It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. They were the storm troopers. Vanessa Ezersky Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. I just thought you had to get through this, and I thought I could get through it, but you really had to be smart about it. David Carter It was as if they were identifying a thing. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films All rights reserved. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Bettye Lane David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. 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. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. And they were gay. Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. Danny Garvin:We became a people. 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?" One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. 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." I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. Evan Eames Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. 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. 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. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. 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 I knew that I was lesbian. My father said, "About time you fags rioted.". Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. Leroy S. Mobley One never knows when the homosexual is about. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. Marc Aubin Lilli M. Vincenz First you gotta get past the door. Robin Haueter 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. They frequent their own clubs, and bars and coffee houses, where they can escape the disapproving eye of the society that they call straight. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. Windows started to break. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. 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. They could be judges, lawyers. Daily News On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. 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. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. Just making their lives miserable for once. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. I made friends that first day. Queer was very big. Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. I had never seen anything like that. Many of those activists have since died, but Marcus preserved their voices for his book, titled Making Gay History. John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. You were alone. Dana Kirchoff 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. They are taught that no man is born homosexual and many psychiatrists now believe that homosexuality begins to form in the first three years of life. As kids, we played King Kong. They didn't know what they were walking into. And we had no right to such. We went, "Oh my God. MacDonald & Associates Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. You know. We were winning. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . David Huggins Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. They were to us. 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. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. Louis Mandelbaum 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. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. 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. Ellinor Mitchell Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Over a short period of time, he will be unable to get sexually aroused to the pictures, and hopefully, he will be unable to get sexually aroused inside, in other settings as well. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." Remember everything. I mean I'm talking like sardines. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. This is every year in New York City. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Scott Kardel, Project Administration People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. For the first time, we weren't letting ourselves be carted off to jails, gay people were actually fighting back just the way people in the peace movement fought back. Fred Sargeant Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. For those kisses. 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. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Things were just changing. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." 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. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. 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. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. People started throwing pennies. The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of I hope it was. Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. Janice Flood 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. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. And then as you turned into the other room with the jukebox, those were the drag queens around the jukebox. And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of straight America, in terms of the middle class, was recoiling in horror from what was happening all around them at that time, in that summer and the summer before. 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. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. 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. Abstract. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. They can be anywhere. June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. 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. 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. And I just didn't understand that. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. All the rules were off in the '60s. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. 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. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. 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. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. Dan Bodner Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. We had been threatened bomb threats. Jorge Garcia-Spitz 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. It was terrifying. 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. Geoff Kole 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. Director . There are a lot of kids here. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. Before Stonewall (1984) - full transcript 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. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. 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. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. It eats you up inside. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And by the time the police would come back towards Stonewall, that crowd had gone all the around Washington Place come all the way back around and were back pushing in on them from the other direction and the police would wonder, "These are the same people or different people?". And the cops got that. 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. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. 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 . And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. 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. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. The award winning film Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. You know, it's just, everybody was there. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. So I run down there. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. 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. Producers Library [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. 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. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. It was done in our little street talk. We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. 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. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. 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. Martin Boyce:Oh, Miss New Orleans, she wouldn't be stopped. 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? 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. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. 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. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. Judy Laster Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:There were complaints from people who objected to the wrongful behavior of some gays who would have sex on the street. Not even us. It was right in the center of where we all were. Chris Mara, Production Assistants This book, and the related documentary film, use oral histories to present students with a varied view of lesbian and gay experience. The cops were barricaded inside. He pulls all his men inside. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. 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 actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:The moment you stepped out that door there would be hundreds facing you. Doric Wilson Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. 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.