You cut one head off. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Creating the First Visual History of Queer Life Before Stonewall Making a landmark documentary about LGBTQ Americans before 1969 meant digging through countless archives to find traces of. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. Because if they weren't there fast, I was worried that there was something going on that I didn't know about and they weren't gonna come. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. Before Stonewall (1984) - Plot Summary - IMDb Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:There were complaints from people who objected to the wrongful behavior of some gays who would have sex on the street. It was a 100% profit, I mean they were stealing the liquor, then watering it down, and they charging twice as much as they charged one door away at the 55. But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. Documentary | Stonewall Forever For the first time, we weren't letting ourselves be carted off to jails, gay people were actually fighting back just the way people in the peace movement fought back. Chris Mara In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's LGBT community. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. Raymond Castro:So then I got pushed back in, into the Stonewall by these plain clothes cops and they would not let me out, they didn't let anybody out. They put some people on the street right in front ofThe Village Voiceprotesting the use of the word fag in my story. Martha Babcock And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. Seymour Wishman If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a list: Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and NPR One. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. And I knew that I was lesbian. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films They can be anywhere. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. Susana Fernandes Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. I really thought that, you know, we did it. Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. Amber Hall It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was a bottle club which meant that I guess you went to the door and you bought a membership or something for a buck and then you went in and then you could buy drinks. Doing things like that. Samual Murkofsky Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". And they started smashing their heads with clubs. There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. The newly restored 1984 documentary "Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community," re-released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the seminal Stonewall riots, remains a . They were to us. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. The New York Times / Redux Pictures Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. Scott McPartland/Getty Images And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. So I got into the subway, and on the car was somebody I recognized and he said, "I've never been so scared in my life," and I said, "Well, please let there be more than ten of us, just please let there be more than ten of us. You know, it's just, everybody was there. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. If you came to a place like New York, you at least had the opportunity of connecting with people, and finding people who didn't care that you were gay. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. Synopsis. 1984 documentary film by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg, "Berlinale 2016: Panorama Celebrates Teddy Award's 30th Anniversary and Announces First Titles in Programme", "Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary 'Before Stonewall', "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Before Stonewall - Independent Historical Film", Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Restored), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Before_Stonewall&oldid=1134540821, Documentary films about United States history, Historiography of LGBT in the United States, United States National Film Registry films, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 19 January 2023, at 05:30. 'Before Stonewall' Tracks the Pre-Movement Era | International Geoff Kole The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. Maureen Jordan And the Stonewall was part of that system. Abstract. Queer was very big. They were the storm troopers. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Martin Boyce:The day after the first riot, when it was all over, and I remember sitting, sun was soon to come, and I was sitting on the stoop, and I was exhausted and I looked at that street, it was dark enough to allow the street lamps to pick up the glitter of all the broken glass, and all the debris, and all the different colored cloth, that was in different places. Yvonne Ritter:"In drag," quote unquote, the downside was that you could get arrested, you could definitely get arrested if someone clocked you or someone spooked that you were not really what you appeared to be on the outside. People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. NBC News Archives Liz Davis And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. Raymond Castro:I'd go in there and I would look and I would just cringe because, you know, people would start touching me, and "Hello, what are you doing there if you don't want to be touched?" Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation They really were objecting to how they were being treated. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. It was done in our little street talk. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. But we're going to pay dearly for this. Stonewall Tscript | PDF | Homosexuality | Lgbt Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. Almost anything you could name. Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. John Scagliotti First Run Features Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution There are a lot of kids here. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Dana Gaiser Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Director . Jay Fialkov Tom Caruso William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. Based on Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. (c) 2011 And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. Barney Karpfinger Danny Garvin:We became a people. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude W hen police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969 50 years ago this month the harassment was routine for the time. Paul Bosche And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." Dick Leitsch:You read about Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal and all these actors and stuff, Liberace and all these people running around doing all these things and then you came to New York and you found out, well maybe they're doing them but, you know, us middle-class homosexuals, we're getting busted all the time, every time we have a place to go, it gets raided. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We were looking for secret exits and one of the policewomen was able to squirm through the window and they did find a way out. Where did you buy it? Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. I mean I'm talking like sardines. The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. John O'Brien:There was one street called Christopher Street, where actually I could sit and talk to other gay people beyond just having sex. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." Before Stonewall (1984) Movie Script | Subs like Script Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? We were thinking about survival. Urban Stages We knew that this was a moment that we didn't want to let slip past, because it was something that we could use to bring more of the groups together. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. The idea was to be there first. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR That was scary, very scary. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Joe DeCola Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. It was as if they were identifying a thing. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. So it was a perfect storm for the police. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. Original Language: English. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Never, never, never. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. I was proud. And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. Getty Images It eats you up inside. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. It's not my cup of tea. There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. Alexis Charizopolis We had been threatened bomb threats. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had been in some gay bars either for a story or gay friends would say, "Oh we're going to go in for a drink there, come on in, are you too uptight to go in?" And that's what it was, it was a war. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. Greg Shea, Legal Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. Hugh Bush Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. National Archives and Records Administration Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects Before Stonewall 1984 Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg Synopsis 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. And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. Do you understand me?". Dick Leitsch:New York State Liquor Authority had a rule that one known homosexual at a licensed premise made the place disorderly, so nobody would set up a place where we could meet because they were afraid that the cops would come in to close it, and that's how the Mafia got into the gay bar business. I mean they were making some headway. That's it. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. [1] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. MacDonald & Associates If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community We don't know. I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free dramatic stories from the early 1900's onwards of public and private existence as experienced by LGBT Americans. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. And it was fantastic. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Audience Member (Archival):I was wondering if you think that there are any quote "happy homosexuals" for whom homosexuality would be, in a way, their best adjustment in life? It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. I guess they're deviates. All I knew about was that I heard that there were people down in Times Square who were gay and that's where I went to. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. We went, "Oh my God. One of the world's oldest and largest gay pride parades became a victory celebration after New York's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. I made friends that first day. It was terrifying. We were scared. A sickness of the mind. It was like a reward. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. American Airlines John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. Before Stonewall 1984 Unrated 1 h 27 m IMDb RATING 7.5 /10 1.1K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 2:21 1 Video 7 Photos Documentary History The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. Martha Shelley:When I was growing up in the '50s, I was supposed to get married to some guy, produce, you know, the usual 2.3 children, and I could look at a guy and say, "Well, objectively he's good looking," but I didn't feel anything, just didn't make any sense to me.