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2018

"Homosexuals Are Revolting": , 1969

Erin Siodmak CUNY City College

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This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] FIRST PAGES

Revolting New York how 400 years of riot, rebellion, uprising, and revolution shaped a city

General Editors NEIL SMITH DON MITCHELL Editors ERIN SIODMAK JENJOY ROYBAL MARNIE BRADY BRENDAN P. O’MALLEY

The University of Georgia Press Athens

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chapter 14

“Homosexuals Are Revolting” Stonewall, 1969

Erin Siodmak

The were labeled with “members’” names for their private con- sumption—a ruse, of course. Like an old speakeasy, the front Friday, June 27, 1969, late. Or Saturday, June 28, early: it door was kept closed, and potential patrons were frst scru- was afer midnight. In the back room of the Stonewall Inn tinized by a big doorman before being let in, presumably on in , the words “I in part to keep the cops—and agents of the Liquor Control can’t get no satisfaction” burst from the jukebox while men Board—out. Once inside, patrons had to sign in; most put danced with men, women danced with women, and an down aliases.1 undercover police ofcer was beguiled by the charms of a Te doorman was not the only way police were kept out. stealth transvestite.* Laws were broken. Two ofcers, Stonewall’s owners, like other Mafa owners of bars, paid also undercover, sat at the counting gender-appropriate of the corrupt 6th Precinct cops.‡ Despite payofs, the po- garments.† Overpriced, watered-down drinks were poured lice had to occasionally make a show of raiding gay bars. into much-used, barely clean glasses. (Tere was no running Te culture of conservativism and conformity that had de- water behind the bar, only tubs the glasses could be washed scended upon America in the wake of World War II, replete in.) Drinking was not so much the point at this bar, danc- with fears that made men Cold War security ing was—and picking someone up. Owned by the Genovese threats, created an era of repression—repression of the sex- crime family, Stonewall was the only in New York ual desires of some men and women and, in the other sense where dancing was legally permitted. Actually, it was not a of the term, repression by the police. In New York, by 1966, bar at all. Legally, it was a private “bottle club,” where bottles police were arresting more than a hundred men a week for “homosexual solicitation,” ofen in bars that served a gay * people at the time referred to themselves as “transvestites” or “queens”; “” was rarely used, and “transgender” was not used at clientele. Many New Yorkers approved of such actions. Te all. We have retained the historically accurate terms throughout. threat of arrest made being gay a risky business, opening † New York State had a law requiring that a person must wear at least three up a nice sideline for Mafa bar owners: blackmailing the items of clothing appropriate to his or her gender. Men and women could better-of, perhaps professional, clientele. A virtuous circle be arrested for wearing gender-inappropriate clothing if they were wearing fewer than three appropriate garments. Stonewall was overwhelmingly a male bar, but did occasionally visit. ‡ To the tune of about $2,000 a week, according to Martin Duberman.

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ensued: huge profts to criminal bar owners from doctoring bar long. Perhaps the bar was a key node in the thef and booze and selling it dear, as well as from preying on their money-laundering operation? Simultaneously, the Federal own customers; and payofs to the cops, who sometimes Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was investigating raided anyway, increasing the vulnerability to patrons and the pouring of bootlegged or stolen liquor at the inn and in leading to tighter Mafa control over the trade and more op- the process uncovered the payofs to the 6th Precinct.3 portunities for other forms of graf. Nonetheless, raids were as ofen as not ritual: bar owners usually kept very little li- Raid and Riot quor on site (ofen storing it in cars parked down the block), so if they were raided, they would lose little and could re- When the cops raided at 1:20 in the morning, it was not the open quickly; raids were usually early in the evening, when 6th Precinct that took the lead.* It was Inspector Pine’s First the bars were less crowded; and the cops ofen just closed Division.4 And it was Pine who stood before the door and the place down without arresting anyone. Just as ofen, bar- announced, “Police! We’re taking the place!” Te lights went tenders, managers, or bouncers would be warned of an im- up and the music stopped. Te go-go boys dancing in cages pending raid so that dancing could be suspended and un- on the bar in gold lamé bikinis climbed down and covered taxed liquor stashed away. Bargoers caught up in the dragnet up. Te bar and dance foors were packed, and not many typically took the raid in their stride, merely having to show people knew exactly what was going on. Barring the door their ID before being let back out into the night.2 behind them, some of the ofcers met with the four under- Tis time, though, things would be diferent. While there cover agents who had been inside to determine who the bar had been rumors of a possible raid, no tipof had been re- employees were and then separated them out from the oth- ceived, and when nothing happened early in the evening, ers.† Tey were to be arrested for alcohol violations. Other the Stonewall management let down their guard, though cops separated out the transvestites, many of them teenage this may have been unwise. Gays in Greenwich Village “street queens,” as they called themselves. Sick of being ha- were already on edge, annoyed by stepped-up raids on bars rassed, many talked back. As was customary, patrons with around the Village, including one at Stonewall the previous a legitimate identifcation and wearing enough “appropriate Tuesday, as well as increased scrutiny—and the clearing out clothes” were let out one by one onto the sidewalk. It took a of trees and bushes—in favorite cruising places. Folks were long time, and a lot of patrons grew increasingly pissed of. already beginning to think, “Tis shit has got to stop.” Some As they came out onto the street, they found that a crowd of these raids were merely part of the business-as-usual had begun to form, attracted by the 6th Precinct foot patrol 6th Precinct graf. But others were related to an expanding ofcers who had rushed to the scene, fearing they were being probe by the New York Police Department’s recently reor- cut out of the action, and by the growing number of cop cars ganized Vice Squad Public Morals Division (headquartered outside. It was a warm night and a weekend, and the streets in ’s First Division) investigating Mafa money were busy. Te commotion also attracted a good number laundering and fnancial bonds thef (likely involving Mafa * Ofcers from the 6th Precinct were drafed in at the last minute and mostly blackmail of homosexual Wall Street workers). Te First Di- played a supporting role. Tis might be why the undercover cops were able vision’s deputy inspector, Seymour Pine, and his colleagues to get inside: coming from outside the precinct, they were not recognized had increasingly come to see the Stonewall as a key Mafa by the bouncers. † One of the undercover male cops had apparently already arrested a young locale: surveillance had revealed large cars pulling up, dis- man. Te cop had invited him to dance and insisted they keep on dancing, gorging seemingly straight men who rarely stayed at the even though the boy had lost interest.

