before stonewall
the history of the gay and lesbian community before the stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement .
before stonewall, there was the black cat. lgbtq leaders to mark 50th anniversary of protests at silver lake tavern
: my name is sylvia rivera. my name before that was ray rivera, until i started dressing in drag in 1961 .
the chair is required to attend the stonewall book awards program at ala annual .
this documentary portrays the daily lives of homosexuals in the usa before 1969, the year of the riot at new york' s stonewall inn that provided the impetus for gay pride and is celebrated annually on christopher street day .
committee members are strongly encouraged to attend the stonewall book awards program at ala annual .
being gay before stonewall was a very difficult proposition because we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and manly as possible to get by in the society that was really very much against us .
the film series “an early clue to the new direction: queer cinema before stonewall, ” at the film society of lincoln center, collects a wide range of early films with queer content. following are images of some of the selections .
guests will enjoy a champagne and canapé reception before moving through for the awards’ presentation. following the ceremony, guests will enjoy more drinks and bowl food .
new york city' s stonewall inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police june 27 - 28, 1969. this documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the stonewall riots .
lanigan - schmidt was an eyewitness to the stonewall riots along with his friend martin boyce. the uprising was a transformative experience, he said, but the bar' s biggest effect on lanigan - schmidt came before the riot .
the stonewall was totally different because you could slow dance together. holding on to another person without that fear that someone is going to bash you over the head is totally centering. so going to the stonewall grounded me and then the stonewall riots just brought that feeling out into the real world .
documentary / historical retrospective of the gay rights movement from the 1969 stonewall riots to the present .
perform other duties as deemed necessary by the chair of the stonewall book awards - adult committee .
nine years later, and still two years before stonewall, hundreds of people staged a protest outside the black cat bar in silver lake (it’s now called le barcita) in the wake of a new year’s eve clash between plainclothes cops and gay revelers in the bar .
shelley credits stonewall with
changing my life. before the riots i wanted to go around and convince the straight world we were okay ,
she said .
and after stonewall we told the straight world that we didn' t give a damn what they thought. we were going to do what we were going to do and we weren' t going to ask their permission .
: my name is howard smith. on the night of the stonewall riots i was a reporter for the
“second ballot”: committee members vote for their top choice from among the 5 finalists. the book with the most number of votes for the top choice is awarded the stonewall book award in the appropriate category (stonewall book award - barbara gittings literature award and the stonewall book award - israel fishman non - fiction award. the remaining titles from the results of the first ballot are eligible to be named stonewall honor books. the committee may choose to not name all (or any) of the remaining finalist titles as stonewall honor books .
after stonewall ,
wilson explained ,
gays could get a license to open bars, and one of my friends opened the spike .
wilson was hired as manager and head bartender .
i became a bar star ,
he recalled .
and then a friend opened ty' s on christopher street with a big window right on the street. before stonewall all the gay bars had been on the side streets and no one had big windows .
the stonewall inn had none .
martin boyce just a few months after participating in the stonewall riots, martin boyce returned for the fall semester of his junior year at hunter college in new york city determined to do something he could never have imagined before stonewall .
i decided that all of my term papers would be gay ,
he recalled .
i can say now that that was a courageous thing to do because nobody would hand in a paper in 1969 that had those explicit themes. it just wasn' t accepted. but for a student like me, it was exciting because it was ground that no one else had covered before .
the era before stonewall was a hard era. there was always the gay bashings on the drag queens by heterosexual men, women, and the police. we learned to live with it because it was part of the lifestyle at that time, i guess, but none of us were very happy about it .
: well that’s when all hell broke loose at that point. and then we had to get back into stonewall .
pursue and advocate for adequate funding for the stonewall book awards with the glbt round table and the american library association .
follow the rules and procedures of the stonewall book awards - adult committee and meet the deadlines established by the committee chair .
before stonewall, mattachine was only one of two major gay organizations in new york - - the other was a chapter of the daughters of bilitis, an organization for lesbians - - and as leitsch recalled ,
we had all kinds of arguments between the different constituents who didn' t approve of one another. then a week after stonewall there were a thousand groups and each had its own agenda. some people thought mattachine should be more militant and others felt the people at stonewall were just a bunch of dirty hippies and that nice boys didn' t riot. it was hell .
in 1971, sargeant left new york for stamford, connecticut, where he decided to become a policeman a few years later .
i wanted to see if i could make a difference ,
he said ,
and having seen the situation at stonewall and how the nypd handled that i thought i could do it differently. stonewall wasn' t the only riot i saw. i' d been caught up in riots in the village before and watched what the police did .
downtown los angeles - in 1969, the stonewall riots in new york ignited the nation’s gay rights movement, proving to be a flashpoint for organization and advocacy against discrimination and prejudice. the riots followed a police raid of the stonewall inn, a gay bar in greenwich village .
in the year before stonewall people felt a need to hide because of the precarious legal position they were in. they would lose their jobs. there was a great hostility socially speaking in the sense of people found out you were gay, they assumed you were a communist or a child molester or any of another dozen stereotypes that were rampant in the public media at the time .
this documentary, broadcast on the 20th anniversary of the stonewall riots, is the first documentary — in any medium — about the riots. it weaves together the perspectives of the participants, from deputy inspector seymour pine, who marshaled the raid, to sylvia rivera, one of the drag queens who battled most fiercely that night. the revolutionary impact of the riot is better understood by looking at life for gay men and lesbians in the era before stonewall, seen through the eyes of people like bruce merrow and geanne harwood, a gay couple who have been together for 60 years, and jheri faire, an 80 - year - old lesbian. remembering stonewall also examines how stonewall affected gay politics through the voices of people like randy wicker, the first openly gay person to appear on television and radio; joan nestle, founder of the lesbian herstory archives; and yippie leader jim fouratt, who helped found the gay liberation front on the third night of the stonewall riots .
in the immediate aftermath of the stonewall riots, o' brien helped arrange a space for the first of the gay liberation front dances and joined a committee that was planning the first gay pride march. he recalled ,
before stonewall, i could never see gay people coming together and organizing or marching down the street for any kind of protest ,
o' brien said. he takes pride in the fact that he was
one of the people who called for the first anniversary march, which has blossomed since .
today, more than 80 million people in 20 countries around the world mark the anniversary of the stonewall uprising with parades and events of all kinds every year .
greenwich village' s stonewall inn has undergone several transformations in the decades since it was the focal point of a three - day riot in 1969 .
before the summer was over apuzzo had left the convent ,
with what i had on my back ,
she explained .
when you live a lie, as i was living, you wait for someone to whisper the truth so you can give up the lie, too. that' s so much of how i saw and experienced stonewall and how i' ve experienced the gay movement .
john o' brien well before the stonewall riots propelled him into a leadership role in the newly energized gay rights effort in new york city, john o' brien was already an experienced political activist. born in harlem in 1949 to an immigrant maid and union janitor, o' brien credits his growing up
in old tenements and poverty
as the motivation
to become an activist for change .
for the 40th anniversary of the stonewall riots hoose went to meet the president. at the white house, hoose recalled ,
there were 250 gay leaders from around the country. ten of us were going to meet him privately and i found out 10 minutes before that i was one of the 10. and why was i one of the 10? even though it was a celebration for the 40th anniversary of stonewall only two of us there had actually been at stonewall. so tommy schmidt and i were waiting in the anteroom to meet the president and tommy and i looked at each other and said,' would you have believed 40 years ago that we' d wind up in this position about to meet the president?'
while wilson says he is disappointed with the evolution of gay life and the direction of the gay civil rights movement since the stonewall riots, wilson
couldn' t be happier
that his play about stonewall ,
street theater ,
is performed
somewhere every june
to mark the anniversary of the riots he witnessed .
the chair will notify the winning authors and publishers as soon as the winners have been decided. the chair will also notify the publishers of the stonewall honor books .
on june 30, 1979, acclaimed author james baldwin, who had years before returned from paris where he was living in protest, mailed a semi - complete book proposal to his literary agent, jay acton. “i’ll confess to you that i am writing this proposal in a somewhat divided state of mind, ” wrote baldwin, before submitting to tell the story of america through the lives of three civil rights figures: medgar evers, malcolm x, and martin luther king jr. “i want these three lives to bang against and reveal each other, ” baldwin wrote of his friends, all of whom were killed before the age of 40 during the 1960s, “as in truth they did use their dreadful journey as a means of instructing the people they loved so much, who betrayed them, and for whom they gave their lives. ”
virginia apuzzo within days of the stonewall riots, 28 - year - old virginia apuzzo made her way from riverdale, new york, where she was a novice at the convent of mount saint vincent, to new york city' s greenwich village .
i read about stonewall in the newspaper ,
she recalled ,
and i was very, very curious. before i entered the convent at age 26, i' d had two lovers and knew i was a lesbian, but i tried to play by the rules. i thought i' d have to live my life with this deep dark secret .
