Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. Lilli M. Vincenz Judy Laster Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary "Before And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku PDF BEFORE STONEWALL press kit - First Run Features 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. Stonewall: A riot that changed millions of lives - BBC News Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. David Carter Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. Daily News I was a man. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors And the police were showing up. Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. And then they send them out in the street and of course they did make arrests, because you know, there's all these guys who cruise around looking for drag queens. We heard one, then more and more. BEFORE STONEWALL - Alliance of Women Film Journalists That's more an uprising than a riot. Susana Fernandes Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt 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. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. 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. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. In the trucks or around the trucks. Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free dramatic stories from the early 1900's onwards of public and private existence as experienced by LGBT Americans. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. A sickness of the mind. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. They were the storm troopers. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Sophie Cabott Black 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 when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. Glenn Fukushima Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. You were alone. 1969: The Stonewall Uprising - Library of Congress Don't fire until I fire. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. John DiGiacomo John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:At a certain point, it felt pretty dangerous to me but I noticed that the cop that seemed in charge, he said you know what, we have to go inside for safety. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. Ellinor Mitchell But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Louis Mandelbaum It was right in the center of where we all were. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. It was done in our little street talk. Colonial House 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. Before Stonewall | Apple TV I'm losing everything that I have. We were winning. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. Evan Eames Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. 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. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. And I just didn't understand that. Leroy S. Mobley The cops were barricaded inside. 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. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Based on Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. 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 Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. Chris Mara, Production Assistants It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. kui The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. It was a 100% profit, I mean they were stealing the liquor, then watering it down, and they charging twice as much as they charged one door away at the 55. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. 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. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . LGBTQ+ History Before Stonewall | Stacker Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. This is every year in New York City. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Daniel Pine 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?" John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:So you're outside, and you see like two people walking toward these trucks and you think, "Oh I think I'll go in there," you go in there, there's like a lot of people in there and it's all dark. Geoff Kole Martha Babcock And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Raymond Castro The Stonewall riots inspired gay Americans to fight for their rights. 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. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. First you gotta get past the door. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. 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." 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. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. Jerry Hoose Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? 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. It was fun to see fags. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. Before Stonewall - Wikipedia In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. 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. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. 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. 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. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." 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. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. Before Stonewall - Letterboxd If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. 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. Is that conceivable? Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. 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. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Janice Flood Giles Kotcher I mean they were making some headway. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Because one out of three of you will turn queer. We went, "Oh my God. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Producers Library ITN Source And she was quite crazy. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. Martin Boyce:Oh, Miss New Orleans, she wouldn't be stopped. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. 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. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. 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. I made friends that first day. And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community And they were gay. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. John Scagliotti 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. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. 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.". The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Before Stonewall (1984) Movie Script | Subs like Script 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. Doug Cramer 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. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. This was in front of the police. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." You had no place to try to find an identity. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . He said, "Okay, let's go." John van Hoesen Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. For those kisses. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? Danny Garvin It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation Frank Kameny We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. For the first time the next person stood up. But we couldn't hold out very long. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. 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. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. Many of those activists have since died, but Marcus preserved their voices for his book, titled Making Gay History. 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. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. 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. 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. This Restored Documentary Examines What LGBTQ Lives Were Like Before 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. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. They could be judges, lawyers. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. A medievalist. They put some people on the street right in front ofThe Village Voiceprotesting the use of the word fag in my story. It was an age of experimentation. And this went on for hours. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. I guess they're deviates. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR It was terrifying. You knew you could ruin them for life. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. Amber Hall On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. This 1968 Film Put Drag Queens In The Spotlight Before Stonewall - HuffPost Doric Wilson:Somebody that I knew that was older than me, his family had him sent off where they go up and damage the frontal part of the brain. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. That was scary, very scary. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. They were to us. 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 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. Dana Gaiser Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. And gay people were standing around outside and the mood on the street was, "They think that they could disperse us last night and keep us from doing what we want to do, being on the street saying I'm gay and I'm proud? Never, never, never. This was a highly unusual raid, going in there in the middle of the night with a full crowd, the Mafia hasn't been alerted, the Sixth Precinct hasn't been alerted. Trevor, Post Production Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. WPA Film Library, Thanks to People could take shots at us. Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. Joe DeCola Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade.