A trendy bar, this became the location of the Stonewall Riots, which have reached an almost mythical meaning to the gay community from the 1970s into today. The Stonewall Inn went through various incarnations since the 1930s, starting out as a tearoom named Bonnie’s Stonewall. Throughout most of its forms, Stonewall Inn remained a respectable business, catering more toward the day-to-day crowd instead of the rambunctious night clientele. This all changed when a member of the local mafia, Tony Lauria, bought the building and changed it into a nightclub in 1967. From the moment it opened as a club, Stonewall Inn was well liked by Greenwich’s gay community. With the anti-homosexual laws and behaviors of the times, a dance club was the perfect release from everyday life. However, this all changed on one fateful night, when the police and patrons went on the offensive against one another. The Stonewall riots started with just one community, but soon triggered unity between gays, lesbians, and transvestites across the United States, making it one of the most important moments in the history of the gay rights movement.

Gay communities had begun to appear in various locations in the 1920s, specifically San Francisco, the French Quarter of New Orleans, and Greenwich Village of New York. The more homosexuals heard about such places, the larger they grew. Despite this, homosexuality was kept relatively quiet within society.

While homosexuals had always faced a certain amount of adversity in the United States, this escalated after World War II. When the war ended a greater emphasis was placed on the concept of the nuclear family, which assisted in bringing about harsher anti-homosexual laws and attitudes. With memories of the war still heavy in the air, the anti-homosexual attitude was also closely connected to that generation’s attempt to keep from repeated the actions of the generation before them. In contrast to the mindset of the forties and fifties the twenties was a place of open sexuality, a concept that the former group would later view as a perversion. The perception of what a homosexual was became no different than a sexual pervert or mentally disturbed human. In 1950 it was written in the Coronet, “Once a man assumes the role of homosexual, he throws off all moral restraints.” Laws made it difficult to hold any form of office, particularly in the government, and gays and lesbians that were arrested were often placed into mental wards. There they were often given electroshock therapy and could be lobotomized or castrated.

The police were key players in the anti-homosexual feel of the 1950s and 60s. They were given allowance to arrest men and women for the slightest sign of homosexuality. Often plainclothes police cruised gay bars and engaged their customers in order to find excuses to arrest them. It was even common for police officers to expose themselves in public restrooms, catching those whose attention they had drawn. It was a common feeling for those living in these situations to view the police as their true enemy and, after a while, to expect to be treated as less than human. By 1961 the anti-homosexual laws in the United States had surpassed nations such as Cuba, Russia, and East Germany, the very countries that the United States criticized for their regard for human rights.

Before the riots there was very little gay activism. Out of the people who did come together, the Mattachine Society was the most well known and influential. Harry Hay created this organization in 1950 as the first sustained political resistance, whose goal was to unify the gay community and educate others on gay culture. A lesbian centered group was formed shortly after the Mattachine Society, called Daughters of Bilitis, but it focused mainly on the personal needs of each member. Small groups of gay activists came and went in colleges and liberal communities, as well. They protested in small numbers, but their efforts were hardly enough to catch the attention of national news or the everyday citizens of the United States. One of their marches was called the ‘Annual Reminder’, which took place in Philadelphia. This march was done every July fourth starting in 1965 in an attempt to remind the nation that there was a minority group that still lacked basic rights.

As the sixties progressed the community of Greenwich Village began to face the effects of an anti-homosexual society. Mayor Robert Wagner ordered raids to be performed in an attempt to shut down gay businesses and supposedly eliminate the homosexuals from the area. However, the local mafia owned the majority of the bars and clubs in this area. The gay community believed that the mafia would ensure that they had a place to socialize with one another. Due to the corruption that existed between the mafia and the police the owners of said businesses would often have to pay off the local precinct during the routine raids in order to stay open.

It was in the midst of this environment that Stonewall Inn opened its doors in 1967. As was common with other clubs, Stonewall Inn used a cover up story claiming to be a “bottle club” meant for private members and not the gays and lesbians the club actually aimed at. With this false face Stonewall Inn was able to stay open despite the odds.

The type of people that visited Stonewall Inn were rather varied, despite it being the bouncer’s job to determine whether a person fit the correct profile before they could enter the club. The patrons themselves were about ninety-eight percent male. It was a mix of gays, lesbians, and transvestites that flooded Stonewall Inn’s dance floors. They ranged from their late teens to early thirties. 

On Friday, June 28, 1969, Seymour Pine was ordered by his superiors to take a group of officers down to Stonewall Inn and perform a raid. They stormed the building just after one in the morning, Saturday. The music was shut off in the building and the regular lights were turned off. Pine immediately began ordering everyone into groups, lining up the gay men and lesbians while grouping the transvestites together near the back of the building. The officers began asking for identification.