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at the time, smith thought he had a great inside story about a bar raid .
i didn' t have any hint of the significance ,
he said. it would be another few years before smith realized the historic importance of the uprising. today, smith says ,
it' s rare that i met a gay man who says he wasn' t at the stonewall. there must have been four million people there that night .
avenue and christopher street. the local precinct had just received a new commanding officer, who kicked off his tenure by initiating a series of raids on gay bars. the stonewall was an inviting target – operated by the gambino crime family without a liquor license, the dance bar drew a crowd of drag queens, hustlers, and minors. a number of the bar’s patrons had spent the early part of the day outside the frank campbell funeral home, where judy garland’s funeral was held. she had died the sunday before. it was almost precisely at midnight that the morals squad pulled up to the stonewall inn, led by deputy inspector, seymour pine .
: when stonewall happened, bruce and i were still in the closet, where we had been for nearly forty years. but we realized that this was a tremendous thing that had happened at stonewall and it gave us a feeling that we were not going to be remaining closeted for very much longer. and soon thereafter, we did come out of the closet .
all of these moments played a pivotal role in allowing the stonewall riots to be the flashpoint it is heralded as being, forging the path for a fight that continues to this day .
o' brien believes that the
growing support for lgbtq rights today can be traced directly to those participants in the stonewall uprising who challenged power and authority and demanded respect and rights ,
he said .
the many people inspired by stonewall who then became involved in the glbt movement directly changed the horrible conditions and status of gay and lesbians, replacing fear with pride .
apuzzo appreciates that stonewall still has relevance because
stonewall happens every day .
she explained ,
when you go to a pride march and you see people standing on the side of the road watching and then someone takes that first step off the curb to join the marchers, that' s stonewall all over again. when we, here at the hudson valley center, talk to a teacher about the problems of a young student who is in the process of questioning himself or herself and that kid feels somebody standing there talking to the rule - makers on his or her behalf, that kid experiences a piece of stonewall all over again. it' s just in a different context, but for that one young person, it' s no less powerful .
: my name is rudy and the night of the stonewall i was 18 and to tell you the truth, that night i was doing more running than fighting. i remember looking back from 10
this, the 10 th year, will be the last stonewall awards, so please join us for what is always a fantastic night, and help us bid farewell to this very special event .
an absolutely fascinating account of gay life in the united states before 1969, especially how wwii changed everything. this collection of interviews, archival material, and history gives a clear picture of how gays and lesbians lived and interacted in this country before people
came out
publicly. i was impressed with those who came out openly in the 50s and started the first gay and lesbian organizations and magazines. these were people of extreme courage. the incorporation of gays and lesbians in the civil rights movement and the women' s movement was thoroughly examined. this film should be seen by all to have a better understanding of oppression in america, and how far we have come .
: people started gathering in front of the sheridan square park right across the street from stonewall. people were upset — ”no, we’re not going to go! ” and people started screaming and hollering .
this year’s stonewall awards, kindly supported by visa europe, has now sold out. tickets are sadly no longer available but please do rember to follow us on twitter throughout the night on @ stonewalluk .
lucian truscott halfway through a two - month stint writing for the village voice, lucian truscott stumbled on the story that turned out to be
the most famous
of his long writing career .
i' d just graduated from west point and had two months leave before heading to fort benning, georgia, at the end of july .
with four decades of hindsight, boyce sees his participation in the stonewall riot as
a perfect event in my life because it let me live the kinds of dreams i had of seeing an equitable society. i was able to live my life, which i would have done anyway, but without stonewall i would have had more opposition. so it turns out the times were on my side, which left me with a basically happy life .
while the stonewall riots left an indelible mark on garvin - -
you don' t forget seeing molotov cocktails being thrown and kids with blood coming down their faces
- - he doesn' t remember anyone talking about the riots for years .
bars were still raided after stonewall ,
he said ,
so for me it didn' t stand out. it wasn' t until the 1980s that i learned there was a spark of interest in stonewall. i think as we looked back we wanted to be able to point to something where it began, so they grabbed onto this so we could say,' this is where our history changed.'
on friday, june 27, 1969, eight officers from the public morals section of the first division new york city police department pulled up in front of the stonewall inn, one of the city’s largest and most popular gay bars .
