A medievalist. John O'Brien:It was definitely dark, it was definitely smelly and raunchy and dirty and that's the only places that we had to meet each other, was in the very dirty, despicable places. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. Martin Boyce:And I remember moving into the open space and grabbing onto two of my friends and we started singing and doing a kick line. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. He said, "Okay, let's go." Joe DeCola I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Ellen Goosenberg People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. It's like, this is not right. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. 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. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. 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. I said, "I can go in with you?" We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Doug Cramer They can be anywhere. Richard Enman (Archival):Well, let me say, first of all, what type of laws we are not after, because there has been much to-do that the Society was in favor of the legalization of marriage between homosexuals, and the adoption of children, and such as that, and that is not at all factual at all. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. The ones that came close you could see their faces in rage. The Underground Lounge Before Stonewall. 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. Beginning of our night out started early. The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. In the trucks or around the trucks. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. Like, "Joe, if you fire your gun without me saying your name and the words 'fire,' you will be walking a beat on Staten Island all alone on a lonely beach for the rest of your police career. The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. 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. They would bang on the trucks. Scott McPartland/Getty Images Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:So you're outside, and you see like two people walking toward these trucks and you think, "Oh I think I'll go in there," you go in there, there's like a lot of people in there and it's all dark. Getty Images It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. I was a homosexual. We don't know. We love to hear from our listeners! Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". And we had no right to such. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. Narrator (Archival):Richard Enman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida, whose goal is to legalize homosexuality between consenting adults, was a reluctant participant in tonight's program. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. Meanwhile, there was crowds forming outside the Stonewall, wanting to know what was going on. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. All I knew about was that I heard that there were people down in Times Square who were gay and that's where I went to. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. That never happened before. kui Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. 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. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. And the Stonewall was part of that system. Martha Babcock "We're not going.". View in iTunes. The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. 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. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed. So I run down there. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. And I had become very radicalized in that time. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. Alan Lechner Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. Leroy S. Mobley Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Chris Mara, Production Assistants We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. 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. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. We were scared. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of straight America, in terms of the middle class, was recoiling in horror from what was happening all around them at that time, in that summer and the summer before. This is every year in New York City. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. Director . Tom Caruso Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. 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. Raymond Castro:So then I got pushed back in, into the Stonewall by these plain clothes cops and they would not let me out, they didn't let anybody out. We were winning. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. And when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. You were alone. It was an age of experimentation. It was tremendous freedom. They were to us. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Gay bars were always on side streets out of the way in neighborhoods that nobody would go into. 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. Virginia Apuzzo:What we felt in isolation was a growing sense of outrage and fury particularly because we looked around and saw so many avenues of rebellion. It meant nothing to us. I guess they're deviates. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. We heard one, then more and more. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. Just making their lives miserable for once. 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. Fred Sargeant by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. And they started smashing their heads with clubs. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." William Eskridge, Professor of Law:At the peak, as many as 500 people per year were arrested for the crime against nature, and between 3- and 5,000 people per year arrested for various solicitation or loitering crimes. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. Cause I was from the streets. Charles Harris, Transcriptions They didn't know what they were walking into. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. And I said to myself, "Oh my God, this will not last.". Trevor, Post Production June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. 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. 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. Not able to do anything. 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. 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 ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. Lauren Noyes. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:Those of us that were the street kids we didn't think much about the past or the future. Heather Gude, Archival Research Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. But we couldn't hold out very long. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. Available via license: Content may be subject to . And that's what it was, it was a war. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. 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. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. John O'Brien When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. The New York State Liquor Authority refused to issue liquor licenses to many gay bars, and several popular establishments had licenses suspended or revoked for "indecent conduct.". John O'Brien:And deep down I believed because I was gay and couldn't speak out for my rights, was probably one of the reasons that I was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. Evan Eames Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? 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. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt We knew that this was a moment that we didn't want to let slip past, because it was something that we could use to bring more of the groups together. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:If someone was dressed as a woman, you had to have a female police officer go in with her. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. That was scary, very scary. Remember everything. Martha Shelley 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. It was terrifying. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. The men's room was under police surveillance. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. And then there were all these priests ranting in church about certain places not to go, so you kind of knew where you could go by what you were told not to do. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. The film brings together voices from over 50 years of the LGBTQ rights movement to explore queer activism before, during and after the Stonewall Riots. But we're going to pay dearly for this. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Transcript Enlarge this image 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. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. I never believed in that. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. WGBH Educational Foundation Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:But there were little, tiny pin holes in the plywood windows, I'll call them the windows but they were plywood, and we could look out from there and every time I went over and looked out through one of those pin holes where he did, we were shocked at how big the crowd had become. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Nobody. And it just seemed like, fantastic because the background was this industrial, becoming an industrial ruin, it was a masculine setting, it was a whole world. Not even us. Amber Hall They really were objecting to how they were being treated. 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. More than a half-century after its release, " The Queen " serves as a powerful time capsule of queer life as it existed before the 1969 Stonewall uprising. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people?
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