall-riot
Beyond Stonewall: 9 Lesser-Known LGBT Uprisings
Thanks to the Stonewall uprising, New York’s Greenwich Village has long been viewed as the flashpoint of the LGBT rights movement. While Stonewall — which occurred in the early hours of June 28, 1969 — will inorexably be tied to our annual Pride celebrations and the struggle for equality, it wasn’t the first nor the last time we stood up to defend ourselves. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. (and New York, of course) all played important roles in the emerging gay and trans rights movements, even if at that time it meant simply being allowed a cup of coffee.www.advocate.com/pride/2015/06/25/beyond-stonewall-9-lesser-known-lgbt-uprisings
Los Angeles: Cooper’s Donuts 1959
A group of drag queens and hustlers took action against the Los Angeles Police Department for arresting their friends for simply congregating in Cooper’s Donuts, a popular downtown LGBT meeting place. When police tried to haul away three gay patrons of Cooper’s, an angry mob pelted the officers with doughnuts, coffee, and paper plates until the cops were forced to retreat and return with backup. When the officers returned, a riot ensued, shutting down busy Main Street for an entire day.10 Years Before Stonewall, There Was the Cooper’s Donuts Riot
In May of 1959, a group of drag queens and hustlers fought cops in a donut shop in downtown Los Angeles, furious that LAPD officers were arresting their friends purely for legally congregating in Cooper’s Donuts, a popular gay meeting place.
Cooper’s was located on Main Street, the Los Angeles “gay ghetto” of the 1950s and ‘60s. In his landmark novel City of Night, novelist John Rechy describes the area as teeming with hustlers and transvestites, who were routinely arrested and locked up by the LAPD just for being seen together on the street or in a raided bar.
Rechy was in fact one of three people the police tried to arrest that night in May of 1959, when the patrons of Cooper’s had had enough. A large group of transgendered women and others pelted the officers with donuts, coffee, and paper plates until they were forced to retreat and return with larger numbers. Rechy managed to escape, but when the police returned a riot ensued that shut down Main Street for an entire day.
That night is widely considered to be the first gay uprising in modern history, seven years before the Black Cat Riot in L.A.’s Silverlake neighborhood, and ten years before the Stonewall Rebellion.
The event is chronicled in detail in Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians, a meticulously researched book that positions Los Angeles—and not New York—as the most influential gay city of modern times.
It includes an exhaustive account of the landmark Mattachine Society, which was founded by a group of brave gay L.A. men in 1950. Harry Hay, one of its founders, became an institutional voice for the burgeoning gay rights movement, and Hay’s accounts of early LGBT history are included at length.
By Hay’s recollection, there were even earlier riots and uprisings in which gays and transgendered Angelenos were instrumental in resisting police, but Cooper’s was the first such uprising specifically against police treatment of LGBT people. The LAPD had a reputation for brutalizing LGBT residents, one that continued well into the 1980s, and the arrests in May 1959 were the first of last straws.
People around the world will celebrate international Pride Month this June, in honor of the June 1969 Stonewall uprising at the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village. The Inn itself still stands, and will be made an official New York City landmark soon. In Germany, Pride celebrations are known nationally as “Christopher Street Day,” in honor of the Stonewall’s address. Yet, there a few celebrations of the first uprising of this kind, a night of queer empowerment and resistance in the midnight hours of the 1950s. If June is dedicated to Christopher Street, May should most certainly be dedicated to Main.
www.out.com/today-gay-history/2015/5/31/today-gay-history-10-years-stonewall-there-was-coopers-donuts-riot
Whitehall Street Induction Center: New York City 1964
Five years before Stonewall, Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, and eight other members of the Sexual Freedom League, gathered outside the U.S. Army’s induction center at 39 Whitehall St. in New York City to protest the military’s antigay discrimination and complicity in witch hunts. While no one seemed to pay much attention to them that day, they paved the way for open service by gay, lesbian, and bisexual people in the military, which eventually came in 2011.
That was the day Randy Wicker, Jefferson Poland, and eight other members of the Sexual Freedom League, six of them straight, gathered outside the army’s induction center at 39 Whitehall Street in New York City to protest the armed forces’s anti-gay discrimination and complicity in witch hunts. Their voices were for the most part ignored that day, but we all know that in the end they won: the army’s official discrimination against gay and lesbian members ended in 2011.