: my name is red mahoney. i’ve been hanging out drinking, partying, and working in the gay bars for the last thirty years. in the era before stonewall, all of the bars, 90% of the bars, were mafia controlled. there wasn’t that many gay bars. you’d have maybe one, two uptown on the upper east side. they would get closed down. then there’d be one or two on the west side, they’d get closed down. in midtown there’d be one, two, three, maybe open. as they would get closed down they would move around. and they were dumps .
: my name is jinny apuzo. in 1969 i was in the convent. and when stonewall hit the press, it hit me with a bolt of lightening. it was as if i had an incredible release of my own outrage at having to sequester so much of my life. i made my way down, i seem to recall in subsequent nights being down on the, you know, kind of just on the periphery looking. an observer — clearly an observer. clearly longing to have that courage to come out. and as i recall it was only a matter of weeks before i left the convent and started a new life .
: the stonewall? oh, that was a good bar. that was. just to get into the stonewall, you’d walk up and you’d knock on the front door. you’d knock and the little door would open and ”what do you want? ” ”a mary sent me. ” ”good, come on in girls. ” you know. the stonewall, like all gay bars at that time, were painted black. charcoal black. and what was the funny part, the place would be so dimly lit — but as soon as the cops were gonna come in to collect their percentage or whatever they were coming in for, from it being a nice, dimly - lit dump, the place was lit up like luna park .
the stonewall book awards - adult committee shall be composed of 11 members including the chair. the chair is appointed by the rt chair. the adults committee will consider works eligible for the barbara gittings literature award and the israel fishman non - fiction award .
“nominated titles”: committee members nominate not less than 10 and not more than 15 titles in each category to be semifinalists. committee members are encouraged to submit 15 titles. the chair tallies the votes and the 10 titles with the most nominations advance to be discussed at the midwinter meeting. in the case of a tie there may be more than 10 in any given category. this list is compiled approximately 1 month before the midwinter meeting .
when he returned to new york city years later, leitsch wrote freelance for gay, the new weekly newspaper, and
went to rallies and demonstrations to be a part of the crowd, but i was uncomfortable about some of the things that were being done and i left the movement .
still, the 75 - year - old leitsch takes great pride in what he accomplished during the difficult years before the stonewall riots .
every once in a while i' ll walk into a gay bar and look around and see people being openly gay and being free to do what they want to do and i think to myself,' i had a big hand in this.' and i feel good about that .
before heading to manhattan, ritter stopped first at a friend' s house to dress for the evening .
i changed into a black and white cocktail dress ,
ritter said ,
which i borrowed from my mother' s closet. it was mostly black, empire - waisted, with a white collar. i used to dress with a bunch of older queens and one of them lent me black fishnet stockings and a pair of black velvet pumps .
born in harlem in 1924 to a poor family, baldwin constantly clashed with his stepfather during his formative years. from early on, it was clear that he would have to find a home elsewhere: in his work and in his words. as a harlem teenage preacher who grew into an openly gay black man — before stonewall and marriage equality — it is as if baldwin’s whole life, he sang “my country tis’ of thee” in a staid register. across his many works, from the novel giovanni’s room to his most famous collection of essays, the fire next time, there was no mistaking the song that poured from his mouth. taking a drag of a cigarette, he would exclaim, as he does throughout the film: “i am an american! ”
when smith saw commotion outside the stonewall - - he had been working late on deadline - - he grabbed his press credentials and headed down to christopher street .
i raced to the stonewall ,
he said ,
probably thinking it' s not going to be anything. there were police cars [ and it ] got bigger by the minute. it looked like a whole lot of people [ who ] had no more idea of what was going on than me had immediately joined it. that' s what the' 60s were like. a demonstration, a riot, i' ll stand here !
the stonewall book awards - adult committee shall select the winner of the barbara gittings literature award and the israel fishman non - fiction award and name honor books (as appropriate) in accordance with award eligibility guidelines. the committee shall recommend titles for consideration as well as read books submitted to and solicited by the committee .