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of teenage who hung out or lived in nearby Sheri- alike, to the scene.‡ called the newspapers. dan Square (known colloquially as Christopher Park) and Others threw coins at the cops—symbolic of the bribes they for whom the Stonewall was sometimes a refuge. Instead of received—quickly escalating to cans and bottles. Tere were heading home or of to another bar, those who made it out still ofcers and patrons inside Stonewall, and the rumor of the bar lingered. began to spread that gays inside were being beaten. Anger Inside, men in line began refusing to show their IDs. Les- grew. bians, who were lined up along one wall, began complaining As the crowd went berserk, cops hit back. But they were loudly of cops feeling them up. Drag queens decided this vastly outnumbered and quickly retreated into the Stone- time that they just might not enter the ladies’ room, where wall, grabbing a few members of the crowd as they went, women police ofcers would decide if they were women or including the well-known (straight) folksinger and veteran not. Pine decided to arrest the lot and called in the paddy lefy Dave Van Ronk, who had joined the crowd from a wagons.* First to be brought out were Mafa members asso- nearby bar in solidarity with what he quickly sussed out was ciated with the club.† Te crowd, growing restive and campy an important moment in the civil rights struggle. Inside, the in equal measure, erupted in cheers and jeers. Craig Rodwell, cops beat Von Ronk to near unconsciousness, accusing him a young gay activist who had been attracted by the crowd, of having hit a cop, and then arrested him for assault. Find- shouted “Gay power!” to the startlement of many. Next to ing a frehose, the cops inside the Stonewall opened the door be marched toward the paddy wagon were bar employees, a crack and tried to wash the surging crowd away. Te hose’s to more cheering and jeering—and, tentatively at frst, then weak stream was met with derisive howls, and the crowd increasingly campily, a chorus of “We Shall Overcome.” surged toward the inn again. Ten out came the queens, who waved and smooched at the As at least some bricks from a nearby construction site crowd, which yelled back, “Oh, Lily Law’s got you, girl!” were added to the barrage being thrown at the Stonewall, When a cop shoved one of the transvestites being loaded street kids from Christopher Park took the lead. One of into the wagon, likely Tammy Novak, she swung back with them, eighteen-year-old , who had been hus- her purse and fsts. At the same time—though this is dis- tling on the street since she was eleven, called that night “one puted—another cop bashed with his nightstick a of the greatest moments of my life.” She and her friends f- dressed as a man when she complained about her handcufs nally decided they could fght back against those who had being too tight. And, maybe, a gay man was hit.5 What- been “treating us like shit all these years.” Someone pulled ever precipitated it, the whole night came undone. A crowd up a parking meter, which quickly became a battering ram surged up against the paddy wagon, with some calling for it against the Stonewall’s door. Calls of “Gay power!” rang to be overturned. A number of those in the van, including louder. “We want freedom!” “Liberate the bar!”§ Te cops Tammy, managed to escape before the police handcufed the inside drew their guns and got ready. rest to the seats and, despite slashed tires, drove of to the But the cops held their fre. Whenever the door was station house. As fury deepened, some in the crowd hurried smashed open, they pushed it shut and tried to strengthen to payphones to call their friends, gay and straight radicals the barricade behind it. Ten the guys with the parking meter turned their attention to the boarded-up windows— * Pine had called two paddy wagons, but only one showed up. Tere is spec- ulation that the other was called back by 6th Precinct ofcers annoyed at the ‡ One of those making a call was Jim Fourratt, who ended up disappointed, First Division having trespassed on its turf. but wiser, when none of his radical straight friends rushed to his cause as he † Te Stonewall Inn’s actual owners had slipped out a back door at the be- had rushed to theirs. ginning of the raid. § Also “We’re the pink panthers!”

