Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. Getty Images 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. But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. 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. Revealing and, by turns, humorous and horrifying, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotional and political spark of today's gay rights movement - the events that . Revealing and. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. The events. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. It was as if they were identifying a thing. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Barney Karpfinger It's like, this is not right. It must have been terrifying for them. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? Ellinor Mitchell 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. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. (c) 2011 Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Frank Kameny It won the Best Film Award at the Houston International Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at Filmex, First Place at the National Educational Film Festival, and Honorable Mention at the Global Village Documentary Festival. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." 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. WGBH Educational Foundation We had been threatened bomb threats. There are a lot of kids here. ITN Source And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. Remember everything. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:Those of us that were the street kids we didn't think much about the past or the future. 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. Jorge Garcia-Spitz Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:In states like New York, there were a whole basket of crimes that gay people could be charged with. I really thought that, you know, we did it. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. Vanessa Ezersky This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. National Archives and Records Administration 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. Do you understand me?". Charles Harris, Transcriptions NBC News Archives And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. Beginning of our night out started early. And I said to myself, "Oh my God, this will not last.". Pamela Gaudiano 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.". Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. Tom Caruso Liz Davis As kids, we played King Kong. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. For the first time the next person stood up. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? National History Archive, LGBT Community Center My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco [00:00:55] Oh, my God. 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. 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. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Yvonne Ritter:"In drag," quote unquote, the downside was that you could get arrested, you could definitely get arrested if someone clocked you or someone spooked that you were not really what you appeared to be on the outside. It was an age of experimentation. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. In the trucks or around the trucks. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. And I knew that I was lesbian. 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. 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? Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. I mean it didn't stop after that. Martha Babcock Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. 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. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. Quentin Heilbroner 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. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. They were getting more ferocious. Samual Murkofsky To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. 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 gay community. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. 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. 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. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." BBC Worldwide Americas I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. 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 . I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. Nobody. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. The idea was to be there first. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Marc Aubin Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. Other images in this film are Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. 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. Cause I was from the streets. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. 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. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. View in iTunes. You had no place to try to find an identity. The Underground Lounge This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. Seymour Wishman Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. 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 you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. 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. 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. 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. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." Paul Bosche Danny Garvin:Something snapped. It was as if an artist had arranged it, it was beautiful, it was like mica, it was like the streets we fought on were strewn with diamonds. Glenn Fukushima Historic Films Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. 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. Martin Boyce:All of a sudden, Miss New Orleans and all people around us started marching step by step and the police started moving back. 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. We went, "Oh my God. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. 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. First Run Features Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. Martin Boyce:The day after the first riot, when it was all over, and I remember sitting, sun was soon to come, and I was sitting on the stoop, and I was exhausted and I looked at that street, it was dark enough to allow the street lamps to pick up the glitter of all the broken glass, and all the debris, and all the different colored cloth, that was in different places. 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. They can be anywhere. Just let's see if they can. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. But we couldn't hold out very long. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. 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. 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. 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. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor 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. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution Dana Gaiser All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. [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. 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. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." 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. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. 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. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Never, never, never. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. Doric Wilson They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. 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. He said, "Okay, let's go." The New York Times / Redux Pictures Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Synopsis. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Scott McPartland/Getty Images In the Life But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. It was fun to see fags. 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. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. But we're going to pay dearly for this. A word that would be used in the 1960s for gay men and lesbians. Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. David Huggins I could never let that happen and never did. Raymond Castro Almost anything you could name. All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". It was terrifying. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? We were all there. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. Where did you buy it? 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. The Stonewall had reopened. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Dick Leitsch:So it was mostly goofing really, basically goofing on them. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. That never happened before. Martha Shelley MacDonald & Associates But the . 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. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. Tires were slashed on police cars and it just went on all night long. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. We were winning. That's it. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.