many view the stonewall riots, in june of 1969, as the starting point in the modern day fight for lgbt rights in the united states. it is such a famous historical event that countless books and movies have been made documenting it, and in some cases fictionalizing it. the site was made a national monument earlier this year .
smith noticed inspector seymour pine, who seemed to be in charge. with the crowd outside growing increasingly restive, inspector pine asked smith if he wanted to join the police inside the stonewall inn. as smith recalled, pine said ,
' your choice. you can come in with us, or stay here with the crowd.'
smith went in, becoming the only journalist to witness the stonewall riots from inside the bar. the article he wrote from his unique vantage point, which was published the following week on the front page of the village voice ,
has probably been one of the most reprinted of everything i' ve ever written ,
he said .
the police panel is one of six events tied in with the exhibition. on nov. 14, there will be a downtown walking tour highlighting sites that played key roles in gay life. the following night, representatives of publications including the advocate and frontiers will highlight gay media. on nov. 19, former state sen. sheila kuehl, the first openly gay official to serve in the state legislature, and gay rights activist torie osborn (before taking a position with the united way this year, she worked in mayor antonio villaraigosa’s office) will lead a lgbt political power discussion .
dick leitsch dick leitsch was listening to the radio while packing for a trip to london when he heard a report about trouble in front of a gay bar in greenwich village .
i got in a cab ,
he recalled ,
but couldn' t get any closer to stonewall than 14th street, so i got out and walked .
the riots were well covered in the media. the new york daily news featured it on the front page. there were reports on all of the local television and radio stations. by the next day, graffiti calling for gay power had started to show up all over the west village. the next night, thousands of men and women came back to the stonewall to see what would happen next. while a couple of trashcans were set on fire and some stones were thrown, the four - hundred riot police milling around outside the bar ensured that the previous evening’s violence would not be repeated. but on this night, gay couples could be spotted walking hand in hand and kissing in the streets. just by being at the stonewall — surrounded by reporters, photographers, and onlookers — thousands of men and women were proclaiming that they were gay. the crowds grew and came back the next night and for one more night the following week. what happened at the stonewall on those nights helped to usher in a new era for gay men and lesbians .
: for those of us in public morals, after the stonewall incident things were completely changed from what they had previously been. they suddenly were not submissive anymore. they now suddenly had gained a new type of courage. and it seemed as if they didn’t care anymore about whether their identities were made known. we were now dealing with human beings .
yvonne ritter
butch
ritter had only one thing in mind when he slipped out of the house on the night of friday, june 27, 1969, and he took a cab from his parent' s house in brooklyn to the stonewall inn .
i went to party ,
ritter recalled ,
to kinda sorta celebrate my 18th birthday .
“first ballot”: at the midwinter meeting, committee members discuss the 10 semi - finalists in each category. from these 10, committee members nominate 5 titles to be considered for the stonewall book award in each category. the 5 titles with the most number of nominations are eligible for the second ballot. in the case of a tie there may be more than 5 .
seymour pine manhattan native seymour pine had no reason to believe that the raid he led on the stonewall inn in the early morning hours of june 28, 1969 would be anything but routine. the new york city police department (nypd) deputy inspector had been on numerous raids of gay bars in the past, and the rhythm of those police actions was a familiar one .
although stonewall is widely considered the most important event for the gay rights movement, it didn’t happen in a vacuum. nor was new york alone as a host city for gay advocacy: los angeles’ homosexual community also played a major role in the fight for recognition and justice, and the organizers of a two - week exhibition in the historic core intend to illustrate that history .
fred sargeant when fred sargeant came upon the first night of the stonewall riots on his way home from dinner with friends, he was already more than familiar with the issue of mafia - run gay bars and police raids. sargeant was closely involved with the work of his partner, gay rights pioneer craig rodwell, who had opened greenwich village' s oscar wilde memorial bookshop in 1967 .
looking back, castro said he
never ever gave it a thought of [ stonewall ] being a turning point. all i know is enough was enough. you had to fight for your rights. and i' m happy to say whatever happened that night, i was part of it. because [ at a moment like that ] you don' t think, you just act .
the stonewall inn wasn' t on smith' s radar, however .
this was not one of the key bars [ where ] some of the more important people in the gay movement would have hung out ,
smith noted .
it was a down - at - the - heels kind of place. lots of street kids. we didn' t pay much attention to it .
