The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community[note 1] in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.[5][6][7]
As was common for American gay bars at the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia.[10] While police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Tensions between New York City Police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding the right to live openly regarding their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested. The new activist organizations concentrated on confrontational tactics, and within months three newspapers were established to promote rights for gay men and lesbians.
A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.[11]Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. Today, LGBT Pride events are held annually in June in honor of the Stonewall riots.
The Stonewall National Monument was established at the site in 2016.[12] An estimated 5 million participants commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising,[13] and on June 6, 2019, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill rendered a formal apology for the actions of officers at Stonewall in 1969.[14][15]Background[edit]
Very few establishments welcomed gay people in the 1950s and 1960s; those that did were often run by organized crime groups, due to the illegal nature of gay bars at the time, and bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The homophobic legal system of the 1950s and 1960s[note 2] prompted early homosexual groups in the US to prove gay people could be assimilated into society, and such early groups favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. However, the last years of the 1960s saw activity among many social/political movements, including the civil rights movement, the counterculture of the 1960s and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Such influences served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots.Homosexuality in 20th-century United States[edit]
Following the social upheaval of World War II, many people in the United States felt a fervent desire to "restore the prewar social order and hold off the forces of change", according to historian Barry Adam. Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted hearings searching for communists in the US government, the US Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a national paranoia. Anarchists, communists, and other people deemed un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Gay men and lesbians were included in this list by the US State Department on the theory that they were susceptible to blackmail. In 1950, a Senate investigation chaired by Clyde R. Hoey noted in a report, "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons", and said all of the government's intelligence agencies "are in complete agreement that sex perverts in Government constitute security risks".[21] Between 1947 and 1950, 1,700 federal job applications were denied, 4,380 people were discharged from the military, and 420 were fired from their government jobs for being suspected homosexuals.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police departments kept lists of known homosexuals and their favored establishments and friends; the US Post Office kept track of addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed. State and local governments followed suit: bars catering to gay men and lesbians were shut down and their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Cities performed "sweeps" to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gay people. They outlawed the wearing of opposite gender clothes and universities expelled instructors suspected of being homosexual.
In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a mental disorder. A large-scale study of homosexuality in 1962 was used to justify inclusion of the disorder as a supposed pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex caused by traumatic parent–child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession. In 1956, however, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference. Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay men and lesbians, but homosexuality remained in the DSM until 1974.[28]Homophile activism[edit]
In response to this trend, two organizations formed independently of each other to advance the cause of gay men and lesbians and provide social opportunities where they could socialize without fear of being arrested. Los Angeles area homosexuals created the Mattachine Society in 1950, in the home of communist activist Harry Hay. Their objectives were to unify homosexuals, educate them, provide leadership, and assist "sexual deviants" with legal troubles. Facing enormous opposition to their radical approach, in 1953 the Mattachine shifted their focus to assimilation and respectability. They reasoned that they would change more minds about homosexuality by proving that gay men and lesbians were normal people, no different from heterosexuals. Soon after, several women in San Francisco met in their living rooms to form the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) for lesbians. Although the eight women who created the DOB initially came together to be able to have a safe place to dance, as the DOB grew they developed similar goals to the Mattachine and urged their members to assimilate into general society.
One of the first challenges to government repression came in 1953. An organization named ONE, Inc. published a magazine called ONE. The US Postal Service refused to mail its August issue, which concerned homosexual people in heterosexual marriages, on the grounds that the material was obscene despite it being covered in brown paper wrapping. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which in 1958 ruled that ONE, Inc. could mail its materials through the Postal Service.
Homophile organizations—as homosexual groups self-identified in this era—grew in number and spread to the East Coast. Gradually, members of these organizations grew bolder. Frank Kameny founded the Mattachine of Washington, D.C. He had been fired from the US Army Map Service for being a homosexual and sued unsuccessfully to be reinstated. Kameny wrote that homosexuals were no different from heterosexuals, often aiming his efforts at mental health professionals, some of whom attended Mattachine and DOB meetings telling members they were abnormal.
In 1965, news on Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals inspired Mattachine New York and D.C. to organize protests at the United Nations and the White House. Similar demonstrations were then held also at other government buildings. The purpose was to protest the treatment of gay people in Cuba[37][38] and US employment discrimination. These pickets shocked many gay people and upset some of the leadership of Mattachine and the DOB.[40] At the same time, demonstrations in the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War all grew in prominence, frequency, and severity throughout the 1960s, as did their confrontations with police forces.Earlier resistance and riots[edit]