When you push someone hard enough and for long enough, they
are likely to strike back. When you push a whole class of society hard enough
and long enough, you are likely to get a riot and perhaps even a revolution.
That was Stonewall.
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the N.Y. City
Police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village for the second time in
less than a week. This was a time when homosexuality was illegal in every state
except Illinois, when homosexuality was widely recognized as a mental disorder
within the psychiatric community and the federal and state governments believed that those who engaged in homosexuality
lacked the emotional stability of normal persons and were a security
threat to the nation, when gay bars were forced so far out of the
mainstream that many, including the Stonewall Inn, were operated by the Mafia,
when gays had no choice but to move to the largest cities in the country in
order to seek anonymity.
Because of the Mafia ownership of the Stonewall Inn,
previous raids were preceded by tips from paid police insiders and the raids
typically occurred early in the evening so that business could quickly resume
afterward. The raid on June 28, 1969, however, occurred without prior notice
and in the early hours on a Saturday morning. Patrons of the Stonewall were taken completely by surprise. Instead of
arresting only those dressed in drag and a few employees, as was typically the case,
this time the police announced that everyone in the club was being arrested. As
patrons were escorted out the only exit to the club, they began to resist. The
word quickly spread throughout Greenwich Village and people began gathering at
the Stonewall. With support of the immediate community, the gay community in
Greenwich violently struck back at the police, at the oppression they had
endured silently all their lives. The riots over the two days of June
28 and 29 are considered to be the beginning of a revolution that has
reshaped the public perception of the LGBTQ+ community.
Within two years after the Stonewall Riot, newspapers
catering strictly to the gay communities sprung up all over the country, gay
activist organizations were formed in practically every major city in the
country and gay pride marches were first organized in cities all over America
and the world. The face of Homosexuality was no longer hidden from mainstream
society. Walls began to tumble.
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