garvin also founded
the largest marching contingent
in the annual new york city gay pride parade called sober together .
you already had a group of women who marched who called themselves sober dykes ,
he said .
you also had all these other gay sober groups that popped up, so several friends and i put this group together and within a couple of years the contingent was so big they had to put us at the end of the parade. what is amazing to me is that years later people who marched with me back then would say how before they joined sober together they had no idea there was any other kind of gay life outside of the bars .
martha shelley on the first night of the stonewall riots, 25 - year - old martha shelley was escorting two out - of - town guests on a tour of greenwich village .
they wanted to form a boston chapter of the daughters of bilitis [ dob ] ,
shelley said, and as the former president of the group' s local chapter and their current spokesperson, shelley was the ideal guide .
at the meeting, hoose found the energy he' d been looking for .
it was wild ,
he recalled .
it was insane! there were 50 or 60 people and we couldn' t even decide what to call the group. was it going to be' gay' something or' homosexual' something. but before the night was over we came together with glf - - the gay liberation front .
for the next year, hoose was involved in every political action and demonstration led by glf .
i had a big mouth ,
he said ,
and i was not afraid of anything so i was right in the front lines of whatever action took place .
also in 1965, the east coast homophile organization (echo) organized a picket in philadelphia, pa. , at independence hall, where both the united states declaration of independence and the united states constitution were debated and adopted. it would continue for the next four years and become known as the annual reminder. in 1970, they organized the christopher street liberation day, to commemorate the anniversary of the stonewall riots .
: the archives of lesbian culture, which surrounds us now and was created four years after stonewall, owes, at least for my part, it’s creation to that night and the courage that found its voice in the streets. that night, in some very deep way, we finally found our place in history. not as a dirty joke, not as a doctor’s case study, not as a freak — but as a people .
doric wilson a successful new york playwright in the late 1960s, doric wilson was inspired by the stonewall riots to become politically active .
i was big and butch and i could leaflet in places where other people were afraid to go .
wilson joined the newly formed gay liberation front, and then the gay activists alliance (gaa), which was founded in late 1969. at gaa, wilson organized a theater group, but he struggled for income .
it was on the night of june 27, 1969, when trouble found the 28 - year - old castro, who was born in puerto rico and grew up in harlem. when the police arrived, castro was inside stonewall. like most of the patrons inside the bar he was immediately released, and he waited outside for the others to be let go .
i happened to see a friend of mine inside ,
he explained ,
a young fellow with no id and he motioned to me like he wanted out. so naturally i tried to help him .
castro quickly got his hands on a phony id with the intention of getting the id to his friend, but instead castro wound up being
pushed back into the stonewall by these plain clothes cops, and they would not let me back out. at that point they wouldn' t let anybody out. it was like a hostage situation .
returning home in the early morning hours following the first night of rioting, leitsch canceled his plane tickets and headed for the mattachine office
to type up my thoughts for the mattachine newsletter. i was the first gay person to write about stonewall and i said it was the best thing that could have happened. i felt like lenin at the revolution ,
leitsch recalled ,
but it turned out that for mattachine it was the beginning of the end .
we' d go in ,
he said ,
and the first police officer that went in with your group went to the bartender, flashed his shield and [ announced ],' the place is under arrest. when you exit have some id and it' ll be over in a short time.' and that was it. it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out .
but that did not happen at stonewall .
that night the police raided the stonewall inn, kicking off the subsequent riots that would last the next several days .
i was scared ,
ritter says .
i was supposed to graduate high school that coming week and i wasn' t where i was supposed to be, so when i was taken out of the bar and put into the paddy wagon i thought to myself,' this isn' t happening.' i was scared to death !
anyone may suggest a title to the stonewall book awards - adult committee members for consideration for the barbara gittings literature award and the israel fishman non - fiction award. publisher’s representatives may contact the committee chair and make them aware of titles that may be of interest to the committee, or may send unsolicited copies to the committee members. recommendations may be sent via email to any committee member or submitted online at urltoken and must be sent by the deadline of december 31 .
unbeknownst to them, plainclothes los angeles police officers had positioned themselves in the crowd that night. they beat patrons and arrested 14 people, who were charged with lewd conduct for same - sex kissing. on feb. 11, 1967, protesters took a bold step for that era and grabbed their picket signs, publicly protesting the police raid outside the bar — a gay - rights demonstration that pre - dated the monumental stonewall riots in new york city by two years .
