And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. We had been threatened bomb threats. I really thought that, you know, we did it. 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. So if any one of you, have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual, or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick. And the cops got that. We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. Hugh Bush And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. Glenn Fukushima Maureen Jordan There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. And they were gay. This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives Just making their lives miserable for once. Never, never, never. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn has undergone several transformations in the decades since it was the focal point of a three-day riot in 1969. It was like a reward. It was an age of experimentation. Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. As kids, we played King Kong. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. 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. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. 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. 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.". There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. Producers Library In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Doric Wilson Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. Director . Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. 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?" 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. If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. 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. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. You know. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. The windows were always cloaked. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Martha Babcock And I just didn't understand that. Raymond Castro:We were in the back of the room, and the lights went on, so everybody stopped what they were doing, because now the police started coming in, raiding the bar. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Queer was very big. The newly restored 1984 documentary "Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community," re-released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the seminal Stonewall riots, remains a . We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. Judy Laster Daniel Pine Creating the First Visual History of Queer Life Before Stonewall Making a landmark documentary about LGBTQ Americans before 1969 meant digging through countless archives to find traces of. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. Because one out of three of you will turn queer. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. 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. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. 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. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. NBC News Archives Eventually something was bound to blow. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. 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. All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. I mean I'm talking like sardines. 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. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. That was our world, that block. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Jorge Garcia-Spitz In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . kui Even non-gay people. Noah Goldman Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. Ellinor Mitchell Jerry Hoose:I remember I was in a paddy wagon one time on the way to jail, we were all locked up together on a chain in the paddy wagon and the paddy wagon stopped for a red light or something and one of the queens said "Oh, this is my stop." Fred Sargeant:We knew that they were serving drinks out of vats and buckets of water and believed that there had been some disease that had been passed. 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. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:Most raids by the New York City Police, because they were paid off by the mob, took place on a weeknight, they took place early in the evening, the place would not be crowded. But that's only partially true. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. We were thinking about survival. David Carter Tires were slashed on police cars and it just went on all night long. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:At a certain point, it felt pretty dangerous to me but I noticed that the cop that seemed in charge, he said you know what, we have to go inside for safety. 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. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. Abstract. It was tremendous freedom. Susana Fernandes But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. 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. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, and Shirley Willer, president of the Daughters of Bilitis, spoke to Marcus about being gay before the Stonewall riots happened and what motivated people who were involved in the movement. 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? (c) 2011 ABCNEWS VideoSource Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. And she was quite crazy. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." It was right in the center of where we all were. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We didn't have the manpower, and the manpower for the other side was coming like it was a real war. And then they send them out in the street and of course they did make arrests, because you know, there's all these guys who cruise around looking for drag queens. Sophie Cabott Black Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. Audience Member (Archival):I was wondering if you think that there are any quote "happy homosexuals" for whom homosexuality would be, in a way, their best adjustment in life? 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. Not able to do anything. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. 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. This was a highly unusual raid, going in there in the middle of the night with a full crowd, the Mafia hasn't been alerted, the Sixth Precinct hasn't been alerted.
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