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In the midst of the Stonewall riot. Evidence of police destruction inside the Stonewall Inn after the riots. Photo by New York Daily News / Getty Images. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, Premium Archives / Getty Images.

seemingly much more vulnerable.* As the windows gave and it did not run: it too was a force. Several contingents of way, bricks and quickly assembled (but not very efective) rioters peeled of into cross streets, doubled back, and came Molotov cocktails sailed in. “My god,” Sylvia Rivera remem- up behind the crack TPF. More bricks were thrown, and gar- bered thinking, “the revolution is here. Te revolution is bage cans were set alight. But when the cops about-faced— fnally here!” Someone reached through a broken window expecting an onslaught—what they confronted instead was and sprayed in lighter fuid, tossing a match afer it. Te fuid a chorus line of queens, high kicking and singing to the tune caught with a whoosh, but the fre did not take. Inspector of “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay”: Pine and his men were under siege.6 We are the Stonewall girls Pine had called in the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), but We wear our hair in curls they were slow in arriving. Apparently, whoever had coun- We wear no underwear termanded the order for a second paddy wagon was also We show our pubic hair . . . countermanding Pine’s calls for help. Finally, afer the cops We wear our dungarees who were barricaded in the Stonewall had been under siege Above our nelly knees! for forty minutes, and as they desperately searched for a way out, the TPF arrived. Te force marched up Christopher Total humiliation. Te cops radiated anger and lashed out Street in full riot gear and deployed in a wedge formation. with their nightsticks, particularly singling out feminine Te crowd slowly retreated, allowing those trapped in the boys and street queens. Finally, just afer 3:30 a.m., as the Stonewall to make their escape. But the crowd did not break, crowd was growing bored with taunting the cops, the TPF * Te owners had long since boarded up the windows to keep cops (and succeeded in clearing and calming the streets. others) from peering in, thereby deterring raids. In all, thirteen people were arrested. Te interior of the

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Stonewall was destroyed, mostly wrecked by the besieged Te TPF had lost control. Sylvia Rivera watched her cops. Innumerable rioters had been injured. Four cops re- friend Marsha P. Johnson climb up a lightpole and drop a quired treatment at area hospitals. Te casualty the rioters heavy bag on a police car windshield, shattering it.* Cops cherished most was to an Ofcer Scheu: someone smacked leaped out of the car and beat the nearest person they could him with a rolled-up newspaper; startled, he fell to the side- fnd in retaliation. A crowd in Sheridan Square launched a walk and broke his wrist.7 fusillade of bottles, missing the cops but hurting some of those in the crowd. (One witness thought they might have One More Time been straight anarchists or police provocateurs.) Te crowd on the street radiated anger. New York queers were in open Te rioting had subsided, but the air was electric. Even peo- rebellion—a rebellion marked by kicklines as well as street ple who had not seen the rioting or the cops or the dam- barricades, jeering songs as well as Molotov cocktails, shouts age could feel it. Something had changed. Te world had of “Gay power!” as well as hurled stones, handholding, kiss- changed. Craig Rodwell’s calls to the media worked. Bulle- ing, and posing as well as spitting anger. And it was a rebel- tins were broadcast on the radio and TV on Saturday, and lion marked by wit: at one point when a squadron of police while the riot was too late for the Saturday editions, the pa- was forced to turn and run from the angry crowd, the crowd pers carried the story on Sunday.8 giving chase was soon joyfully chanting “Catch them! Fuck Word on the street was more important, though. Crowds them!” Te TPF, assisted by a troop of mounted police, was gathered all day Saturday, seeking details, swapping infor- determined to put the uprising down. By about four in the mation. On the boarded-up door and windows of the Stone- morning they succeeded, at the cost of a number of bashed wall (which had vowed to reopen that night), painted slo- heads and the further radicalization of street queens, lesbi- gans appeared: “Legalize Gay Bars”; “Support Gay Power”; ans, and middle-class alike. On a fyer he produced “Tey Invaded Our Rights.” On the streets couples held the morning, Craig Rodwell predicted that the hands: boys with boys, boys with men, street queens, les- two nights of rioting would “go down in history.”9 bians. Blacks and whites showed up, and lots of Puerto Ri- cans. Christopher Street was now their street. By evening they were kissing, out there on the street. Chorus lines formed and reprised “We are the Stonewall girls.” Te fes- One of the men there on Saturday night, Chris Babick, ex- tive crowd swelled into the thousands as the TPF stood by, pressed a common sentiment: “It was an absolutely exhila- nightsticks in hand, riot shields poised. Finally, having had rating experience to know . . . they had defed authority. And enough, the riot cops moved, clubs swinging in an efort to it was . . . like the beginning of a lesbian and gay value sys- clear the street. Once again, gays and queens slipped into the tem. . . . We were just out. We were in the streets. I mean, side streets and came up behind the police line, singing and can you imagine?” Craig Rodwell said the riot was “a way dancing, enraging the cops. One phalanx of protesters bar- * Te “P.” in Marsha’s name stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which is what she ricaded Christopher Street, stopped cars, and rocked them famously told a judge when she was bailing Sylvia out. Te judge, who saw back and forth until drivers retreated. Tey soon trapped a a lot of transvestites in his courtroom, had no trouble getting the double entendre and was amused by it. Within a year Rivera and Johnson (a black taxi. A queen in full drag jumped on the hood and started transvestite who had taught Rivera to survive on the streets) had organized beating it, terrifying the driver and passengers before several STAR—Street Transvestite (now Transgender) Action Revolutionaries— in the crowd, including Rodwell, helped it escape. dedicated to organizing homeless trans youth.

