This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Susan Liberti Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. More than a half-century after its release, " The Queen " serves as a powerful time capsule of queer life as it existed before the 1969 Stonewall uprising. 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. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. And when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. I have pondered this as "Before Stonewall," my first feature documentary, is back in cinemas after 35 years. I was proud. Sophie Cabott Black I mean I'm talking like sardines. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. 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. Jorge Garcia-Spitz And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. 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. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Quentin Heilbroner "Don't fire. Mafia house beer? It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. I'm losing everything that I have. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. It meant nothing to us. Not able to do anything. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. Just let's see if they can. They are taught that no man is born homosexual and many psychiatrists now believe that homosexuality begins to form in the first three years of life. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. Before Stonewall (1984) - full transcript 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. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. 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. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. 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. 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. Windows started to break. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. It was a horror story. Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. And this went on for hours. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. And the Stonewall was part of that system. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. You knew you could ruin them for life. Jeremiah Hawkins The events. 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. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. And I had become very radicalized in that time. I really thought that, you know, we did it. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. 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. Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. 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. We were scared. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. They would bang on the trucks. But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. We went, "Oh my God. We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. That this was normal stuff. 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. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. Dan Martino It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. 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. Bettye Lane Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International 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. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. In a spontaneous show of support and frustration, the citys gay community rioted for three nights in the streets, an event that is considered the birth of the modern Gay Rights Movement. 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 eats you up inside. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Martin Boyce:All of a sudden, Miss New Orleans and all people around us started marching step by step and the police started moving back. 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. 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. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." [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. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Remember everything. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. Mike Nuget Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors 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. Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. 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. MacDonald & Associates 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. Abstract. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. Marc Aubin Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. Narrator (Archival):Richard Enman, president of the Mattachine Society of Florida, whose goal is to legalize homosexuality between consenting adults, was a reluctant participant in tonight's program. Paul Bosche BBC Worldwide Americas Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? But we couldn't hold out very long. 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. Just making their lives miserable for once. It's like, this is not right. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. I made friends that first day. And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. You had no place to try to find an identity. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. With this outpouring of courage and unity the gay liberation movement had begun. Beginning of our night out started early. Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. All the rules were off in the '60s. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. We were going to propose something that all groups could participate in and what we ended up producing was what's now known as the gay pride march. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. What finally made sense to me was the first time I kissed a woman and I thought, "Oh, this is what it's about." Hugh Bush If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:The moment you stepped out that door there would be hundreds facing you. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. You know. 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." I mean does anyone know what that is? 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 terrifying. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. That never happened before. (c) 2011 Liz Davis You cut one head off. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. We had been threatened bomb threats. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. In the trucks or around the trucks. It must have been terrifying for them. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. It was as if they were identifying a thing. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco Dick Leitsch:And the blocks were small enough that we could run around the block and come in behind them before they got to the next corner. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. John DiGiacomo 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) Janice Flood (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. I was a man. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs."