The Stonewall riots involved New York’s LGBT community. The riots commenced following a police raid at Stonewall Inn on Saturday 28 June 1969.[1] The 200 people present that night refused to cooperate with the police and instead crowded outside.[2] The crowd grew restless and violence broke out. The police were outnumbered as thousands of people joined the riot on the first night.[3] People from the LGBT community continued to join the riots in protest against the policing of queer and bohemian spaces.
Protests in defence of LGBT rights had been on the increase before the outbreak of the riots at the Stonewall Inn. In February 1967 protests at the Black Cat Tavern in Los Angeles sparked a series of riots by the LGBT community.[4] 1965 also saw a raid of a New Year’s ball in San Francisco.[5] Nevertheless, what distinguished the Stonewall riots from earlier protests was its memorialisation. The gay press quickly reported on the riots and the events soon reached international readership, creating a sense of global solidarity across different LGBT communities. The momentum generated by the riots led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front. [6] Thus, the Stonewall riots serve as a landmark event for the LGBT community. Indeed, the riots are perceived as having launched the gay liberation movement.
The Stonewall riots have inspired subsequent LGBT activism. On 28 June 1970, a year after the start of the riots, New York City hosted the first Pride parade.[7] More recently, in 2013, Barak Obama referenced the impact of Stonewall on the fight for LGBT rights in his inaugural address stating, “We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”.[8] Celebrations of the riots allow the LGBT community to reclaim their history, to remember past struggles, and to look forward to future activism. Celebrating the riots and the numerous Pride parades that they precipitated allows us to recognise the vital work of past LGBT activists and groups.
[1] Polly Thistlethwaite, “Stonewall”, CUNY Graduate Center (2007), 1.
[2] Marc Stein, ed., The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (New York: New York University Press, 2019), 3.
[3] Ibid., 5.
[4] Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Suzanna M. Crage, “Movements and memory: The making of the Stonewall myth”, American sociological review 71, no. 5 (2006), 729.
[5] Armstrong and Crage, “Movements and memory”, 730.
[6] Andrew Matzner, "Stonewall riots", GLBTQ Archive (2015), 3.
[7] Ibid., 3.
[8] Stein, The Stonewall Riots, 1.