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of saying, ‘We’re tired of hiding, tired of leading two lives, campaigns, vowing to clean up the city and to enforce more tired of denying our basic identity.’” Stonewall was not the decorous sexual mores, reinforcing through its opposition to frst gay riot in America—three years earlier, gay street kids gay sex and identity a strict defned by a kind and drag queens had rioted inside and fought the police out- of “sexual apartheid” that sequestered women in the home side Compton’s cafeteria in San Francisco—but it was the while promoting male virility—a new expression of proper one that seemed to change everything (and not only in New masculinity—in public. Such campaigns were aimed at de- York).*10 stroying the fuidity of identity and the polymorphism of What did it change? Tere had always been a gay New sex. Unlike the relatively open 1920s, the Depression years, York, of course, and at times it could be quite public. Before for all their political radicalism, were simultaneously, in New the Depression, drag shows fourished in the bars and caba- York, a time when “anti-gay reaction gained force . . . as . . . rets of the Bowery and Harlem, which, while ofen catering part of a more general reaction to the cultural experimenta- to straight desires for entertainment, allowed men to meet tion of the Prohibition years and to the disruption of gender men and transvestites to be out and open. Public toilets and arrangements by the Depression. . . . A powerful campaign parks hosted well-known cruising sites. It was not hard to to render gay men and lesbians invisible—to exclude them fnd same-sex dance halls, and in the Bowery or the Tender- from the public sphere—quickly gained momentum.” Te loin, gay male, straight female, and transvestite prostitutes walls of what we now call “the closet” were being erected.12 could ofen be found on the street corners. Te back rooms Te doors were pushed shut during the 1950s. Te FBI of bars hosted gatherings and ofered opportunities for sex, kept a list of known homosexuals, the United States Postal as did the city’s numerous gay bathhouses. Lesbian bars and Service made note of where magazines were sent, and salons dotted the landscape. same-sex relationships were understood automatically to be Queer sex did not always imply a queer : a security threat. In 1952 the American Psychiatric Associa- identities could be quite fuid, with (particularly working- tion defned homosexuality as a mental disorder in its “bi- class) men seeking out other men for sex but not necessarily ble,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. City police across seeing themselves as gay or efeminate (indeed, gay sex could the country stepped up their street sweeps and barroom be a way of asserting masculinity). Some men advertised raids and set up stings to entrap men in known cruising ar- their same-sex desire by wearing clearly understood “insig- eas. Trow in the graf, corruption, and organized crime that nia of homosexuality” like bleached hair and red ties. Other inevitably tag along with public morality campaigns, and the men fashioned themselves as queers and fairies (who may or Stonewall raid was nothing unusual. Gays had been putting may not have been sexually interested in other men). Tis up with such repression, as they liked to say, forever.13 was a world constructed more in relation to gender than to It is not that queers did not push back, did not try to sexual activity. Even so, during the 1920s, gay residential en- pry the door back open, but it was not easy. In 1950 the Los claves developed in Greenwich Village and Harlem.11 Angeles communist organized the Mattachine And it was a world that was always contested. Cops Society to militate on behalf of “sexual deviants.”† By 1953 raided bars—or got paid of by them (or, like Stonewall, both). was all too common. Of and on, city † Mattachine took its name from a society of medieval French traveling musicians and dancers who performed at festivals and feasts, part of the administrations and reform societies launched morality long tradition of popular overturning—revolt—that was so central to the * And even earlier, in 1959, police harassment provoked a small riot among medieval social order. In turn, Mattachine was named afer an Italian court queers in Los Angeles. jester, Mattaccino.

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to dance formed the , which advocated lesbian assimilation into larger society—or, rather, for larger society’s acceptance of lesbians.* Branches of the two soci- eties, as well as other homophilic groups, spread to other cities. If they proved slow in changing minds, they nonethe- less opened up space for meeting and organizing. For many young queers moving to a new city, they were the frst port of call.14 Spurred on by the civil rights struggle, younger members of these organizations pushed them to emulate black activ- ists’ growing militancy, especially afer the national Mat- tachine Society dissolved in 1961, leaving local chapters to their own devices. New York’s Daughters of Bilitis and Mat- tachine, together with the Mattachine Societies from Phila- delphia and Washington, D.C., formed East Coast Homo- philic Organizations (ECHO), which, under the tutelage of , soon took to staging annual pickets to pro- test homosexuals’ exclusion from federal employment and the military. Tough fairly staid afairs—Kameny pushed for a strategic appearance of conformance, no matter how much he himself cherished nonconformance—the pickets gave gays and lesbians a sense of strength as they demanded what was rightfully theirs. Craig Rodwell soon joined ECHO and by 1964 was pushing it always to go further (he came up with the idea of an annual Fourth of July picket, “a gay holiday,” called the ).† He also formed Mattachine Young Adults. And he went on TV to debate antihomosexuals. He drew new members into Mattachine, of the Daughters of Bilitis and of including , who, afer winning leadership of the the picket during the second annual Reminder New York branch, stepped up its militancy. Leitsch in turn Day at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1966. eventually won new mayor John Lindsay’s promise in 1965 Photo by Kay Tobin, © Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. to end police entrapment of gays.‡ Te next year, Leitsch, * Te Songs of Bilitis (1894) by French poet Pierre Louÿs is a long, erotic prose poem that relates the life of Bilitis, a fctional companion of Sappho Mattachine had shifed tactics and become much more an on the island of Lesbos. assimilationist society that sought to change minds, to con- † By its second year, 1966, the Annual Reminder had drawn the attention of the federal government’s Bureau of Special Services, which carefully re- vince the larger society that Mattachine members were just ported on it. Te FBI tried unsuccessfully to recruit Rodwell to report on like normal people. Around the same time, a small group homophilic meetings. of women in San Francisco seeking to create a safe place ‡ Te Transit Police, not controlled by the mayor, continued to entrap men.

