How Did the Stonewall Riots Work?

The police raid and ensuing riots at the Stonewall Inn in June of 1969 became a turning point in queer civil rights because of the larger movement that coalesced around it. Learn about its place in LGBTQIA history in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/stonewall-riots.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
boglebaumb Here in the West Village neighborhood of New York City,
the neat grid of streets collapses into a tangle of
odd angles and jagged alleys. A few blocks from Washington
Square Park, the streets converged like the center of a

(00:23):
spider's web, seeming to meet at the Stonewall Inn. The
stone Wall was never showy. It was a dive bar
with one significant feature. It catered to queer people. On
a hot summer night in nineteen sixty nine, the police
raided the place, a lining up gay men, lesbians, trans people,
and even the bar's mafia connected owners, demanding to see

(00:46):
id before filing them off to be arrested or into
the night. In recent years, police had raided gay bars
hundreds of times and other cities across America, but something
was different that night. The crowd vehemently fought back. The
resulting riots galvanized the gay rights movement in the United States,
which until then had been quiet and slow to anger.

(01:09):
So what exactly happened that night? Why did the community
there react so differently? Today? Let's talk about the Stonewall
Riots and why they took on such a prominent role
in the history of queer rights in America. As you
may have noticed, queer people face many challenges here today,
both social and political, but queer life before the Stonewall

(01:32):
Riots was something else. Before the nineteen seventies, a web
of local and state laws restricted the rights of queer people.
Depending on the area, this might have included anything from
the restriction of dancing in public with the same sex
partner to antisodomy laws that criminalized private sexual acts performed
consensually by adults in their own homes. Police used these

(01:55):
laws to harass and intimidate, raiding gay clubs and enforcing
gender pro clothing laws. These were laws requiring a person
to wear a minimum of three pieces of clothing deemed
appropriate for their sex, which of course were designed to
target trans people, cross dressers, or anyone else who didn't
conform two gender norms. In every state except Illinois, which

(02:18):
became the first to repeal it sodomy laws in nineteen
sixty one, it was effectively illegal to be gay or
otherwise queer. A quick side note here on terminology, the
language used by members of these communities to describe themselves
has changed drastically since the nineteen sixties and is still
changing today. Some words like queer have gone from a

(02:41):
slur to being considered one of the more egalitarian ways
to describe humans of the LGBTQIA spectrum, and other words
have gone from common use to something that I would
personally not say into a microphone today. A little bit
more on this later, but I did want to acknowledge
it now, but okay to continue. A culture of silence

(03:03):
and fear surrounded much of queer life in mid twentieth
century America. Until a Supreme Court ruling in twenty twenty,
you could legally be fired from your job if you
were revealed to be queer. Until nineteen seventy three, homosexuality
was listed as a disorder in the American Psychiatric Association's
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM. Being gay was viewed

(03:26):
as a mental illness for so long that some people
truly believed that they were sick and had a problem
they needed to hide or overcome. People were under constant
pressure to conform. The nineteen fifties were especially brutal due
to the effect of witch hunt, sometimes known as the
lavender scare. From around nineteen forty five to nineteen sixty nine,

(03:49):
the anti communist scourge of McCarthyism also targeted queer people
as perverts or criminals. This hysteria regressed gay rights and
attitudes towards queer people, which had gradually become more relaxed
since the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. People found themselves
disowned or otherwise shunned by their families and wider communities.

(04:11):
But the pre Stonewall era was not entirely without hope.
A movement in favor of gay civil rights began to
grow in the nineteen fifties, known as the homophile movement.
It emphasized a quiet, conformist version of gayness. While their
specific successes were limited, it helped craft a positive queer
identity and also established a nationwide network that helped queer

(04:34):
people communicate, mostly via newsletters. Still, during this time, there
were few places queer people could openly meet up and
enjoy the culture they were creating. The Stonewall Inn was
one of them. The Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in
the western part of Granenwich Village, was originally a pair

(04:55):
of brick buildings that housed stables than a bakery. The
Stonewall Inn restaurant opened at the location in nineteen thirty four. Later,
as queer culture began building in New York, While being
gay in public was practically illegal and many bars refused
queer patrons, figures in organized crimes saw on opportunity to

(05:15):
exploit a market that wasn't being served by legal establishments,
So in nineteen sixty seven, a small group of mafia
connected investors opened The Stone Wall as a gay bar.
At the time, several gay clubs and bars around New
York City had mafia owners. Primarily gay men went to
The Stone Wall, though lesbians and trans people did as well.

