Rioters at the Stonewall Inn
The Stonewall Riots are often credited as a birth of our modern LGBTQ movement. On the night of June 28, 1969, during a police raid at the bar, gays, transfolks, drag queens and locals were gathered like any other weekend, socializing, drinking, and dancing. Yet folks around on June 28 recounted that something felt different that summer; Since the 1950’s, rumblings of vocal lesbian and gay activism arose from groups like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis. At Stonewall that night, people were tired of being polite again in the face of police. Interestingly, many that night were at the bar mourning the recent death of a community icon, Judy Garland, whose funeral was earlier that day.
When police entered, the patrons inside immediately resisted their presence. Bottles flew, bodies tangled in fisticuffs, and a riot ensued. At some point in the night’s melee the patrons were actually able to lock the police inside the bar as the community moved outside demanding, “Whose Streets?, OUR STREETS!” The events at the Stonewall were surely not the first of any queer movement, but the night mobilized a new movement for gay rights throughout the 1970’s. One year later, New York and Los Angeles held the first versions of pride parades, called Christopher Street Liberation Day, to honor the Stonewall Riots.
In the clip below, video artist Nelson Sullivan takes you on a tour of the West Village in 1989 on the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Nelson lived at 5 9th Avenue during the 1980’s and he began documenting gay events and nightlife after moving to New York. We hear his first-person account of being at Stonewall that night in 1969, spend time in Christopher Park with RuPaul waiting for the demonstration, and finally enjoy the arrival of a parade of Judy Garland queens as they descend on the Stonewall to commemorate the Riots. In the wake of the AIDS crisis 20 years after the so-called movement began, this campy public funeral helps a community mourn and bear witness to the power of social and political struggle. Look out for some early ACT-UP posters in the Stonewall’s windows, too.
