On this day in New York · June 28, 1969
The Stonewall Riots
A vice raid on a Christopher Street gay bar hit a wall of resistance at 1:20 in the morning, and New York has been arguing about what freedom looks like ever since.
The facts
- Date
- June 28, 1969, 1:20 a.m.
- Location
- Stonewall Inn, 51 and 53 Christopher Street, Greenwich Village
- First-night arrests
- 13 people arrested
- Duration
- Unrest recurred over six nights, through July 3, 1969
Just after 1 a.m. on June 28, 1969, plainclothes officers from the NYPD's Public Morals Squad pushed through the doors of the Stonewall Inn at 51 and 53 Christopher Street and announced they were shutting the place down. Raids on gay bars were routine in the Village, and they usually ended with a few arrests and everyone else scattering into the night. This time the crowd outside refused to leave, then refused to back off, and by early morning hundreds of people were fighting police in the street. The unrest flared on and off for six nights, drawing bigger crowds each time. Within a year, an anniversary march down those same streets became the first Pride.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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Police! We're taking the place!
NYPD officers, announcing the raid on the Stonewall Inn, June 28, 1969
Source: Wikipedia -
We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit.
Michael Fader, who was at the Stonewall Inn during the raid
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
The riots didn't invent the gay rights movement, but they gave it a place and a date to organize around, and the march that marked the first anniversary became the template for every Pride parade since.
Sources
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