(c) 2011 Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. It was fun to see fags. We don't know. 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. Pamela Gaudiano Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications 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. Suzanne Poli Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. Dick Leitsch:So it was mostly goofing really, basically goofing on them. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. But as we were going up 6th Avenue, it kept growing. Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. 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. Alexis Charizopolis Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. 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. Frank Simon's documentary follows the drag contestants of 1967's Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, capturing plenty of on- and offstage drama along the way. Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. First Run Features And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. I mean does anyone know what that is? But we couldn't hold out very long. John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. Sophie Cabott Black (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. 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. Evan Eames WGBH Educational Foundation We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. It was an age of experimentation. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. Maureen Jordan But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. I hope it was. The medical experimentation in Atascadero included administering, to gay people, a drug that simulated the experience of drowning; in other words, a pharmacological example of waterboarding. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Martha Babcock 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. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Daily News That was our world, that block. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. It was terrifying. Not able to do anything. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. 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. For those kisses. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." And that's what it was, it was a war. He said, "Okay, let's go." 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. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. I guess they're deviates. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. 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. Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. Doug Cramer You cut one head off. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. It eats you up inside. 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. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." Never, never, never. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. We went, "Oh my God. I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Judy Laster Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:But there were little, tiny pin holes in the plywood windows, I'll call them the windows but they were plywood, and we could look out from there and every time I went over and looked out through one of those pin holes where he did, we were shocked at how big the crowd had become. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, and Shirley Willer, president of the Daughters of Bilitis, spoke to Marcus about being gay before the Stonewall riots happened and what motivated people who were involved in the movement. Noah Goldman Judith Kuchar Based on Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." 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?". Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of 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. Paul Bosche 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. And I just didn't understand that. Raymond Castro:Incendiary devices were being thrown in I don't think they were Molotov cocktails, but it was just fire being thrown in when the doors got open. Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. American Airlines Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. In the trucks or around the trucks. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. Things were just changing. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. Ellinor Mitchell I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Available via license: Content may be subject to . And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. kui Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We were looking for secret exits and one of the policewomen was able to squirm through the window and they did find a way out. This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. Heather Gude, Archival Research Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. We heard one, then more and more. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Danny Garvin:Something snapped. Glenn Fukushima Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. TV Host (Archival):Ladies and gentlemen, the reason for using first names only forthese very, very charming contestants is that right now each one of them is breaking the law. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. Scott McPartland/Getty Images Jeremiah Hawkins Before Stonewall 1984 Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg Synopsis 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. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. All the rules were off in the '60s. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. Martin Boyce:I heard about the trucks, which to me was fascinated me, you know, it had an imagination thing that was like Marseilles, how can it only be a few blocks away? Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. Gay bars were always on side streets out of the way in neighborhoods that nobody would go into. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. MacDonald & Associates And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" And the Stonewall was part of that system. 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. It meant nothing to us. Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. 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.
2021 Topps Baseball Variations, How Many Shots Of Jager In A Bottle, Taylor Swift Height And Weight, Articles B