(05:37):
It was a multi ethnic crowd. There was an informal
segregation between the main bar populated by masculine gay men,
and the back room's dance floor, home to queens and
other groups who were more vulnerable or held lesser status
according to contemporary stigmas. Another terminology note. In the sixties,
the word queens referred to effeminate gay men who may

(06:01):
or may not have worn feminine clothing or presented themselves
as women. This is a source of some confusion in
historical accounts. Reports of the queens instigating the riot have
led to disagreements over the role that trans women played
its stone Wall anyway, despite the bar's popularity, its bafia
connections created a lot of tension. It's likely the owners

(06:23):
dealt drugs and operated a prostitution ring out of the joint,
and it was no secret that they paid bribes to
the cops of the sixth Precinct to look the other way.
There's evidence that at least one owner ran a gay
blackmail racket, but threatening to out patrons who didn't pay
them off. The owners also didn't invest a lot of
money or effort into the Stonewall In. It was a grimy,

(06:46):
dark place, and the drinks were usually watered down. Even
with its flaws, the Stonewall In was a refuge for
many queer people, one of the few places they felt
accepted and relatively safe from harassment, even if only for
a few hours of dancing to motown hits. The night
the Stonewall riots occurred was no exception until the police

(07:08):
showed up a little after one am. Deputy Inspector seymour
Pine of Manhattan's first Division of Public Morals had several
undercover officers inside the Stone Wall in on Friday, June
twenty seventh of nineteen sixty nine. He arrived at the
door of the bar after one am, so technically the
raid and riot occurred on Saturday the twenty eighth. It's

(07:31):
notable that Pine and the officers who initially participated in
the raid were not part of the sixth Precinct. Pine's
officers entered the Stone Wall with the intention of shutting
it down permanently and arresting the owners for selling liquor
without a license. They had raided it once already that
summer as part of a plan to shut down all
of the Mafia owned gay bars in Manhattan. But for

(07:53):
a variety of reasons, this raid went differently from the others.
A first, the officers wouldn't let people out of the
bar without seeing id, which was one of many tactics
meant to intimidate and humiliate queer people. Patrons exited the
bar one by one, slowly forming a crowd outside as
they waited for their friends to emerge. The crowd crew

(08:15):
as onlookers joined, many of them disenfranchised street kids, a
queer youth who had left home with nowhere else to go,
and Eventually, this high spirited crowd erupted into a full
scale riot for several reasons that have been debated, but
here's a rundown. First, though Pine repeatedly requested backup officers,

(08:37):
the sixth Precinct didn't send them. There's evidence that this
was intentional because the sixth was getting kickbacks from the
stone Wall and resented someone barging into their jurisdiction to
conduct a raid. As a result, there were far too
few officers on site to control the growing crowd. Also,
because of the prior raids on the stone Wall and

(08:58):
other queer bars around Manhattan, the people on site may
have felt like their last refuge was being thretened, that
they were being backed into a corner that had enough
of police harassment. Further, with this tension in place, a
few people physically resisted arrest, which transformed the incident from
a shouting match to a physical confrontation. Most accounts described

(09:20):
one lesbian woman who had been in the Stonewall fiercely
battling cops who tried to stuff her into a patrol car,
escalating the situation as she fought. Some accounts cite people
like Jackie Hormona and Marsha P. Johnson as key players
in inciting the riot. The physical altercations led to the
crowd further escalating to throwing stuff at the cops. They

(09:41):
started out with coins, then bottles, then bricks, either pried
from the street or taken from a nearby construction site.
At that point, Pines sensed the danger and retreated into
the stone wall in with the other officers. A few
of the bar's patrons and one reporter were also inside.
The rioters grew even angrier that police now occupied the bar,

(10:04):
and they battered the door open using a parking meter
ripped from the street. Some of them even tried to
light garbage near the stonewall's windows on fire. Meanwhile, from
the CoP's perspective, it was a surprise that anyone even
fought back. In multiple accounts of the incident, police who
were involved expressed astonishment. They were used to gay men

(10:25):
living in shame and fear of being exposed, and many
saw them as stereotypically effeminate and passive. It was inconceivable
to them that queer people would ever stand up for themselves. Eventually,
fire trucks arrived, along with officers from the sixth precinct
and beyond, including from New York City's Technical Patrol Force.

(10:46):
They were equipped to deal with riots, and Pine and
the officers with him were able to leave the Stonewall in. However,
the crowd outside had swelled, attracting local residents and queer
people from across New York City who were drawn there
by phone calls from friends. Estimates of the crowd sides
ranged from five hundred to a thousand people or more.