While we’re on the subject of Whitehall Street induction center, here’s some bonus history: the location became so notorious during the Vietnam draft that it found its way into Arlo Guthrie’s classic “Alice’s Restaurant:” “They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street/Where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected/Neglected and selected.” The center was such a symbol of military might that it became a target for an anti-war bombings in 1968 and 1969. The damage was minimal, but the center moved to Varick Street in 1972.
www.out.com/entertainment/today-gay-history/2013/09/19/today-gay-history-first-gay-protest
Council on Religion and the Homosexual Event: San Francisco 1965
A group of progressive Christians, civil rights activists, and gay activists formed a group called Council on Religion and the Homosexual in 1964. In order to raise money for the new organization, the group scheduled a costume party for January 1, 1965, and dutifully informed the San Francisco Police Department of their intentions; the police attempted to force the owners of the rented hall to cancel the event. Although the police eventually agreed not to interfere with the dance, guests arrived to find cops snapping pictures of them as they entered in an attempt to intimidate them. When the police demanded to enter, the council’s lawyers informed them it was a private event and they were not allowed in without a ticket. This caused the police to arrest the lawyers, which helped incite a brief riot.
Dewey’s Restaurant Sit-In: Philadelphia 1965
A Philadelphia coffee shop called Dewey’s was a popular late-night hangout for young gays, lesbians, and drag queens in the mid-’60s. When the establishment started refusing service to the LGBT patrons, a protest rally ensued; Dewey’s management turned away more than 150 customers while the demonstration raged outside. Four teens refused to leave and were arrested and later convicted of disorderly conduct. Over the next several weeks, LGBT locals formed a picket line and staged a sit-in. The restaurant finally backed down and promised “an immediate cessation of all indiscriminate denials of service.”
East Coast Homophile Organizations’ Annual Reminders: Philadelphia 1965-1969
On July 4, 1965, gay rights activist groups joined together under the collective name East Coast Homophile Organizations to picket outside Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, demanding legislation that would secure the rights of LGBT Americans. Four events followed on Independence Day, each called the Annual Reminder, with hopes America would be reminded that a large number of its citizens were actually denied the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” A plaque now commemorates the work of the brave activists, and a reenactment is planned during the National LGBT 50th Anniversary Ceremony in Philly.
It was called the “Annual Reminder” to remind the American people that a substantial number of American citizens were denied the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Enthused by Rodwell’s idea, ECHO put together the first Reminder picket in just over two months. Thirty-nine people attended the first picket, including veteran activists Frank Kameny, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Tobin. As with the Washington, D.C. picket Kameny insisted on a strict dress code for participants, including jackets and ties for the men and dresses for the women. Kameny’s goal was to represent homosexuals as “presentable and employable.” Picketers carried signs with such slogans as “HOMOSEXUAL BILL OF RIGHTS” and “15 MILLION HOMOSEXUAL AMERICANS ASK FOR EQUALITY, OPPORTUNITY, DIGNITY“.
The Annual Reminders continued through July 4, 1969. The last Annual Reminder took place less than a week after the June 28 Stonewall riots. Rodwell received several telephone calls threatening him and the other New York participants, but he was able to arrange for police protection for the chartered bus all the way to Philadelphia. About 45 people participated. The Annual Reminders were commemorated in 2005 by the placement of a Pennsylvania state historical marker by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission at 6th and Chestnut Streets where it is viewed by thousands of visitors daily.
www.phillygaypride.org/philly-pride-celebrate-50th-anniversary-independence-hall-1964-lgbt-picket/
San Francisco: The Compton’s Cafeteria Riots August 1966
It was illegal to cross-dress in San Francisco in 1966, and for men specificially, it was unlawful to “impersonate a female.” At the time, drag performers, transgender women, lesbians, and gay and bi men experienced regular harassment by police and local officials. The Glide Memorial United Methodist Church fought back against the mistreatment of LGBT people by organizing political action and picketing Compton’s Cafeteria, a Tenderloin establishment long known for mistreating its LGBT customers. After a transgender woman was arrested inside the restaurant, she threw her drink in the cop’s face and other customers fought back, breaking windows, dishes, furniture, and damaging a police car outside.In the 1960s, Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood was virtually the only place in the city where transgender folks could congregate publicly, as they weren’t allowed in gay bars at the time. Cross-dressing was still illegal in the city, and the local police often used the presence of trans women as a pretext for raiding and closing gay bars.
