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+ SELF-DEFENSE ADVICE + CELEBRITY QUOTES + WEAPON QUIPS + TOP 10 MYTHS + MEDIA FILES INCLUDING AUDIO, VIDEO AND PHOTO RECORDINGS + GUN FACTS 4.2 BY GUY SMITH
Do you believe the idea that today's fight to protect the equal rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans started peacefully and unarmed? Think again. The word "Stonewall" and Stonewall Day celebrate and memorialize those who joined the Gay Liberation Rebellion that was sparked in the early hours after midnight of Saturday, June 28, 1969 by the estimated 200 homosexual men and women, students, cross-dressers, and homeless street kids at the Stonewall Inn tavern at 51-53 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. On that night, tavern patrons were the victims of the second raid that week by New York Police Department law-enforcement officers. The officers did what they always did. On the pretense of enforcing local laws which prohibited homosexual gatherings, same-gender dancing, cross-dressing and alcoholic-beverage violations, two plain-clothed female officers and two plain-clothed male officers entered the tavern undercover as patrons. Minutes later, two uniformed male officers charged in unannounced, stopped the music, turned up the lights and demanded that the patrons line up and wait to have their identifications checked. Only then did the patrons discover whether they were arrested or free to leave. Two more officers arrived soon after. But, for the first time, the patrons refused to leave. Those who were freed stayed at the Sheridan Square neighborhood park across from the tavern, watched for their friends and heckled the officers. One misidentified patron who was either a cross-dressing man or woman was arrested and, while being escorted to two waiting NYPD wagons, started it all: She fought back and tried to escape; an unusual reaction compared to the usual routine of being arrested, posting bail and returning home with which most tavern patrons were familiar. The large audience of freed patrons cheered her bravado and heckled the officers more so. The patrons had become rebels. Some threw fistfuls of loose coins at the officers. Other rebels threw beer bottles and cans. An officer who ran from the barrage was tackled by another cross-dressing man who sat on and beat the officer with her spiked heels she'd removed to give chase. The officers fled back into the tavern and barricaded themselves inside. A plain-clothed female officer climbed through an open restroom window, ran through an alley to a nearby firehouse and radioed for officer reinforcements for four injured officers and 13 arrests. Meanwhile, the rebels freed the arrested patrons in the NYPD wagons and battered the blocked tavern door and windows with uprooted cobblestones, pieces of sidewalk concrete, rocks, at least one parking meter, glass shards, lighter fluid, improvised Molotov cocktails and burning trash cans. The officers huddled inside with their firearms drawn. When 24 more officers with riot gear arrived almost two hours later, they and the first responders tried to disperse the rebels by chasing them around the block several times. The rebels enjoyed their mocking taunts and remained unbowed. More remarkable than the rebels fighting back was the fact that an estimated 500 to 1,000 passersby, friends and neighbors joined the rebellion. Combined with their own reinforcements, the rebels did something else unusual: They returned repeatedly to the fight. They wouldn't go quietly. These rebels, like their Minutemen ancestors, ran to the sound of the fight and joined it. Several rebels were injured by officer batons and one who lost two fingers in a car door. The first riot ended at 2:00 a.m., but thousands more rejoined and stared down the humiliated officers for the next five nights. The tense vigil peeled the end of one era and the beginning of another. The rebels grew stronger. They spoke up. Poet Allen Ginsberg visited them on their second night and remarked "You know, the guys there were so beautiful -- they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago." They discovered that they could bash back. In the following nights and weeks, they debated, demanded and built victory on victory. Stonewall veterans memorialized the first anniversary of the rebellion by marching on June 28, 1970 and creating the first Stonewall Day celebration. Several mythologized renditions of the rebellion developed since then causing many of the veterans who were patrons and officers to describe in detail their memories of the rebellion making its story more honest and compelling to those who weren't there. U.S. President Clinton announced on June 11, 1999 and U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary John Berry announced on June 21, 1999 the addition of the tavern to the 67,000-site National Register of Historic Places. U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced on March 1, 2000 the addition of the tavern to the 2,200-site National Register of Historic Landmarks; the highest honor and protection that the tavern can receive from the U.S. Government.
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