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Rodwell, and John Timmons decided to stage a sip-in, middle- and upper-class gays (who might anyway be happy where they would publicly declare their homosexuality at to be hustled). Lesbians faced the burdens of their gender, as a bar and demand drinks. Bars in New York could be shut well as their sexuality.16 down as “disorderly houses” if they served homosexuals. It was in the midst of all this that Inspector Seymour Te frst bar the men tried had got wind of the planned pro- Pine and the First Division Morals squad stepped up the test and was closed. At the second, a Howard Johnson’s, they campaign against Mafa-owned gay bars, only this time, in were cheerily served (the bartender made sure the reporters the early morning hours of July 28, 1969, to be met by the tagging along got a drink too). Te same thing happened likes of Sylvia Rivera, ready to say, “Now it’s my time. I’m at the next bar. Finally, they washed up at , a well- out there being a revolutionary for everyone else and now known gay hangout. Te trio got the bartender to admit he it’s time to do my thing for my own people.” Or, as a fyer for could not legitimately serve them a drink if he knew they the Front, formed not long afer Stonewall, were gay and used that as a pretext to fle a put it, “Do You Tink Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet complaint with the New York State Liquor Authority. Tey Your Sweet Ass We Are!”17 were backed by the black chairman of the Human Rights Commission, William Booth, who saw little distinction be- After Stonewall tween sex discrimination and racial discrimination. Even- tually, a district court ruled that the State Liquor Authority Te Wednesday afer the weekend of rioting, the Village could revoke a bar’s license for running a “disorderly house” Voice published two stories. One was by reporter Howard only if “substantial evidence” of indecent behavior could be Smith, who had been trapped inside Stonewall the frst provided. Well covered in the papers, the sip-in and its af- night with the police. Te other was Lucian K. Truscott, a termath garnered a good deal of support from prominent young stringer for the paper. He reported on the events of straight liberal people.15 the two nights, and on Sunday he tagged along with Allen Police raids continued nonetheless. People dancing in a Ginsberg as he checked out the Stonewall for the frst time.* bar that did not have a cabaret license were subject to arrest, When Ginsberg came out of the bar and set of through the and the bar could lose its liquor license. Men dancing with neighborhood, Truscott continued to tag along. “You know,” men or women with women was, by defnition, “indecent.” Ginsberg said, “the guys there were so beautiful—they’ve So was cross-dressing. Even as homosexuality was gain- lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.” Gay all ing some acceptance in the larger society—WBAIhosted of a sudden did seem beautiful.18 a weekly radio discussion devoted to gay issues called Te But Ginsberg’s remarks were all but drowned out by the New Symposium—and even as gay political organizations furor that erupted when Truscott’s piece was published. around the country were growing increasingly militant, ev- Truscott both admired and belittled “the sudden specter of eryday life remained a challenge. Radical college students ‘gay power,’” referring to the “forces of faggotry” let loose by were expelled from lefist groups because they were homo- the police violence, the limp wrists and primped hair of the sexual, barred the use of the word “gay,” rioters, and the scene on Sunday as the “fag follies.” People and professionals feared exposure and the loss of their jobs, were pissed. Truscott (and to some degree Smith) had ig- or they faced blackmail. Te population of young gays and nored the fght many of the rioters had put up, as well as the queens living on the streets swelled; they got by through the * As was traditional afer a raid, the Stonewall immediately opened up again hard work of hustling and mutual support—against the vi- (it had to borrow furniture from nearby establishments), though it did not olence of gay-bashers, as well as the condescension of some do much business on Saturday night.