ritter didn' t get far before being spotted by a young policeman .
the cop looked at me and said,' hey, you!' and i said,' please, it' s my birthday, i' m just about to graduate from high school, i' m only 18,' and he just let me go !
ritter ran for the subway, and all the way home was
scared to death that my father would see me on the television news in my mother' s dress .
for the next couple of days ritter kept watching to see if there was anything on the news about the riot, but
there wasn' t and i graduated from high school without my parents ever finding out where i' d gone to celebrate my birthday .
hoose figured that the stonewall riots
would be a bleep in history and that once the anger subsided we would go back to the way we were. it was a sad time ,
he said ,
for about a week .
then hoose ran into a group of people handing out leaflets on christopher street .
they were from the mattachine action committee ,
he recalled ,
and they were planning a meeting that night to form a more militant organization .
when shelley and her guests stumbled across the ongoing riot outside the stonewall inn, they didn' t realize what was going on .
we saw these people, who looked younger than i was, throwing things at cops ,
shelley recalled .
one of the women turned to me and said,' what' s going on here?' i said,' oh, it' s a riot. these things happen in new york all the time.'
although pine described his experience at the stonewall inn on the night of the raid as
like a war ,
there were also moments of humor. village voice reporter
howard smith was stuck to me like glue ,
pine recalled .
when i got to howard i asked,' how do you feel howard?' and he said' i feel alright, but i' d feel a lot better if you had the ax and i had the gun.'
while wilson credits stonewall with
completely changing
his life and giving him direction, he
never thought it would lead to where we are now, where gay people would want to be heterosexuals ,
he said .
i don' t want to live with my married husband in the country with a white picket fence and raise three children. it horrifies me beyond belief! it' s fine if other people want it, but it' s not for me .
the stonewall book awards of the american library association are given annually to english - language books of exceptional merit relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender experience. the awards are given to works published in the united states in the previous calendar year, although works published elsewhere may be considered. re - printings of previously published books will not be considered. substantially changed new editions of previously published works and english translations of foreign - language books are eligible for the awards .
for o' brien, participation in the stonewall riots and his involvement as a founding member of the gay liberation front, proved transformative and not just for himself .
what had been a small isolated gay rights movement that had little support outside its small membership ranks, in a short period of time became a major political force in the united states that created change around the world .
but in the moment, o' brien didn' t think that the gay uprising in which he participated
was going to amount to anything. i did not see the stonewall rebellion as a part of history ,
he recalled .
i had no idea how important it would be and what it would lead to. i just saw it as an act of rebellion and an expression of anger on my part and other people' s part in fighting and showing rage against the police department for its discrimination and the horrors of what it was doing to people like me .
howard smith village voice columnist howard smith could see the stonewall inn' s sign from his desk, but until the first night of the riots he had never been inside. as a self described
straight man
writing for one of the era' s most liberal and outspoken publications smith recalled that his boss told him ,
' i want you to spot every new trend, especially sex, drugs, and rock and roll.' but [ my beat ] included almost anything .
fred mcdarrah' s photographs are just two of the five extent photos of the stonewall riots .
if two people had thrown a rock through a window in harlem, the whole world would have been there taking pictures ,
he said .
it wasn' t anything that seemed headline - grabbing, like a race riot. no one had the foresight to see that gay people rioting because they' d gotten thrown out of a bar was just a metaphor for a much, much bigger thing .
jerry hoose since the 1980s jerry hoose has lived on christopher street, just three blocks from the stonewall inn .
it was a stroke of luck ,
he said. but living in the village was not .
i' d wanted to live down here since i was 10 years old because i thought it was glamorous. i knew i was gay from 12 on and then i really wanted to live in the village because i' d been reading that this area was the center of gay life .
at a series of meetings that summer we talked about how to bring about something different ,
sargeant explained. in 1965, rodwell had proposed the july 4th
annual reminder
gay and lesbian protest marches in philadelphia, and he and sargeant were committed to an anniversary march in new york city to commemorate the stonewall riots. soon after, rodwell, sargeant and a handful of other activists formed the christopher street liberation day coordinating committee to plan for new york city' s first annual gay pride march in june 1970 .