The patrons at Compton’s were used to being rousted by the police, but one night, after a cop attempted to arrest one trans woman, that “street queen” (as the women were often called) fought back and tossed her drink into the officer’s face. A huge riot broke out and spilled into the neighborhood, becoming one of the first transgender uprisings in the U.S., three years before New York’s Stonewall. (There was a much smaller riot in L.A. in 1959.)
Trans people weren’t the only ones rioting as the hours went on; they were joined by many from the country’s first youth group, Vanguard Youth, as well as numerous street dykes, queer hustlers, and neighborhood locals. Later LGBT folks from other parts of the city joined in.
The Compton’s riot was a turning point in trans liberation, and by 1969 the first transgender advocacy group in the nation – and the world
Los Angeles: Black Cat Protests January 1967
In the first minutes of New Year’s Day, 1967, undercover police officers raided a popular gay bar in Los Angeles’s Silver Lake neighborhood called the Black Cat and arrested men kissing each other and those dressed in drag. Those affected in the raid decided it was time to fight back and planned a protest, which became the first time LGBT people organized against police harassment. Because this happened prior to the Stonewall riots, some believe the Black Cat protests are the real beginning of the LGBT rights movement. One thing is certain, this publication wouldn’t be around without it; two men were compelled to start a gay newsmagazine, which could eventually become The Advocate, following the raid and protests.
As we celebrate 45 years of The Advocate’s history, we look both inward, to our long record of reporting on the struggle for LGBT rights, and outward, to a new generation of activists carrying the torch for equality. This original photo of the protests (participants’ names and photographer unknown) has been re-created by Bradford Rogne and features activists (above, from left) James Duke Mason, 19, founder of the Trailblazer Campaign; Eileen Ma, 40, executive director of API Equality L.A.; and Jake Finney, 40, Anti-Violence Project manager for the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center and organizer of Trans Pride in Los Angeles.
Committee for Homosexual Freedom Pickets: San Francisco 1969
Two young gay men, Gale Whittington and Leo E. Laurence, were fired by their employers in 1969 after a picture of them embracing was printed in a small newspaper. Whittington worked at a freight company, the State Steamship Line, and he and Laurence picketed the company’s San Francisco offices every workday for several weeks. Though Whittington never got his job back, he and Laurence formed the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, which also picketed Tower Records after it fired a gay employee; the man was eventually rehired.San Francisco: The White Night Riots 1979
After San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White shot Mayor George Moscone and gay Supervisor Harvey Milk to death in 1978, a jury of 12 people the following year found White guilty of manslaughter, saving him from the death penalty, and gave him a light sentence of less than eight years in prison. LGBT San Franciscans and straight allies were enraged at the outcome and proceeded to march to the Civic Center to protest the decision. The protest turned into a riot, with people smashing windows and setting fire to police cars; in retaliation, police raided the Elephant Walk, a gay bar in the Castro, and beat many of the patrons.Just as today’s LGBT community awaits on pins and needles for a court decision on whether voters had the right to rescind marriage rights to same-sex couples through the ballot box, gay residents of San Francisco 30 years ago today (Thursday, May 21) were also anxious to learn about the outcome of another courthouse drama.
Inside a jury room 12 people were deliberating whether to find former Supervisor Dan White guilty of murdering then Mayor George Moscone and gay rights leader Supervisor Harvey Milk on the morning of November 27, 1978. White’s attorney mounted what became known as the Twinkie defense, arguing that he had temporarily lost his mind due to the sugary snacks he had consumed.
Having witnessed a trial many found rigged in favor of White, the LGBT community did not have high hopes that White would be convicted of murder. Their fears were realized when the jury, which included no out LGBT people, rendered its verdict finding White guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, thus saving him from being sentenced to death.
