The 1969 Riots of Stonewall Inn

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.