fred was an impatient guy and famous for taking only one or two shots on any assignment ,
truscott said .
so he tells me,' pull them together so i can get the shot and go.' the kids weren' t doing anything - - and there were some seriously underage kids, 15, 16, 17 years old - - so i got the kids onto the stoop next to the stonewall and said,' c' mon boys, give me something,' so they struck poses and fred took the picture. after that, he was gone .
awards are made in three categories: adult literature, adult nonfiction and children' s and young adult literature. the literature category encompasses novels, short stories, poetry, and drama. the nonfiction category includes biography, history, criticism, reference works, fine arts, and other traditional nonfiction genres. anthologies comprised of both nonfiction and literary pieces will be categorized by whichever form predominates. the children’s and young adult literature includes both fiction and non - fiction. the chair of the stonewall book awards committee shall make the final determination as to category, taking into account the library of congress classification number (if applicable) .
it was at a committee meeting later in the week where shelley is widely credited with naming the first of the post - stonewall gay rights groups .
people said i was the one who came up with the gay liberation front name. but i was drinking beer and i really don' t recollect that. what i remember saying was,' that' s it! we' re the gay liberation front!' that was' it' because it was like the national liberation front of north vietnam, the vietcong. they were heroic in the eyes of the left. it was david against goliath, fighting for their nation and for the liberation of their people, daring to stand up to the most powerful army in the world .
sargeant and rodwell returned to the stonewall inn for
every night of the rioting ,
sargeant said. and rodwell
started organizing around it right away. trying to get the press to cover the story, trying to get other people, including some mattachine members, to come downtown .
rodwell also wrote leaflets and distributed them in the village .
the leaflets were all pretty much on the same theme ,
said sargeant ,
about the cops and the corruption and the mafia operating the bars and how gay people were getting caught in the middle .
after the riots, while sargeant went to many of the open meetings
to see what people were talking about doing ,
he didn' t join any of the new groups .
that fall, truscott was transferred to fort carson, colorado where he was assigned to teach a course in riot control .
i set up a blackboard and drew sheridan square and the blocks surrounding the stonewall inn ,
he said ,
and used it as an example of how not to do riot control. i was poking fun at the tpf [ tactical police force ] and how these big irish and italian policemen showed up with helmets and facemasks and nightsticks and these bulky outfits and they couldn' t run as fast as the kids and they didn' t know the streets of the village. after friday, you think they' d had all of saturday to scope out the neighborhood and maybe bring a map, but the kids completely confused them and the protestors were in control of the situation from friday night when it started until sunday night when it ended. the protestors were basically non - violent and they used theater to great advantage to make fun of the cops and make their point. the police weren' t going to allow them to go into the club to dance, so they were going to dance in the street. and that' s what they did.
before stonewall : the making of a gay and lesbian community is a 1984 american documentary film about the lgbt community prior to the 1969 stonewall riots . it was narrated by author rita mae brown , directed by greta schiller , co-directed by robert rosenberg , and co-produced by john scagliotti and rosenberg , and schiller . it premiered at the 1984 toronto festival of festivals and was released in the united states on june 27 , 1985 . in 1999 , producer scagliotti directed a companion piece , after stonewall . to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the teddy awards , the film has been selected to be shown at the 66th berlin international film festival in february 2016 . 
before stonewall: the making of a gay and lesbian community is a 1984 american documentary film about the lgbt community prior to the 1969 stonewall riots. it was narrated by author rita mae brown, directed by greta schiller, co-directed by robert rosenberg, and co-produced by john scagliotti and rosenberg, and schiller. it premiered at the 1984 toronto festival of festivals and was released in the united states on june 27, 1985. in 1999, producer scagliotti directed a companion piece, after stonewall. to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the teddy awards, the film has been selected to be shown at the 66th berlin international film festival in february 2016.
before stonewall: the making of a gay and lesbian community is a 1984 american documentary film about the lgbt community prior to the 1969 stonewall riots. it was narrated by author rita mae brown, directed by greta schiller, co-directed by robert rosenberg, and co-produced by john scagliotti and rosenberg, and schiller. it premiered at the 1984 toronto festival of festivals and was released in the united states on june 27, 1985. in 1999, producer scagliotti directed a companion piece, after stonewall. to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the teddy awards, the film has been selected to be shown at the 66th berlin international film festival in february 2016.