Colorado
Springs PrideFest Parade for 2009; the 40th anniversary of the StoneWall
raid.
The
Stonewall "riots" were a series of spontaneous demonstrations against
a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28,
1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, New York.
They
are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when
people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored
system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the
defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in
the United States and around the world.
At
1:20 in the morning on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes
cops, two in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector
Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced
"Police! We're taking the place!"
4
undercover cops had entered the bar earlier that evening to gather
visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the
signal. Once inside, they called for backup from the Sixth Precinct
using the bar's pay telephone. The music was turned off and the main
lights were turned on. Approximately 200 people were in the bar that
night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused,
but a few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and
windows in the bathrooms. Police barred the doors, and confusion spread.
The
raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the
patrons, check their IDs, and have female police officers take customers
dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any
men dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that
night refused to go with the cops. Men in line began to refuse to
produce their IDs. The police decided to take everyone to the police
station, and separated the transvestites in a room in the back of
the bar.
Both
patrons and police recalled that a sense of discomfort spread very
quickly, spurred by police who began to "bully" some of the lesbians
by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.
Within
minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some
after they were released from inside the Stonewall, and some after
noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully
pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released
by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police
in an exaggerated fashion.
A
scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the
door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped
repeatedly for 10 minutes.
She
had been hit on the head by a cop with a billy club for, as witnesses
claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.
Bystanders
recalled that the woman sparked the crowd when she shouted, "Why don't
you guys do something?"
The
cops tried to restrain some of the crowd, and knocked a few people
down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed
in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended (deliberately,
according to some witnesses).
The
crowd started impromptu kick lines, and sang to the tune of The Howdy
Doody Show theme song: "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair
in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs".
The
next night thousands gathered in front of the Stonewall. Within six
months, activists started a city-wide newspaper called "Gay"
because the most liberal publication in the city—The Village
Voice—refused to print the word "gay" in GLF advertisements.
Two other newspapers were initiated within a six-week period: Come
Out! and Gay Power; the readership of these three periodicals quickly
climbed to between 20,000 and 25,000.