1969 Stonewall Riots ‑ Origins, Timeline & Leaders

The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar on Christopher Street, in neighboring streets and in nearby Christopher Park. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

Explore the history of the LGBTQ movement in America here.

Constant Raids at Gay Bars

The 1960s and preceding decades were not welcoming times for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans. For instance, solicitation of same-sex relations was illegal in New York City.

For such reasons, LGBT individuals flocked to gay bars and clubs, places of refuge where they could express themselves openly and socialize without worry. However, the New York State Liquor Authority penalized and shut down establishments that served alcohol to known or suspected LGBT individuals, arguing that the mere gathering of homosexuals was “disorderly.”

Thanks to activists’ efforts, these regulations were overturned in 1966, and LGBT patrons could then be served alcohol. But engaging in gay behavior in public (holding hands, kissing or dancing with someone of the same sex) was still illegal, so police harassment of gay bars continued and many bars still operated without liquor licenses—in part because they were owned by the Mafia.

READ MORE: How the Mob Helped Establish NYC’s Gay Bar Scene

Gay Rights Before Stonewall

The first documented U.S. gay rights organization, The Society for Human Rights (SHR), was founded in 1924 by Henry Gerber, a German immigrant. Police raids forced them to disband in 1925, but not before they had published several issues of their newsletter, “Friendship and Freedom,” the country’s first gay-interest newsletter. America’s first lesbian rights organization, The Daughters of Bilitis, was formed in San Francisco on September 21, 1955.

In 1966, three years before Stonewall, members of The Mattachine Society, an organization dedicated to gay rights, staged a “sip-in” where they openly declared their sexuality at taverns, daring staff to turn them away and suing establishments who did. When The Commission on Human Rights ruled that gay individuals had the right to be served in bars, police raids were temporarily reduced.

READ MORE: What Happened at the Stonewall Riots? A Timeline of the 1969 Uprising

Stonewall Inn — The Stonewall Inn is a bar located in New York City’s Greenwich Village that served as a haven in the 1960s for the city’s gay, lesbian and transgender community. At the time, homosexual acts remained illegal in every state except Illinois, and bars and restaurants could get shut down for having gay employees or serving gay patrons.

Most gay bars and clubs in New York at the time were operated by the Mafia, who paid corruptible police officers to look the other way and blackmailed wealthy gay patrons by threatening to “out” them. Here, protesters demonstrate outside the New York gay bar, Christopher's End.

Stonewall Riots — During the early hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was raided by police with no warning. Armed with a warrant, police officers roughed up patrons and arrested people for bootlegged alcohol and other violations, including criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. More police arrived and the crowd erupted after police roughed up a woman dressed in masculine attire who had complained that her handcuffs were too tight.

The Stonewall Riots — People started taunting the officers, yelling “Pigs!” and “Copper!” and throwing pennies at them, followed by bottles. Some in the crowd slashed the tires of the police vehicles. As the mob grew, NYPD officers retreated into Stonewall, barricading themselves inside. Some rioters used a parking meter as a battering ram to break through the door; others threw beer bottles, trash and other objects, or made impromptu firebombs with bottles, matches and lighter fluid.

Two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera (far left) were said to have resisted arrest and were among those who threw bottles (or bricks or stones) at the police. They are pictured at a 1973 rally for gay rights in New York City.

Marsha P. Johnson was a black transgender woman and revolutionary LGBTQ rights activist. She later established the Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group committed to helping homeless transgender youth in New York City.

Sylvia Rivera was a Latina-American drag queen who became one of the most radical gay and transgender activists of the 1960s and '70s. As co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front, Rivera was known for participating in the Stonewall Riots and establishing the political organization STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries).

The Stonewall Inn — After the Stonewall Riots, a message was painted on the outside of the boarded-up bar reading, "We homosexuals plead with out people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the village." This sign was written by the Mattachine Society–an early organization dedicated to fighting for gay rights.

In reporting the events, The New York Daily News resorted to homophobic slurs in its detailed coverage, running the headline: “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad.” The framed newspaper article hangs in near the entrance of Stonewall Inn to this day.

Stonewall Inn — An unidentified group of young people celebrate outside the boarded-up Stonewall Inn after the riots. The bar opened the night after the riots, although it did not serve alcohol. More and more supporters gathered outside the bar, chanting slogans like “gay power” and “we shall overcome.”