Pine later claimed that it was the resistance they were receiving from the transvestites that caused the event to become more than just a simple raid. It was due to this that they decided to take most of the transvestites into the police station along with the employees. Once the police had taken their information, the patrons were then ushered outside and were free to leave. However, unlike what usually occurred, the crowd did not dissipate. The large group of people, a crowd that was growing as more people ventured over to see what was going on, drew the attention of two colleagues of The Village Voice. One member of the crowd, Craig Rodwell, also alerted the daily papers of the events occurring.

The crowd continued to remain where it was, growing in agitation over the raid. Soon, the police emerged with those they were arresting and began ushering them into the available police wagon. It was here that the first violent act was performed for the night. As one of the police officers shoved a transvestite toward the truck, she turned on him and smacked him with her purse. In front of the crowd, the police officer proceeded to hit her multiple times with his club. Shortly after this, a fight broke out between a struggling lesbian and the cops attempting to arrest her. Most eyewitnesses agree that she managed to escape from their clutches twice before they caught her and shoved her into the waiting police car. This is often considered the event that ignited the crowd, causing them to riot.

The crowd surged forward, causing the police wagon to rock back and forth. People began yelling obscenities at the police and encouraging words, such as “Gay power!” When it became obvious that the crowd was too much for the police officers to handle, Pine ordered them to retreat into Stonewall Inn and barricade themselves while they waited for backup.

Immediately an assault began on Stonewall Inn. Crowds threw garbage and glass bottles. They even created battering rams in an attempt to get through the front door. Pine and his offers were quickly left isolated and in the dark as telephone lines were cut and the rioters outside shut down the power. As an experienced war veteran, Pine had had his fair share of battle, but he later claimed, “There was never any time that I felt more scared than I felt that night.” The crowd grew in size as the yelling and chanting increased, pulling neighbors from their beds to join them. Some rioters even paused to rush to nearby bars or use the payphones to alert people they knew of what was happening in front of Stonewall Inn. By the time the backup police teams arrived, the crowd had started throwing pieces of wood lit on fire into the building. Pine and his men were trapped in the building for an estimated forty-five minutes.

To add an oddly mystical portion to the evening, Howard Smith from The Village Voice had looked up while observing the rioting crowd and noticed that it was the full moon.

As the night progressed, violence shifted from being focused on the actual building to that of an exchange between the cops and the rioters. As the police retaliated against the violence, they focused on the men with more feminine qualities. Quite a few were injured, but there were thankfully no deaths. Just before four in the morning a calm descended and the first riot was finally complete.

Not even twenty-four hours later, people were gathering in the street in front of Stonewall Inn. News of the riot had reached close to every ear in the gay community. The next evening the police and Tactical Patrol Force were called in for crowd control as the large number of people became quickly agitated and exuberant in their message for gay strength. The situation escalated, just like the night before, into that of a riot. The crowd doubled back, using their knowledge of the streets and alleyways to block any exits, effectively surrounding the officers. In response the police attacked anyone nearby, lashing out at whoever was within hitting distance. As the riot came to an end around four in the morning that Sunday, at least two men had been beaten to the ground.

Recognizing that the mafia’s link to the police could have instigated the severity of the raid on Stonewall Inn, Craig Rodwell, founder of the Homophile Youth Movement, started distributing pamphlets urging gays to fight against the corruption between cops and the mafia. Similar campaigns and protests continued at various levels for up to five days after the final riot. While most of the gay activists of the time viewed the Stonewall Inn riots as a positive thing, the Mattachine Society was hardly impressed with the display. Shortly after the riots, a message was posted by the Mattachine Society on Stonewall Inn’s door, stating: “We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village.”

Due to the damage done to not only the building’s structure but to the owner’s reputation, Stonewall Inn was never reopened after the riots. Despite this, its name it still used in organizations and businesses worldwide.

In merely two days, the Stonewall Inn was able to bring the problem of gay rights into mainstream United States, a feat that the previously established organizations had been unable to do. Of the many groups created after the riots, the Gay Liberation Front was the most popular, which was created within a year of the riots. However, the Gay Liberation Front has since disbanded. One of the rioters, Sylvia Rivera, co-founded the Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries in 1970. This group worked to help house and feed the homosexual and transvestite community, as well as taking part in protests. They were even involved in rallies conducted by the revolutionary group, the Black Panthers.

With the help of the Stonewall Inn riots, the homosexual community managed to unify themselves across the United States. Due to this, laws and behaviors have since then been questioned and argued against in defense of this minority. For example, in November of 1978, the California Briggs initiative was successfully defeated. If this had passed then it would be legal to bar openly gay or lesbian teachers from the classroom. This sort of movement has continued on to today, where gay rights lobbyists are working on such topics as gay marriage and gay adoption. However, while many steps forward have been made, there are still moments of resistance.

In the beginning of the gay rights movement the United States was the leading country, but it has since been surpassed by Canada, New Zealand, Denmark, Switzerland, and even Spain. Still, there is a great satisfaction to be found in seeing how much gay activism has taken root since the Stonewall Inn riots. The Stonewall Inn riots helped do the impossible by bringing together a large group of people in unity, a feat that emphasizes the importance of these events in the gay rights movement.