Judy Laster People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. Where did you buy it? Just making their lives miserable for once. So if any one of you, have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual, or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick. 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. This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. J. Michael Grey And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. It was as if an artist had arranged it, it was beautiful, it was like mica, it was like the streets we fought on were strewn with diamonds. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. All rights reserved. Daniel Pine Scott Kardel, Project Administration Because he was homosexual. But you live with it, you know, you're used to this, after the third time it happened, or, the third time you heard about it, that's the way the world is. We didn't want to come on, you know, wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick, you know, and being freaks. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. The idea was to be there first. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:All throughout the 60s in New York City, the period when the New York World's Fair was attracting visitors from all over America and all over the world. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. Homo, homo was big. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. It was an age of experimentation. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. It was right in the center of where we all were. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. They didn't know what they were walking into. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. Clever. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. Remember everything. A sickness of the mind. All the rules were off in the '60s. Mafia house beer? The New York State Liquor Authority refused to issue liquor licenses to many gay bars, and several popular establishments had licenses suspended or revoked for "indecent conduct.". John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. Glenn Fukushima LGBTQ+ History Before Stonewall | Stacker Available via license: Content may be subject to . The men's room was under police surveillance. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. And we all relaxed. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. And she was quite crazy. It was like a reward. And the cops got that. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. Documentary | Stonewall Forever [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community People could take shots at us. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. I said, "I can go in with you?" And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. 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. Bettye Lane Before Stonewall - Letterboxd 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:The mob raised its hand and said "Oh, we'll volunteer," you know, "We'll set up some gay bars and serve over-priced, watered-down drinks to you guys." And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. 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. 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. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. 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." Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. For the first time, we weren't letting ourselves be carted off to jails, gay people were actually fighting back just the way people in the peace movement fought back. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Doug Cramer Dana Gaiser I mean does anyone know what that is? Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month's 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller's Before Stonewall.Originally released in 1984as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionariesthe film, through the use of . That's what gave oxygen to the fire. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:The moment you stepped out that door there would be hundreds facing you. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. 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. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:There were complaints from people who objected to the wrongful behavior of some gays who would have sex on the street. Charles Harris, Transcriptions William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. Suzanne Poli Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Martin Boyce:And I remember moving into the open space and grabbing onto two of my friends and we started singing and doing a kick line. 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. Alexis Charizopolis We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. Jeremiah Hawkins Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. TV Host (Archival):Ladies and gentlemen, the reason for using first names only forthese very, very charming contestants is that right now each one of them is breaking the law. Marc Aubin The Stonewall had reopened. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Samual Murkofsky Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. That was scary, very scary. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of straight America, in terms of the middle class, was recoiling in horror from what was happening all around them at that time, in that summer and the summer before. NBC News Archives Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. Martha Shelley You know. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's gay community. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. And I just didn't understand that. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community 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. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Transcript Enlarge this image 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. archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. 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. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. Narrator (Archival):Richard Enman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida, whose goal is to legalize homosexuality between consenting adults, was a reluctant participant in tonight's program. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. Before Stonewall 1984 Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg Synopsis 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. It was fun to see fags. And I said to myself, "Oh my God, this will not last.". Raymond Castro:Incendiary devices were being thrown in I don't think they were Molotov cocktails, but it was just fire being thrown in when the doors got open. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. As kids, we played King Kong. That's more an uprising than a riot. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. Well, it was a nightmare for the lesbian or gay man who was arrested and caught up in this juggernaut, but it was also a nightmare for the lesbians or gay men who lived in the closet. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. Almost anything you could name. Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. The police weren't letting us dance. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. Getty Images 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. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. Doric Wilson:In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, "I'm a faggot," was horren--, nobody, nobody was ready to do that. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center In the trucks or around the trucks. That's it. Revealing and. Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary "Before Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. Barak Goodman Frank Kameny There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Doing things like that. Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International Oh, tell me about your anxiety. Raymond Castro:So then I got pushed back in, into the Stonewall by these plain clothes cops and they would not let me out, they didn't let anybody out. It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. You were alone. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." Pamela Gaudiano Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. Stonewall Tscript | PDF | Homosexuality | Lgbt And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. 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. But as we were going up 6th Avenue, it kept growing. Not able to do anything. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips . Jorge Garcia-Spitz It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. And that's what it was, it was a war. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. 1969: The Stonewall Uprising - Library of Congress For the first time the next person stood up. 'Before Stonewall' Tracks the Pre-Movement Era | International David Carter The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. This was in front of the police. Urban Stages I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. That this was normal stuff. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. Heather Gude, Archival Research Yvonne Ritter:I did try to get out of the bar and I thought that there might be a way out through one of the bathrooms. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. Before Stonewall - Rotten Tomatoes Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. Don't fire until I fire. It's like, this is not right. Ellinor Mitchell There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives Other images in this film are Susan Liberti Danny Garvin Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:Those of us that were the street kids we didn't think much about the past or the future. Raymond Castro Trevor, Post Production Mike Nuget Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. And they started smashing their heads with clubs. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. It's not my cup of tea. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude 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. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. 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. BBC Worldwide Americas Not even us. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Before Stonewall | The New York Public Library Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation I mean they were making some headway. The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." MacDonald & Associates The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. Vanessa Ezersky ABCNEWS VideoSource And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. 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. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. 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. 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. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. That never happened before. This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". Barney Karpfinger The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." Janice Flood How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . PDF BEFORE STONEWALL press kit - First Run Features Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. 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.
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