Over the next several nights, gay activists continued to gather near the Stonewall, taking advantage of the moment to spread information and build the community that would fuel the growth of the gay rights movement. The Gay Liberation Front was formed in the years after the riots. They are pictured here marching in Times Square, 1969.

Here, Sylvia Ray Rivera (front) and Arthur Bell are seen at a gay liberation demonstration, New York University, 1970

Marsha P. Johnson is seen at a Gay Liberation Front demonstration at City Hall in New York City.

Here, a large crowd commemorates the 2nd anniversary of the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village of New York City in 1971. Fifty years after the riots, the NYPD made a formal apology on June 6, 2019, stating the police at that time enforced discriminatory laws. "The actions taken by the N.Y.P.D. were wrong — plain and simple,” said NYPD police commissioner James P. O’Neill.

1 / 14: Redux

The Stonewall Inn

The crime syndicate saw profit in catering to shunned gay clientele, and by the mid-1960s, the Genovese crime family controlled most Greenwich Village gay bars. In 1966, they purchased Stonewall Inn (a “straight” bar and restaurant), cheaply renovated it, and reopened it the next year as a gay bar.

Stonewall Inn was registered as a type of private “bottle bar,” which did not require a liquor license because patrons were supposed to bring their own liquor. Club attendees had to sign their names in a book upon entry to maintain the club’s false exclusivity. The Genovese family bribed New York’s Sixth Police Precinct to ignore the activities occurring within the club.

Without police interference, the crime family could cut costs how they saw fit: The club lacked a fire exit, running water behind the bar to wash glasses, clean toilets that didn’t routinely overflow and palatable drinks that weren’t watered down beyond recognition. What’s more, the Mafia reportedly blackmailed the club’s wealthier patrons who wanted to keep their sexuality a secret.

Nonetheless, Stonewall Inn quickly became an important Greenwich Village institution. It was large and relatively cheap to enter. It welcomed drag queens, who received a bitter reception at other gay bars and clubs. It was a nightly home for many runaways and homeless gay youths, who panhandled or shoplifted to afford the entry fee. And it was one of the few—if not the only—gay bar left that allowed dancing.

Raids were still a fact of life, but usually corrupt cops would tip off Mafia-run bars before they occurred, allowing owners to stash the alcohol (sold without a liquor license) and hide other illegal activities. In fact, the NYPD had stormed Stonewall Inn just a few days before the riot-inducing raid.

The Stonewall Riots Begin

When police raided Stonewall Inn on the morning of June 28, it came as a surprise—the bar wasn’t tipped off this time.

Armed with a warrant, police officers entered the club, roughed up patrons, and, finding bootlegged alcohol, arrested 13 people, including employees and people violating the state’s gender-appropriate clothing statute (female officers would take suspected cross-dressing patrons into the bathroom to check their sex).

Fed up with constant police harassment and social discrimination, angry patrons and neighborhood residents hung around outside of the bar rather than disperse, becoming increasingly agitated as the events unfolded and people were aggressively manhandled. At one point, an officer hit a lesbian over the head as he forced her into the police van— she shouted to onlookers to act, inciting the crowd to begin throw pennies, bottles, cobble stones and other objects at the police.

Within minutes, a full-blown riot involving hundreds of people began. The police, a few prisoners and a Village Voice writer barricaded themselves in the bar, which the mob attempted to set on fire after breaching the barricade repeatedly.

The fire department and a riot squad were eventually able to douse the flames, rescue those inside Stonewall, and disperse the crowd. But the protests, sometimes involving thousands of people, continued in the area for five more days, flaring up at one point after the Village Voice published its account of the riots.

READ MORE: 7 Surprising Facts About the Stonewall Riots and the Fight for LGBT Rights

Stonewall's Legacy

Though the Stonewall uprising didn’t start the gay rights movement, it was a galvanizing force for LGBT political activism, leading to numerous gay rights organizations, including the Gay Liberation Front, Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD (formerly Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), and PFLAG (formerly Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).

On the one-year anniversary of the riots on June 28, 1970, thousands of people marched in the streets of Manhattan from the Stonewall Inn to Central Park in what was then called “Christopher Street Liberation Day,” America’s first gay pride parade. The parade’s official chant was: “Say it loud, gay is proud.”

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama designated the site of the riots—Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and the surrounding streets and sidewalks—a national monument in recognition of the area’s contribution to gay rights.

READ MORE: How Activists Plotted the First Gay Pride Parades

Sources

A History of Gay Rights in America. CBS.
LGBTQ Activism: The Henry Gerber House, Chicago, IL. NPS.gov.

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