Their pain and shock over the assassinations of the two beloved progressive politicians still simmering, many LGBT residents, as well as straight allies, were angered and outraged by the outcome of White’s murder trial. Thousands of people descended on the Castro, as planned, the evening of May 21, 1979 and proceeded to march to the Civic Center, where another large crowd had gathered to protest the jury’s decision.
As day turned into night, and people’s emotions boiled over, the crowd set upon the building, smashing windows and trying to break through the front doors. A line of police cars parked nearby was then set on fire, sending plumes of smoke and flames into the sky.
In retaliation, police raided the Elephant Walk, a gay bar in the heart of the Castro where Harvey’s now sits at the corner of 18th and Castro streets. The culmination of events became known as the White Night riots and it would be decades before the rift between police and the city’s LGBT community would be healed.
“It was like being on a movie set,” recalled J.D. Petras, who was 21 at the time and took part in the demonstration. “It was incredible, like being in a World War II bombing or something. To see the police cars burning, to hear windows smashing and people screaming, the Civic Center was just torn apart.”
Petras, who admitted to throwing a trash can that night, said to this day he feels proud of how the LGBT community rose up and demonstrated its anger.
“This was the last straw. You knew things were going to change,” he said. “It was not my style to be damaging things, but sometimes you just have to make a statement that enough is enough.”
Not all those present that day took part in the mayhem. A line of people had locked arms in front of City Hall in an attempt to hold back the crowd from doing further damage to the building.
Partners Bob Heacock, 62, and John Blackburn, 57, first met that night on the building’s steps. Heacock, a friend of Milk’s and treasurer of the San Francisco Gay Democratic Club, since renamed in Milk’s honor, locked eyes with Blackburn and slipped him his phone number.
“The verdict was not what we wanted. A lot of angry people met in the Castro and were chanting 'Harvey dies, Dan White lies.’ By reflex, people met in the Castro and then marched to the Civic Center,” recalled Heacock. “We were on the steps and heard the windows crashing. A group of us in the gay political movement felt responsible for saving City Hall."Blackburn, working then as an aide to former Supervisor Louise Renne, had exited the building to witness the commotion out front. He heard Heacock call for people to lock arms and linked up with him. Looking out at the scene was "totally bizarre. It was very Fellini-esque,” said Blackburn, who himself was hit by a rock and went to a nearby emergency room for treatment.Looking back upon the events of that night three decades ago, those LGBT people who took part in it see no need to apologize for their involvement in what they considered to be San Francisco’s Stonewall. It marked the last time local gay people would be afraid to stand up and fight for their rights.“I think it was totally justified. I think everyone should have been rioting. It was mostly a queer riot but our mayor had also been killed. The verdict was a total shame,” said participant Ruth Mahaney, 64, an out lesbian who teaches gay and lesbian history at City College. “The verdict was so wrong it could not go unchallenged. If the riot had not happened, it would have gone unchallenged in a way."State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), then a public school teacher, also took part in the events of that night. He said the crowd’s response was justified."We were in no mood. This guy had killed a hero of ours and a friend of ours and he got treated like he had shoplifted,” said Ammiano. “Dan White was a former cop and he got away with murder."Ammiano said he derived hope from the community’s response."In a strange way I am grateful that when the verdict came out people were not just silent. I am glad we were so vocal,” he said. “I just thought it taught us you can not be too docile. You really do have to be strong."Standing in the Civic Center crowd that night was a young businessman named Mark Leno, now an openly gay man serving in the state Senate. He said the White Night riots were "the culmination of many changes that were impacting the city at that time. It was as if it all came to a head through the outrage of the injustice of Dan White’s sentence."He said the "raw anger” people felt because of the jury’s decision added to the intensity of the moment, something San Francisco needed to go through in order for its populace to heal, said Leno.His own entrance into politics is cemented in that night and time.“It was a jolt to the civic fabric as if we had to experience all of that to be able to move forward to become the city that we have become today,” said Leno. “The experience I had at that time continues to inform my public office today. That we have had to fight for every right that we have gained and we have had to be vigilant every step of the way so as not to ever lose anything we have attained.”
www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3931