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large presence of many traditionally masculine men. A large more than a hundred people showed up.† Te meeting voted crowd formed outside the Voice’s ofce, and someone soon to organize a big demonstration and march to protest police tried to set it on fre.* Angry queers were joined by a grow- harassment. As planning got under way, Shelley, a ing number of straight radicals looking for a fght with the Daughter of Bilitis veteran, and others in the room hit on a police. As the night wore on, trash fres were lit, eventually name: the . Te demonstration would provoking the TPF. Te streets exploded again, but this time be held on the one-month anniversary of the riots and spon- “the street people were no longer half-serious, half-camping” sored jointly by the New York chapter of Mattachine and the (as Leitsch put it), and the cops were ready to exact revenge. Daughters of Bilitis. A big ad in the Voice urged attendees to Te fghting was intense, with street queens taking the lead. wear lavender arm bands. More than fve hundred men and (Te straight radicals seemed more intent on breaking into women showed up for the 2:00 p.m. rally, gathering at the stores, missing entirely the ones that were most exploitative fountain in Washington Square Park. A big lavender banner toward gays.) Dozens of people were injured (including one was unfurled with two interlinked female symbols on one cop), and fve people were arrested. But this time the rioting side and two interlinked male symbols on the other, and only lasted an hour or so, not all night. No matter: by now, as lavender arm bands and sashes were passed around. Mar- Ronnie Di Brienza later wrote, “the word is out. Christopher tha Shelley stood up on the fountain and yelled out to the Street shall be liberated. Te fags have had it with oppres- crowd: “Te time has come for us to walk in the sunshine. sion.”19 We don’t have to ask permission to do it. Here we are!”‡ When the 1969 Annual Reminder was held a few days She went on, “We will no longer be victimized by straight later on July 4 at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, people who are guilt ridden by sex. We’re tired of fashlights Kameny tried to keep two women from holding hands, but and peeping-tom vigilantes. Tired of marriage laws that Rodwell pushed back and got ten couples to defy him. “It punish you for lifing your head of the pillow.” Afer more was clear things were changing,” remarked Lilli Vincenz, speeches, the crowd set of down 4th Street for Christopher who took part. “People who felt oppressed now felt empow- Park (Sheridan Square), but plans to continue on to the 6th ered.” Bill Weaver changed his picket to read “SMASH SEX Precinct station house were abandoned (to the annoyance of UAL FASCISM!” Te press lapped it up. Back in New York, some of the more militant marchers).21 Mattachine counseled restraint, but it was clearly overtaken Te Gay Liberation Front soon consolidated itself around by events. Electric Circus, the hippest nightclub in the city, a revolutionary ideology and worked in solidarity with a announced it would gladly welcome gays, and Mattachine range of radical Lef organizations. Within a few months, worked with it to host a big party a week afer the police members wanting to focus solely on queer issues (and raid. Mattachine’s Randy Wicker made a speech extolling maybe not challenge capitalism) split to form the Gay Activ- gay power but also criticizing the riots. At that moment, one ist Alliance, which took to “zapping” politicians and celebri- of Electric Circus’s employees, freaked out by all the homo- ties—ambushing them at public events and forcing them to sexuals around him, hauled of on the nearest one he could acknowledge the legitimacy of gay rights. New papers—Gay fnd, starting a brawl that ended the night. It was not going to be an easy struggle.20 † One, Bob Kohler, tried to collect money to support the street queens in Tree days later Mattachine sponsored a big meeting— Christopher Park, but he received little support from the mostly middle- class, mostly white crowd. * Gays’ grievances against the Voice were long-standing, as many found it ‡ Shelley was sounding a theme that would resonate down the years, echoing exceedingly uptight and conservative in matters of sexuality, whatever its perhaps most strongly in the 1990s chant: “We’re queer, we’re reputation for being “alternative.” here, get used to it!”

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Fissures in the movement—between feminists and gay men, women and drag queens, street queens and “respect- able” gays, sex workers and professionals in other lines of work, whites and people of color—developed early and deep. Tough street queens like Sylvia Rivera were ofen pushed aside. Still, the movement shifed the world. Te American Psychiatric Association quickly delisted homo- sexuality as a mental disorder. City governments began— against concerted opposition—writing same-sex protections into civil rights laws. Voters in California refused to pass an initiative that would have kicked homosexual teachers out of the schools. “Gay villages” sprouted everywhere.* When AIDS hit there was now a history of concerted organizing that could be drawn on to confront the disease and the state that seemed at frst content to ignore it or stigmatize it. New militant organizations formed. By the 1990s, bisexuals had fought their way into a place in the struggle, and the old term “queer” was readopted as a badge, an identity, as transgender people joined the struggle. On the twenty-ffh anniversary of Stonewall, more than a million people marched in New York, with, now, Sylvia Rivera holding a place of honor.†22

The Stonewall Inn Afer the second night of rioting, activists called for a boy- cott of the Stonewall Inn, declaring it was time to get the Mafa—and the cops—out. In addition to the boycott, the Stonewall faced increased police scrutiny (even as the cops themselves came under fre for corrupt practices) and found Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera marching with star (Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries), June 24, 1973. it impossible to serve alcohol (elsewhere in the Village and Photo by Leonard Fink, used by permission of the Lesbian and Gay Community across the city, gay bars continued to be raided). Te Stone- Services Center, Inc. wall closed within three months. For two decades it hosted various businesses—a bagel shop, a Chinese restaurant—be- Power and Come Out!—were founded. And the frst anniver- fore a new gay bar, the Stonewall (no “Inn”), opened in the sary of the riots, June 28, 1970, was christened Christopher Street Liberation Day and marked by a big rally and march * Tese villages included lesbian neighborhoods such as Park Slope and to Central Park (marches were also held in Los Angeles and neighborhoods in Northampton, . † In 1992 the body of Rivera’s friend Marsha P. Johnson was found in the ), starting the tradition of marches that Hudson near the Christopher Street Pier. Te coroner ruled it a suicide; her would soon be picked up worldwide. friends think she was murdered.

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early 1990s in a portion of the building. In June 1999 the U.S. Te bar closed again in 2006 in part because of noise com- Department of the Interior declared the Stonewall build- plaints from neighbors in the now hypergentrifed Village. It ing and surrounding streets a National Historic Landmark, was reopened a few months later by new owners, once again while the inn itself was named a landmark a year later (the as the Stonewall Inn. Since marriage equality became the law city added its imprimatur in 2015). Te upper foor of the of New York and then all of the United States in 2015, the inn building was added to the bar at the end of the 1990s, and has served as a prime location for gay marriages, perhaps the Stonewall served as a popular dance venue for a time (even as this too is contested by radical queers—the struggle (despite trouble obtaining a cabaret license that would per- between assimilation and diference has not abated) as good mit dancing: Greenwich Village’s Community Board unan- an indication as there is of how the social earthquake the imously opposed giving the bar a cabaret license in 1997). helped set of has continued to reverberate.

