Stonewall Riots (1969): The Uprising That Sparked Gay Liberation

The Stonewall riots were a series of protests that began after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, in the early hours of 28 June 1969. For several nights, gay men, lesbians, drag queens, transgender people and young homeless people clashed with police in the surrounding streets. The uprising did not begin the struggle for gay rights, but it transformed a small and cautious movement into a mass, outspoken one and gave rise to the Pride marches held around the world today.

Background: life under the law in the 1960s

In 1960s America, homosexuality was treated as a crime, a mental illness and a moral failing. Every state except Illinois still criminalised sodomy at the end of the decade, and the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental disorder until 1973. Gay people could lose their jobs, homes and families if they were exposed.

In New York, the State Liquor Authority could close bars that served gay customers on the grounds that they were “disorderly”. Police used plainclothes officers to entrap men, and a law against wearing a disguise was used against people dressed in clothes of the opposite sex. As a result, many gay bars were run by organised crime, which paid off police and ran the businesses with little regard for safety.

A small “homophile” movement already existed. Groups such as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis lobbied politely for tolerance. In 1966 Mattachine members staged a “sip-in” at Julius’ bar in Greenwich Village to challenge the refusal to serve gay customers, and from 1965 activists held an Annual Reminder picket at Independence Hall in Philadelphia each 4 July. There had also been earlier acts of resistance, including the Compton’s Cafeteria riot in San Francisco in 1966.

The Stonewall Inn

The Stonewall Inn occupied 51–53 Christopher Street, facing a small triangular park near Sheridan Square. It was controlled by people linked to the Genovese crime family, had no liquor licence and operated as a private “bottle club”. Drinks were watered down, there was no running water behind the bar, and fire exits were lacking.

Yet the Stonewall was important to its customers. It was one of the few places in the city where same-sex couples could dance, and it welcomed people who were turned away elsewhere, including young drag queens, effeminate men and homeless teenagers who slept in nearby Christopher Park. Police raids happened regularly, but the owners were usually tipped off in advance.

The raid and the first night

At about 1:20 a.m. on Saturday 28 June 1969, Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine of the public morals squad led a small group of officers into the bar. This raid came without the usual warning. There were roughly 200 people inside. Police began checking identification and separating out people dressed in women’s clothing, but many patrons refused to cooperate.

Customers who were released did not leave. They gathered on the street, joined by passers-by and people from nearby bars, and the crowd soon numbered several hundred. When police began loading people into a patrol wagon, the mood turned. Witnesses describe a struggle with a handcuffed lesbian who resisted officers; she is often identified as the singer and drag king performer Stormé DeLarverie, although this remains uncertain.

People in the crowd threw coins, then bottles, stones and other objects. Outnumbered, Pine and his officers retreated into the bar, together with a few prisoners and the Village Voice journalist Howard Smith, and barricaded the door. Rioters used an uprooted parking meter as a battering ram, and lighter fluid was thrown inside and set alight. The Tactical Patrol Force, a riot-control unit, arrived to free the officers and clear the streets. Members of the crowd taunted the helmeted officers by forming kick lines and singing mocking songs. Thirteen people were arrested that night, and several officers and an unknown number of protesters were injured.

The following nights

News spread quickly. On the night of 28–29 June a much larger crowd, estimated in the thousands, gathered on Christopher Street. Slogans such as “Gay Power” were chalked on walls, and protesters again fought running battles with the Tactical Patrol Force until the early morning.

The next few nights were quieter, with smaller gatherings and leafleting. On Wednesday 2 July, after the Village Voice published articles about the riots that many gay readers found mocking, a crowd assembled again and there were further clashes. By about 3 July the street protests had faded.

Key people

• Seymour Pine (1919–2010) led the raid as head of a public morals unit. Decades later he gave interviews to historians describing how close the officers came to being overwhelmed.
• Marsha P. Johnson (1945–1992), a Black drag performer and activist, was present during the riots. She and Sylvia Rivera later founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) to help homeless young people.
• Sylvia Rivera (1951–2002), a Latina transgender activist, said she was at the Stonewall that night and campaigned for decades for transgender inclusion.
• Stormé DeLarverie (1920–2014) is widely believed to be the woman whose arrest provoked the crowd, although she did not always say so herself.
• Craig Rodwell (1940–1993), founder of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, witnessed the riots, alerted newspapers and helped plan the first anniversary march.

Consequences: from riot to movement

Within weeks of the riots, activists in New York founded the Gay Liberation Front, a radical group inspired by the civil rights, anti-war and women’s movements. In December 1969 others formed the Gay Activists Alliance, which focused on lobbying and direct action against politicians. The new groups rejected the cautious style of the homophile organisations and urged people to “come out” publicly.

The number of gay rights organisations in the United States grew from around 50 before Stonewall to well over a thousand within a few years, according to commonly cited estimates. On 28 June 1970, the first anniversary of the raid, thousands marched from Greenwich Village to Central Park in the first Pride march, with parallel events in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

Legal change came slowly. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973. New York’s sodomy law was struck down by the state’s highest court in 1980, and the US Supreme Court invalidated all remaining state sodomy laws in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. Openly gay politicians such as Harvey Milk in San Francisco drew on the confidence that the post-Stonewall movement had built, and later campaigns such as ACT UP during the AIDS crisis continued its tradition of direct action.

Myths and facts

Myth: Stonewall was the beginning of the gay rights movement. Organised campaigning had existed since the 1950s, and there were earlier protests and riots. Stonewall’s importance lies in how it changed the scale and tone of activism, and in the way activists deliberately commemorated it.

Myth: Grief over Judy Garland caused the riot. The singer, a gay icon, was buried in New York on 27 June 1969, and the link is often repeated. Most historians, and many people who were there, consider the connection doubtful.

Myth: A known individual threw the first brick. Accounts differ about who acted first, and there is no reliable evidence that a brick was thrown at the start.

Fact: The crowd was diverse. Drag queens, gender-nonconforming people, lesbians, young street people and gay men of different races all took part, although historians still debate the relative roles of particular individuals.

Timeline

• 1966, April: Mattachine Society activists stage a “sip-in” at Julius’ bar in Greenwich Village.
• 1969, 28 June, about 1:20 a.m.: Police raid the Stonewall Inn; a crowd gathers and fighting breaks out.
• 1969, 28–29 June: A larger crowd of thousands protests on Christopher Street.
• 1969, 2 July: Further clashes follow articles in the Village Voice.
• 1969, July: The Gay Liberation Front is founded in New York.
• 1969, December: The Gay Activists Alliance is formed.
• 1970, 28 June: The first Christopher Street Liberation Day march marks the anniversary.
• 1999–2000: The Stonewall Inn and surrounding streets are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and named a National Historic Landmark.
• 2016, 24 June: President Barack Obama designates the Stonewall National Monument.

Legacy

The Stonewall Inn itself closed within months of the riots, and the building housed other businesses for years before a bar of the same name reopened there. In 2015 New York City made the building a landmark, and in 2016 it became part of the Stonewall National Monument, the first unit of the US National Park System dedicated to LGBT history.

Around the world, Pride marches in June and the term “Christopher Street Day” used in Germany and Switzerland recall the events of 1969. The riots have been the subject of books, documentaries and films, and debates over who deserves credit continue to shape how LGBT communities tell their own history.

Why it matters

The Stonewall riots marked the moment when many gay and transgender people in the United States stopped hiding and began demanding equal treatment openly. By turning a routine police raid into a symbol of resistance, they helped launch a global movement that has since changed laws and attitudes in many countries.