Samual Murkofsky Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly 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. You knew you could ruin them for life. [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. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. Suzanne Poli Available via license: Content may be subject to . John van Hoesen Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. They were getting more ferocious. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. Watch Before Stonewall | Prime Video - amazon.com Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" 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?" Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. You were alone. That never happened before. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Gay bars were always on side streets out of the way in neighborhoods that nobody would go into. It's not my cup of tea. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world. American Airlines The windows were always cloaked. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Susana Fernandes And we had no right to such. He said, "Okay, let's go." Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was a bottle club which meant that I guess you went to the door and you bought a membership or something for a buck and then you went in and then you could buy drinks. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. We were thinking about survival. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. Barney Karpfinger 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. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. 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. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). I had never seen anything like that. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. 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. Windows started to break. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." 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. Transcript Enlarge this image To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. That this was normal stuff. 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 . Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. They didn't know what they were walking into. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. A medievalist. That was our world, that block. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. One never knows when the homosexual is about. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Noah Goldman It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. Fred Sargeant The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". Jorge Garcia-Spitz But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Nobody. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors Giles Kotcher When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. Martin Boyce:The day after the first riot, when it was all over, and I remember sitting, sun was soon to come, and I was sitting on the stoop, and I was exhausted and I looked at that street, it was dark enough to allow the street lamps to pick up the glitter of all the broken glass, and all the debris, and all the different colored cloth, that was in different places. (c) 2011 Scott Kardel, Project Administration And the Stonewall was part of that system. Cause I was from the streets. 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. 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. kui ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. Never, never, never. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. 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. Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? Doing things like that. 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. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. John O'Brien:There was one street called Christopher Street, where actually I could sit and talk to other gay people beyond just having sex. First you gotta get past the door. Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. 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. 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. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. National Archives and Records Administration John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. They would bang on the trucks. John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. People started throwing pennies. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. And this went on for hours. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Joe DeCola David Carter That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. 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. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." Raymond Castro And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. You know, it's just, everybody was there. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. Is that conceivable? They can be anywhere. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. I said, "I can go in with you?" Abstract. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. Almost anything you could name. David Alpert Danny Garvin:Something snapped. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Frank Kameny And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. 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. The New York Times / Redux Pictures I guess they're deviates. Remember everything. There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. 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. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. 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. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. Because one out of three of you will turn queer. 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. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. 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. I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." 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. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. And I had become very radicalized in that time. The Stonewall riots inspired gay Americans to fight for their rights. Doug Cramer Even non-gay people. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. And we all relaxed. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. There are a lot of kids here. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. 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. Just let's see if they can. Katrina Heilbroner Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. 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. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube Mike Nuget This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. "Don't fire. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. Because he was homosexual. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". I never believed in that. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Janice Flood Don't fire until I fire. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. Vanessa Ezersky I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. So in every gay pride parade every year, Stonewall lives. 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. Before Stonewall | Apple TV William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. Before Stonewall - Letterboxd You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. The idea was to be there first. 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. Glenn Fukushima 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. And it's interesting to note how many youngsters we've been seeing in these films. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. Susan Liberti ITN Source So it was a perfect storm for the police. 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. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. Before Stonewall. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". NBC News Archives Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community The Underground Lounge Historic Films Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." Judith Kuchar You know. All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. David Huggins I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. The Stonewall had reopened. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. Charles Harris, Transcriptions In the Life Trevor, Post Production And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. 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. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. This book, and the related documentary film, use oral histories to present students with a varied view of lesbian and gay experience. Barak Goodman Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. 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. hide caption. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. And it just seemed like, fantastic because the background was this industrial, becoming an industrial ruin, it was a masculine setting, it was a whole world. For those kisses. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. 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. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. It was fun to see fags. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. 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. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. Liz Davis And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. I was a homosexual. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. 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 And the cops got that. 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. We had been threatened bomb threats. WGBH Educational Foundation Lilli M. Vincenz Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates.
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