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3. Kihss, “Building Here Invaded.” on 2 Sides,” New York Times, May 8, 1969; Tomas A. 4. Sandra Shoiock Rof, Anthony M. Cucchiara, and Barbara Johnson, “Whites’ Attack at C.C.N.Y. Cited,” New York Times, May J. Dunlop, From the Free Academy to CUNY: Illustrating Public 10, 1969. Higher Education in NYC, 1847–1997 (New York: Fordham Univer- 19. “One of 5 Demands of C.C.N.Y. Rebels Granted by Board,” sity Press, 2000). New York Times, May 9, 1969; Emanuel Perlmutter, “100 Students 5. Gunderson, “Struggle for CUNY,” 6–7. Bar Firemen at Brooklyn College Blaze,” New York Times, May 7, 6. City University of New York, Ofce of Institutional Research 1989. and Assessment, “1967–1968 Data Book,” http://cuny.edu/about 20. Murray Schumacher, “Gallagher Quits; Cites ‘Intrusion’ in /administration/ofces/ira/ir/data-book/student/1967-1997 C.C.N.Y. Dispute,” New York Times, May 10, 1969; “Statement by .html. Gallagher on Resignation,” New York Times, May 10, 1969; Murray 7. Quoted in Murray Schumach, “C.C.N.Y. Shutdown afer Schumacher, “Copeland Chosen Interim President for City Col- by 150 Students,” New York Times, April 23, 1969. lege,” New York Times, May 11, 1969. 8. M. A. Farber, “C.C.N.Y. to Close Again, Negroes Agree to 21. “C.C.N.Y. to Resume Its Racial Talks,” New York Times, May Talks,” New York Times, April 24, 1969. 17, 1969; Francis X. Clines, “Open Enrollment Is Urged for City 9. M. A. Farber, “C.C.N.Y. President Orders Tat Closing Be U.,” New York Times, May 17, 1969; Murray Schumacher, “Police at Continued until Next Tuesday: Gallagher Terms Talks with Dissi- C.C.N.Y. Are Withdrawn; Talks Resume,” New York Times, May 18, dents ‘Useful,’” New York Times, April 25, 1969. 1969; Gunderson, “Struggle for CUNY,” 8; David Lavin, Richard 10. Murray Schumach, “700 Engineering Students Ignore Alba, and Richard Silberstein, Right versus Privilege: Te Open C.C.N.Y. Closing,” New York Times, April 26, 1969. Admissions Experiment at City University of New York (New York: 11. Ibid.; Israel Shenker, “City College Professors Express Teir Free Press, 1981), 13. Views on the Campus Shutdown,” New York Times, April 30, 22. Sylvan Fox, “C.C.N.Y. Reopens and Talks Go On,” New York 1969. Times, May 22, 1969; Murray Schumacher, “Dual Admissions for 12. Edward C. Burks, “C.C.N.Y. to Stay Closed While Talks City College Provided by Pact,” New York Times, May 24, 1969; Continue,” New York Times, April 29, 1969; David Bird, “Queens Ballard, Education of Black Folk, 126. Students Occupy Buildings,” New York Times, April 29, 1969; Bird, 23. Lavin, Alba, and Silberstein, Right versus Privilege, 18; Gun- “Rebels at Queens College Blockading Main Building,” New York derson, “Struggle for CUNY,” 8; Homer Bigart, “C.C.N.Y. Alumni Times, April 30, 1969. Head Charges Board Is Abetting Black Racism,” New York Times, 13. Michael Stern, “Two More Campuses of City U. Closed afer November 6, 1969. Disorders,” New York Times, May 3, 1969. 14. Tomas F. Brady, “City College Agreement Reached: Settle- chapter 14. “homosexuals are revolting” ment Reported by Dr. Gallagher as Court Acts,” New York Times, 1. Te standard histories, which also include the most careful May 3, 1969. reconstructions of the Stonewall riots, are David Carter, Stonewall: 15. “C.C.N.Y. Ordered to Reopen Today in Face of Writs,” New Te Riots Tat Sparked the Gay Revolution (New York: St. Mar- York Times, May 5, 1969; “Statements on Order to Open C.C.N.Y.,” tin’s Press, 2004); and Martin Duberman, Stonewall (New York: New York Times, May 5, 1969. /Plume, 1994). On New York’s restrictive dancing laws 16. Sylvan Fox, “Court Order Ends Blockade by 250 Students,” and how they shape nightlife, see Laam Hae, Te Gentrifcation of New York Times, May 6, 1969. Nightlife and the Right to the City: Regulating the Spaces of Social 17. Sylvan Fox, “C.C.N.Y. Open but Tense,” New York Times, May Dancing in New York (New York: Routledge, 2012). 7, 1969. 2. Carter, Stonewall, 82–83; Duberman, Stonewall, 187–89. 18. Sylvan Fox, “C.C.N.Y. Shut Down, Ten Racial Clash Injures 3. Ronnie Di Brienza, “Stonewall Incident,” East Village Other, 7 Whites,” New York Times, May 8, 1969; “Dr. Gallagher’s State- July 9, 1969, 2, quoted in Carter, Stonewall, 143, see also 193–95; ment,” New York Times, May 8, 1969; “Seeds of C.C.N.Y. Strife: Duberman, Stonewall, 168–69. See also David Bird, “Trees in a

