June 28, 1969 A police raid of the Stonewall Inn

[Omaha Steve]

June 28, 1969 - A police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in New York City, turned violent as patrons and local sympathizers began rioting against the police. New York’s gay community had grown weary of the police department’s targeting of gay clubs and the protest soon expanding into neighboring streets. The Stonewall Riot was followed by several days of demonstrations in New York, and was the impetus for the formation of the Gay Liberation Front among other gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights organizations.

[pnwmom]

1. K & R.

[RKP5637]

2. Recommend!!! n/t

[w8liftinglady]

3. Steve- Thank you fr posting this. How soon we forget.

[Omaha Steve]

4. This post is in memory of Ken Enfield (Omaha North High class of 1973)

Ken came out a few years after graduation. Ken, Marta, and I were best closest friends long before that. We stayed best closest friends after that. Ken and I were often seen sitting side by side at sporting events etc. Soon Ken moved down to Lincoln. His catholic family could not accept his new life style. They had him pulled out of a suicide watch, then out of a clinic. Soon after his release, Ken took his lovers life. Then he turned the gun on himself. It was a week before they were found in their apartment. That was October of 1979. We still think of and talk about Ken often. Now you know how Marta and I feel about gay rights. So do our offspring.

Here is to Ken and so many that suffered just like he did!


Omaha Steve A.K.A. OS

[Smarmie Doofus]

8. +1. Many more like him. n/t

[stevenleser]

5. I remember going to Stonewall Inn and feeling like I visited a part of history...

talking with folks at the LGBT friendly clubs in the area they all feel the same way about the place.

There is an aura around it.

[Withywindle]

6. What a moment that must have been.

Less than two weeks before I was born, so obviously I don't remember. But from what I've read and heard from some older folks, it was a culmination of a building of anger & hope combined that went far, far back past the 60s. Back past the persecution of gays during the McCarthy years, back to the electroshock and institutionalization used to destroy countless GLBT people, including great geniuses like Alan Turing, back to the Nazi brutalization of the relatively open and expressive Weimar Republic culture, back to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, back to the days when there was a death penalty for "sodomy..."


way way way back. The GLBT struggle is OLD. It is not some newfangled fad. There have always been GLBT people, everywhere in the world, in every time period. Stonewall was not just some riot in a bar - there were thousands of years of emotions happening, not just in the night itself but in the way a movement drew courage from it and built a lasting, strong foundation.

[TriMera]

7. K&R. n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad

By Jerry Lisker

Reprinted from "The New York Daily News"

July 6, 1969

She sat there with her legs crossed, the lashes of her mascara-coated eyes beating like the wings of a hummingbird. She was angry. She was so upset she hadn't bothered to shave. A day old stubble was beginning to push through the pancake makeup. She was a he. A queen of Christopher Street.

Last weekend the queens had turned commandos and stood bra strap to bra strap against an invasion of the helmeted Tactical Patrol Force. The elite police squad had shut down one of their private gay clubs, the Stonewall Inn at 57 Christopher St., in the heart of a three-block homosexual community in Greenwich Village. Queen Power reared its bleached blonde head in revolt. New York City experienced its first homosexual riot. "We may have lost the battle, sweets, but the war is far from over," lisped an unofficial lady-in-waiting from the court of the Queens.

"We've had all we can take from the Gestapo," the spokesman, or spokeswoman, continued. "We're putting our foot down once and for all." The foot wore a spiked heel. According to reports, the Stonewall Inn, a two-story structure with a sand painted brick and opaque glass facade, was a mecca for the homosexual element in the village who wanted nothing but a private little place where they could congregate, drink, dance and do whatever little girls do when they get together.

The thick glass shut out the outside world of the street. Inside, the Stonewall bathed in wild, bright psychedelic lights, while the patrons writhed to the sounds of a juke box on a square dance floor surrounded by booths and tables. The bar did a good business and the waiters, or waitresses, were always kept busy, as they snaked their way around the dancing customers to the booths and tables. For nearly two years, peace and tranquility reigned supreme for the Alice in Wonderland clientele.

more...

How the riots were orginally reported.

[justiceischeap]

11. I like this quote: "It was like a swarm of hornets attacking a bunch of butterflies.""

Under "Meet Shirley" the neighbor with 2 kids.

[Omaha Steve]

10. Kick

[Behind the Aegis]

12. For history...KICK!

[Vanje]

13. K&R

[ejbr]

14. k & r n/t

[Starry Messenger]

15. k&r

[ChadwickHenryWard]

16. History is very important.

I think history is a very important part of progressivism. The struggles of the past continue unto this day, and I have always seen a logical progression from anti-monarchism, abolition, the suffrage movement, the labor movement, and civil rights ending in the modern progressive position. All of those struggles are our heritage, and the modern struggles are their logical continuation.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. you are totally correct...

the Man has never given anything up without a fight. I am a straight man, but I stand with LGBT'ers

[tabasco]

19. Well said.

I agree.

[Shining Jack]

17. K&R n/t