(11:07):
A protracted series of street skirmishes and chases between cops
and the crowd lasted a few hours and resulted in
property damage and some injuries. The tangled geometry of the
neighborhood's streets made it difficult for the police to maintain control.
Multiple witnesses reported police attacking and beating rioters, who, in
many cases were just dancing and singing in the street. Eventually,

(11:31):
the crowd did disperse and the riot ended. If nothing
else had happened afterwards, it may have been an isolated
incident with minor importance in LGBTQIA history. But on Saturday night,
news of the riots drew hundreds or possibly thousands of
people to Christopher Street. The Stonewall Inn reopened and served

(11:52):
as a central point and signboard. The crowd was made
up predominantly of queer people, but it also became something
of a more general counterculture event, drawing hippies, civil rights protesters,
and even tourists. The crowd on the second night also
threw bottles and garbage at the police and engaged in
street chases with them, but it was much more political.

(12:14):
People gave speeches, Chants of gay power were prominent, and
groups hinted up pamphlets about gay rights, police corruption, and
mafia involvement in queer spaces. By Sunday night, the crowds
were smaller. The police outnumbered the protesters, who mainly gathered
at a nearby park, holding hands, kissing, and dancing. In total,

(12:35):
the Stonewall riots and protests lasted six nights, but the
repercussions were not so confined. A few months later, a
commemorative march took place in New York, and similar marches
were held in cities across the US. On the first
anniversary of the riots, thousands of people marched from Christopher
Park to Central Park. It was the first queer pride

(12:55):
parade in America, creating a precedent for annual celebrations around
the world. In following the riots, groups like the Gay
Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance organized and made
a prolonged and focused push for gay rights in a
far more visible and vocal way than groups had before.
Of course, civil rights work is always an ongoing process,

(13:18):
and the Stonewall Riots weren't the first time queer people
reacted violently to police harassment. Uprisings due to law enforcement
raids and misconduct occurred in San Francisco in nineteen sixty
five and sixty six and in Los Angeles in sixty seven.
Mainstream newspapers virtually ignored all of them, including Stonewall, But

(13:39):
Stonewall is considered a key turning point today for a
few reasons. For one thing, the Stonewall riots were larger
in scale and lasted longer than other instants. Also, gay
rights activists succeeded in finding an effective way to commemorate
the riots, using a march, which became an inclusive parade
that allowed a wide range of queer people and allies

(14:02):
to participate. But an ironic reason that the Stonewall Riots
are considered the start of the gay rights movement is
precisely because the riots were not the start of the
gay rights movement. One of the most important factors of
an events legacy is the existence of a community with
the desire and capacity to remember it. Those quiet gay

(14:24):
rights organizations that were working in the fifties and sixties
created an organized, nationwide community of queer people who communicated
with each other. That existing infrastructure is a major part
of the story of Stonewall. For the article of this
episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke via email
with Susan Freeman, Associate professor and chair of the Department

(14:47):
of Gender and Women's Studies at Western Michigan University. She
said a longer view of gay and lesbian history works
to de center Stonewall as the all important turning point,
as does recognition of the impact act of young liberation
activists who moved homophile organizations toward greater militancy. Stonewall as
an event took hold of people's consciousness, largely because of

(15:10):
the grassroots organizing that followed it, plus the annual commemorations
and organizations that adopted the name. Today, as with any
event that's reached mythic status, there's a lot of disagreement
over exactly what happened during the Stonewall Riots. There are
conflicting claims about who was involved, including the identity of

(15:31):
the lesbian who fought the cops or the person who
threw the first brick. Of course, it would be great
to know those people, but the larger story is what's important.
A truly diverse crowd, by many accounts, led by the
most marginalized people in it was part of a movement
of people who worked together, Freeman said, similar to Rosa

(15:54):
Parks refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus,
there was a much broader social movement content in which
the Stonewall Riots took place. The Stonewall Inn is still
a privately owned bar. In twenty sixteen, the Stonewall Christopher
Park and some nearby streets were designated a National Monument
by President Obama, the first dedicated to queer rights. The

(16:18):
annual New York City Pride March still ends on Christopher
Street every year on the anniversary of the riots. Today's
episode is based on the article how the Stonewall Riots
worked on how Stuffworks dot com, written by Ed Grabanowski.
Brain Stuff That's production by Heart Radio and partnership with
how stuffworks dot com and is produced by Tyler Klang.

(16:40):
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