1969: The Stonewall Uprising - Library of Congress Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. 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. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. BBC Worldwide Americas 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. Leroy S. Mobley Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. We were all there. (c) 2011 Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. 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. It was right in the center of where we all were. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. And that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chik-n-Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the Village. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. 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. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. It eats you up inside. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. But you live with it, you know, you're used to this, after the third time it happened, or, the third time you heard about it, that's the way the world is. 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. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. Just making their lives miserable for once. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. 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. Dick Leitsch:Mattachino in Italy were court jesters; the only people in the whole kingdom who could speak truth to the king because they did it with a smile. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. We were going to propose something that all groups could participate in and what we ended up producing was what's now known as the gay pride march. Sophie Cabott Black Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. Nobody. There are a lot of kids here. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. And I knew that I was lesbian. 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. 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. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. And I had become very radicalized in that time. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was a bottle club which meant that I guess you went to the door and you bought a membership or something for a buck and then you went in and then you could buy drinks. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. And the cops got that. He said, "Okay, let's go." Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. That never happened before. Scott McPartland/Getty Images It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. Geoff Kole 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. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. 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. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. I was a man. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries 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. [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]. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. Ellinor Mitchell Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. I was proud. Suzanne Poli If you came to a place like New York, you at least had the opportunity of connecting with people, and finding people who didn't care that you were gay. 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? 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. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. I could never let that happen and never did. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. 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. Greg Shea, Legal TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? William Eskridge, Professor of Law:All throughout the 60s in New York City, the period when the New York World's Fair was attracting visitors from all over America and all over the world. People could take shots at us. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. Liz Davis The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. Before Stonewall | The New York Public Library Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. This 1968 Film Put Drag Queens In The Spotlight Before Stonewall - HuffPost A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:The Stonewall, they didn't have a liquor license and they were raided by the cops regularly and there were pay-offs to the cops, it was awful. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. Things were just changing. We didn't want to come on, you know, wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick, you know, and being freaks. But as we were going up 6th Avenue, it kept growing. This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. Producers Library Raymond Castro:If that light goes on, you know to stop whatever you're doing, and separate. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Jeremiah Hawkins Dan Bodner Daniel Pine Transcript of Re-Release: The Stonewall | Happy Scribe Evan Eames (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Dick Leitsch:And the blocks were small enough that we could run around the block and come in behind them before they got to the next corner. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. [1] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. View in iTunes. 'Before Stonewall' Tracks the Pre-Movement Era | International Synopsis. 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. So in every gay pride parade every year, Stonewall lives. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . That this was normal stuff. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. American Airlines There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. Dick Leitsch:You read about Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal and all these actors and stuff, Liberace and all these people running around doing all these things and then you came to New York and you found out, well maybe they're doing them but, you know, us middle-class homosexuals, we're getting busted all the time, every time we have a place to go, it gets raided. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Not able to do anything. A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE 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. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco The police weren't letting us dance. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. Do you understand me?". They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. 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. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. Stonewall Uprising | American Experience | PBS Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. David Huggins 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. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. NBC News Archives What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. This is every year in New York City. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. 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. In the trucks or around the trucks. I'm losing everything that I have. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. Maureen Jordan They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. 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. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. And they were gay. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. 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. Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' 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. 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. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. Clever. Katrina Heilbroner When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. I mean it didn't stop after that. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Homo, homo was big. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. I mean I'm talking like sardines. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. Urban Stages I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. 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. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Before Stonewall. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. Other images in this film are John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. This time they said, "We're not going." Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free dramatic stories from the early 1900's onwards of public and private existence as experienced by LGBT Americans. Ellen Goosenberg 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. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted.
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