Sticking our torches in the ashes of the Stonewall, to say, we are walking away from the darkness of the bars. It was our desire not to let any of this be forgotten. For lack of a better term, they branded it. And they were going to commemorate Stonewall as an event. Craig Rodwell of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop putting up a sign in his window and saying, hey, kids, let’s put on a show. A year after the riots, that whole area by the Stonewall became the gathering point of the kickoff for the first gay pride parade. And activists realized that this was a really important turning point. This was our neighborhood, and we weren’t going to let them take it away from us. All of a sudden, a lot of gay people appeared on the streets, in this whole area, not just in front of Stonewall. Well, the next few nights really were a repetition of the rioting. It was one of most beautiful things I’d ever seen. And the first beginnings of the sun were catching all the smashed glass. No longer enemies, just exhausted people. And six feet away on the fence was a cop, exhausted. And I looked across and there was this other queen sitting on a stoop, exhausted. Finally, the first hint of dawn was coming.
Two queens pulled a parking meter out of the ground, concrete and all, used it as a battering ram. They couldn’t arrest the leaders because we had none. All of a sudden, things were flying all over the place. But for some reason, all of us, without telling each other, without communicating, even bodily, moved forward. The cop turned to us and did what they always did, and said, all right, you fags saw enough. A drag queen had kicked a cop in the shoulder. And where you’re in, in two minutes could change. What you ever observe is the place you’re in. A riot has movement and energy, and you’re not in one place to observe. Things escalated in different areas at the same time. We just was saying, no more police brutality, and we had enough police harassment in the village. Everybody just like, why the fuck are we doing all this for? I don’t know if it was the customers or it was the police. The neighborhood cops came in and they started pushing people. But we went because we had no other place to go. But the police raided the bars all the time. So it was run by the mafia, and they paid off the police. At the time, gay bars could not serve legally. This area was the only real turf we had in the city. I was one of the first drag queens to go to that place. And then they started allowing women in, and then they let drag queens in. At first, it was just a gay men’s bar, and they didn’t allow no women in. There were always stories coming out of Stonewall. It was just a rest stop for people to talk and take a break from the bars, sometimes. It was a park across from Stonewall, so was occupied by the street kids, the drag queens, or whoever was around. Bars always were dark on the outside, in some kind of way, so people couldn’t see in. It was a very special thing to go to a bar. People who are younger may not remember what it was like to go to a gay bar in the 60s. In this particular area here, it was kind of liberating to be myself. Every type of gay person that existed in the city, at one night could really be found there. But everyone knew that Greenwich Village was where we hung out. Our life was kind of isolated and secret. And I think these people are a fit subject for a mental health program. They’re advocating that we tolerate the problem.
And these people are really advocating that we don’t solve the problem. And if we discover homosexuals in our department, we discharge them. The policy of the department is that we do not employ homosexuals knowingly. Well, I understand that we’re being picketed by a group of homosexuals. We were thrown into a general category of people who needed to be cleaned up out of New York City. And some therapists said, well, if you get married, it’ll go away. We were the lowest of the scum of the Earth at that time. Well, the 1960s, it was a city sport to attack gay people. It was a place where the community felt comfortable and safe, because we were all among ourselves. In Greenwich Village, here in New York City, Christopher Park and Sheridan Square, and the area around the Stonewall Inn, is a place where the LGBT community gathered to celebrate our victories, to mourn our losses.
communities have gathered there to express their joy, their anger, their pain and their power. Transcript Stonewall: The Making of a Monument Ever since the 1969 riots on the streets outside New York City’s Stonewall Inn, L.G.B.T.Q.