Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. Trevor, Post Production If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. Dana Kirchoff 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. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. John O'Brien You see, Ralph was a homosexual. Linton Media And I knew that I was lesbian. But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. Jeremiah Hawkins Before Stonewall. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. And that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chik-n-Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the Village. I'm losing everything that I have. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. 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. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Susan Liberti I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". John O'Brien:The election was in November of 1969 and this was the summer of 1969, this was June. Sophie Cabott Black It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. Director . His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. 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. Dick Leitsch:You read about Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal and all these actors and stuff, Liberace and all these people running around doing all these things and then you came to New York and you found out, well maybe they're doing them but, you know, us middle-class homosexuals, we're getting busted all the time, every time we have a place to go, it gets raided. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? 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. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. Heather Gude, Archival Research Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. 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. I could never let that happen and never did. Janice Flood Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors 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. They were to us. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Getty Images Producers Library That was scary, very scary. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Danny Garvin Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. Dana Gaiser Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. That this was normal stuff. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. You were alone. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. John van Hoesen 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. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. ABCNEWS VideoSource The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. The men's room was under police surveillance. Alexis Charizopolis William Eskridge, Professor of Law:In states like New York, there were a whole basket of crimes that gay people could be charged with. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. There are a lot of kids here. It was right in the center of where we all were. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. 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. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. Fred Sargeant:When it was clear that things were definitely over for the evening, we decided we needed to do something more. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. It's like, this is not right. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. I was a man. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Richard Enman (Archival):Present laws give the adult homosexual only the choice of being, to simplify the matter, heterosexual and legal or homosexual and illegal. Doug Cramer Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. John DiGiacomo We were scared. John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. For the first time the next person stood up. Doric Wilson Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. Geoff Kole This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. We went, "Oh my God. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. I made friends that first day. kui The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. Jerry Hoose There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. The newly restored 1984 documentary "Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community," re-released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the seminal Stonewall riots, remains a . Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. 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. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. 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. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. Evan Eames National Archives and Records Administration Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. 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. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. The shop had been threatened, we would get hang-up calls, calls where people would curse at us on the phone, we'd had vandalism, windows broken, streams of profanity. The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. In a spontaneous show of support and frustration, the citys gay community rioted for three nights in the streets, an event that is considered the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement. Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. Not able to do anything. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. 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.". She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. 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 - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . It was as if they were identifying a thing. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. Ellinor Mitchell People could take shots at us. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. This is every year in New York City. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. Daily News Eventually something was bound to blow. And they started smashing their heads with clubs. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? 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. You knew you could ruin them for life. 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. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. Judith Kuchar Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. And it's interesting to note how many youngsters we've been seeing in these films. Chris Mara, Production Assistants It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. In the Life Oh, tell me about your anxiety. "We're not going.". Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. 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. 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. Dick Leitsch:New York State Liquor Authority had a rule that one known homosexual at a licensed premise made the place disorderly, so nobody would set up a place where we could meet because they were afraid that the cops would come in to close it, and that's how the Mafia got into the gay bar business. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Windows started to break. Daniel Pine 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. 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. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out.