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Queens Park Cut Down as Vigilantes Harass Homosexuals,” New 14. Eric Marcus, (New York: Harper, 2002); York Times, July 1, 1969. John D’Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: Te Making of 4. Te following account is pieced together primarily from a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970 (Chicago: Carter, Stonewall; and Duberman, Stonewall. University of Chicago Press, 1983). 5. Te debates about what triggered the riot are rehearsed in 15. Duberman, Stonewall, 102–17; Carter, Stonewall, 115–16. Carter, Stonewall, 149–252. 16. Carter, Stonewall, 114–25. 6. Rivera is quoted in , “Street Transvestite 17. Marcus, Making Gay History, 128; Donn Teal, Te Gay Mili- Action Revolutionaries,” Workers World, September 24, 2006. tants (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1971), 19. Village Voice reporter Howard Smith was trapped inside with the 18. Truscott, “Gay Power”; Smith, “Full Moon.” cops and published his account a few days later: “Full Moon over 19. Carter, Stonewall, 201–4; Di Brienza, “Stonewall Incident,” 2. the Stonewall,” Village Voice, July 3, 1969; republished in Tessa 20. Carter, Stonewall, 213–15. Stuart, “Full Moon over the Stonewall: Howard Smith’s Account of 21. Ibid., 217–18. the Stonewall Riots,” Village Voice, June 26, 2015, http://www 22. “About New York; Still Here: Sylvia, Who Survived Stone- .villagevoice.com/news/full-moon-over-the-stonewall-howard wall, Time and the River,” New York Times, May 24, 1995. -smiths-account-of-the-stonewall-riots-6704949. 7. Duberman, Stonewall, 202; “Four Policemen Hurt in ‘Village’ the hard hat riots, 1970 Raid: Melee near Sheridan Square Follows Action at Bar,” New 1. Penny Lewis, Hardhats, Hippies, and Hawks: Te Vietnam York Times, June 29, 1969. Antiwar Movement as Myth and Memory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell 8. “Four Policemen Hurt”; Dennis Eskow, “3 Cops Hurt as Bar University Press, 2013), chap. 7; Joshua Freeman, Working Class Raid Riles Crowd,” New York Daily News, June 29, 1969. Duber- New York: Life and Labor since World War II (New York: New man, Stonewall, 202, says this Daily News story was on page 1. Press, 2000), chap. 14; Linda Charlton, “Some Protests Heckled; Tat’s not true. Te page 1 story came later. It was Jerry Lisker, Fires Reported at Colleges,” New York Times, May 9, 1970. “Homo Nest Raided, Queen Bees Are Stinging Mad,” Daily News, 2. Homer Bigart, “War Foes Here Attacked by Construction July 6, 1969. Workers: City Hall Is Stormed,” New York Times, May 9, 1970; 9. Duberman, Stonewall, 203–5; Carter, Stonewall, chap. 10; Martin Arnold, “Police Were Told of Plan,” New York Times, May Feinberg, “Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.” 9, 1970; Maurice Carroll, “Police Assailed by Mayor on Laxity at 10. Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, Gay L.A.: A History Peace Rally,” New York Times, May 10, 1970. of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians (New York: 3. Homer Bigart, “Tousands in City March to Assail Lindsay Basic Books, 2006). on War,” New York Times, May 16, 1970. 11. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, 4. Homer Bigart, “Huge City Hall Rally Backs Nixon’s Indochina and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Policies,” New York Times, May 21, 1970. Basic Books, 1994). Some of the spatial implications of Chauncey’s 5. Homer Bigart, “9 Hurt as Police Disperse Group in Midtown (and others’) analysis are laid out in Don Mitchell, Cultural Geog- afer City Hall Peace Rally,” New York Times, May 21, 1970. raphy: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), chap. 7. 6. Lewis, Hardhats, Hippies, and Hawks. 12. Chauncey, Gay New York, 331; see also Michael Brown, Closet Space: Geographies of Metaphors from the Body to the Globe (New people’s firehouse #1, 1975–1978 York: Routledge, 2000). 1. Joseph P. Fried, “City’s Housing Administrator Proposes 13. Nicholas Edsall, Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Soci- ‘Planned Shrinkage’ of Some Slums,” New York Times, February ety in the Modern Western World (Charlotte: University of Virginia 3, 1976; Roger Starr, “Making New York Smaller: Te City’s Eco- Press, 2003); John D’Emilio, “Te Homosexual Menace: Te nomic Outlook Remains Grim,” New York Times, November 14, Politics of Sexuality in Cold War America,” in Passion and Power: 1975. Sexuality in History, ed. K. Peiss and C. Simmons (Philadelphia: 2. Roger Starr, Urban Choices: Te City and Its Critics (Balti- Temple University Press, 1989), 226–40. more, Md.: Penguin, 1969), 41–42, 43, 258, quoted in Deborah

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