The Remains of the Night

ROUNDTABLE Felice Picano talks with eyewitnesses to the Stonewall Riots The Remains of the Night SIX OBSERVERS URING THE MANY 25th anniversary cele- I’m always a writer, which means that I’m also often a jour- brations of the Stonewall Riots in 1994, I was nalist. So here is my Journalism 101 attempt to get at the truth somewhat surprised to hear so many people about Stonewall. My “sample” includes three gay men, a trans- saying they had been there that night in June, gendered person of color, a lesbian, and a heterosexual woman 1969. I remember once adding them up and who lived a few doors away—which I think pretty much concluding that, if everyone who said they matches the population of the area that night. The witnesses are, Dwere there, actually had been present, they not only would have in alphabetical order: Tom Baker, Rita Mae Brown, “Miss Ma- taken over Sheridan Square completely, but possibly taken jors,” Felice Picano, Victoria Roth, and Edmund White. down the municipal government of New York City altogether. Some background on my interlocutors: We all want to be part of something historic; it’s human nature. § Tom Baker worked for years for Grey Advertising in New And let’s face it, there really haven’t been that many truly positive York and Los Angeles on the Ford account. He was for a short and exulting events for LGBT people to want to absorb and make period of time a bartender at the Village gay bar Julius’. Since their own. Usually we’re commemorating a death, a disease, retiring, he has written and published three books relevant to something awful. So possibly these hundreds of people mean that the Stonewall period: The Sound of One Horse Dancing, Full they took part in the demonstrations that occurred in and around Frontal, and Paperwhite Narcissus. Sheridan Square on the nights and days following that first night, § Rita Mae Brown is the celebrated author of the groundbreak- when gays fought back against the police raiding a bar in Man- ing lesbian novel Rubyfruit Jungle, as well as Six of One, both hattan. And let’s remember there had been raids of gay bars before of which deal with that early period of feminist-lesbian Amer- in which people fought back in one way or another—in Los An- ica; she is also the author of many beloved mystery novels. geles, San Francisco, and even in the small § Miss Majors is a transgender African- town of Pacifica, California. Here is my Journalism 101 American woman who now lives and works But for some reason, this particular inci- in Oakland, California. dent stuck, with the result that a routine bar attempt to get at the truth § Victoria Roth is a classical pianist, cham- raid developed into something far larger. A about Stonewall. ber musician and music teacher. new minority came together in the weeks § Edmund White is the renowned author of that followed, and out of that arose an active political move- novels, memoirs, plays, and biographies, including the memoir ment. First came the Gay Liberation Front, which would be fol- My New York and the novel The Beautiful Room is Empty, both of lowed by the more active and successful Gay Activist Alliance. which deal with this era. Today, we can trace the LBGT political movement in the U.S. § My own books relevant to 1960s New York include the mem- back to that one night. We recognize it as, in effect, the Big oirs Men Who Loved Me and True Stories: Portraits from My Past. Bang that created our gay universe. I’ve asked these five people, and myself, five basic ques- I realize that these days “history” itself has become a suspect tions. 1. How did you happen to be there that night? 2. What and at times even a moot item of terminology. Like others I’ve did you think was happening at the time? 3. Did you have any heard that histories are “what the winners tell you it is” and that idea that history was being made? 4. What did you think in the “everyone has a different idea of what a historic event is” and days after it happened? and 5. Does any detail stand out for you, other such truisms. While granting all that, I still believe that even now, years later? trying to discover what actually happened is not a worthless en- —FELICE PICANO terprise. True, many who were at or around the Stonewall that night are missing or dead. But others, like myself, are still alive, How did you happen to be there that night? and over the years some people who happened to be in, at, or in Rita Mae Brown: I was walking home with a friend. We did a the vicinity of 35 Christopher Street have been generous enough newsletter for a feminist group of the time called “Redstock- to tell me of their experience. In addition, for this essay, I’ve ing” (i.e., radical Bluestockings) in a building near NYU. It may been lucky enough to hear from other people I did not know, have been the same building as the Shirtwaist Factory fire that who were in, at, or near the bar that night. Their strong voices killed so many young women workers many decades before. speak for themselves. We were headed to my little hole-in-the-wall apartment at Charles Street in the West Village, and Christopher Street was Felice Picano’s latest book is a memoir titled Nights at Rizzoli (OR my usual crossing place. Books, 2015). Edmund White: I was just walking past Sheridan Square with July–August 2015 29.

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