Johnny Upgrade Hacked No Flash, Ezcard First Financial Bank, Chevy Cruze Door Chime, City In Italy With The Longest Name, Nick Roumel Michigan, Articles B

Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? 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. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. 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. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku Louis Mandelbaum Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. 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. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. Not able to do anything. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? Hugh Bush Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. They could be judges, lawyers. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. Raymond Castro 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. Chris Mara Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. WGBH Educational Foundation They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. BBC Worldwide Americas 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. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. Martin Boyce:Oh, Miss New Orleans, she wouldn't be stopped. Historic Films 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. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. You were alone. Director . This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. Even non-gay people. People could take shots at us. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! 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. NBC News Archives Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. 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. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. 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. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Liz Davis Raymond Castro:Incendiary devices were being thrown in I don't think they were Molotov cocktails, but it was just fire being thrown in when the doors got open. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." Janice Flood Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. 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. Alexis Charizopolis We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". I made friends that first day. Doric Wilson A word that would be used in the 1960s for gay men and lesbians. It was terrifying. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. It was an age of experimentation. 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 Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. They would bang on the trucks. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. First you gotta get past the door. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. Pamela Gaudiano Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. The men's room was under police surveillance. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. ITN Source We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. 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. "Don't fire. Judy Laster It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. I never believed in that. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. Heather Gude, Archival Research Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. The police weren't letting us dance. Doric Wilson:In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, "I'm a faggot," was horren--, nobody, nobody was ready to do that. Dana Kirchoff And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. That's more an uprising than a riot. Just let's see if they can. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. Seymour Wishman Samual Murkofsky Marjorie Duffield To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. 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. 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. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? Because he was homosexual. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. He said, "Okay, let's go." But we couldn't hold out very long. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month's 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller's Before Stonewall.Originally released in 1984as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionariesthe film, through the use of . Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Raymond Castro:I'd go in there and I would look and I would just cringe because, you know, people would start touching me, and "Hello, what are you doing there if you don't want to be touched?" They didn't know what they were walking into. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. Martin Boyce:I heard about the trucks, which to me was fascinated me, you know, it had an imagination thing that was like Marseilles, how can it only be a few blocks away? 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. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. And they were gay. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. Colonial House Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Doug Cramer Synopsis. And I had become very radicalized in that time. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:Those of us that were the street kids we didn't think much about the past or the future. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Don't fire until I fire. But the . Evan Eames That this was normal stuff. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. It's not my cup of tea. 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude 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. It must have been terrifying for them. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. 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. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. As you read, keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is a relatively new term and, while queer people have always existed, the terminology has changed frequently over the years. Daily News I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. And I said to myself, "Oh my God, this will not last.". Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Windows started to break. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased.