", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Synopsis. Franco Sacchi, Additional Animation and Effects 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. They were to us. 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. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! And then there were all these priests ranting in church about certain places not to go, so you kind of knew where you could go by what you were told not to do. I mean they were making some headway. As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor.
Revisiting 'Before Stonewall' Film for the 50th Anniversary | Time The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. But you live with it, you know, you're used to this, after the third time it happened, or, the third time you heard about it, that's the way the world is. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:At a certain point, it felt pretty dangerous to me but I noticed that the cop that seemed in charge, he said you know what, we have to go inside for safety. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. Other images in this film are It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. Jay Fialkov Danny Garvin:We were talking about the revolution happening and we were walking up 7th Avenue and I was thinking it was either Black Panthers or the Young Lords were going to start it and we turned the corner from 7th Avenue onto Christopher Street and we saw the paddy wagon pull up there. It's not my cup of tea. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. Available via license: Content may be subject to . Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. 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. They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. And then as you turned into the other room with the jukebox, those were the drag queens around the jukebox. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." 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. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. And she was quite crazy.
Before Stonewall - Wikipedia Martha Shelley Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. You throw into that, that the Stonewall was raided the previous Tuesday night. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. I actually thought, as all of them did, that we were going to be killed. But we're going to pay dearly for this. Not able to do anything. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. Historic Films Linton Media Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. You were alone.
The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". Doric Wilson:Somebody that I knew that was older than me, his family had him sent off where they go up and damage the frontal part of the brain.
Stonewall Tscript | PDF | Homosexuality | Lgbt That's what gave oxygen to the fire.
Before Stonewall (1984) - IMDb This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. We were scared. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors And I had become very radicalized in that time. J. Michael Grey You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. 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. Eventually something was bound to blow. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. In the trucks or around the trucks. He said, "Okay, let's go." Martin Boyce:Oh, Miss New Orleans, she wouldn't be stopped. And the cops got that. Louis Mandelbaum 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. And the police were showing up. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations [7] In 1987, the film won Emmy Awards for Best Historical/Cultural Program and Best Research. It was done in our little street talk.
This Restored Documentary Examines What LGBTQ Lives Were Like Before 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. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? This was in front of the police. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . Marjorie Duffield Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. 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. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. It was terrifying. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies.
Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community 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. 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. It was like a reward. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. That never happened before. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. The Stonewall had reopened. Jorge Garcia-Spitz But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. The cops were barricaded inside. Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. I made friends that first day. Barney Karpfinger Martha Babcock Dana Kirchoff Like, "Joe, if you fire your gun without me saying your name and the words 'fire,' you will be walking a beat on Staten Island all alone on a lonely beach for the rest of your police career. We heard one, then more and more. 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. And I knew that I was lesbian. Danny Garvin:With Waverly Street coming in there, West Fourth coming in there, Seventh Avenue coming in there, Christopher Street coming in there, there was no way to contain us. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America.
Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. We don't know. 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: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. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. Liz Davis Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. Giles Kotcher In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. 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. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. 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. 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. Virginia Apuzzo:What we felt in isolation was a growing sense of outrage and fury particularly because we looked around and saw so many avenues of rebellion. They could be judges, lawyers. The Underground Lounge Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. 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. John O'Brien:And deep down I believed because I was gay and couldn't speak out for my rights, was probably one of the reasons that I was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. 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. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place.
Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". 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. The events. Raymond Castro Chris Mara
Brief Summary Of The Documentary 'Before Stonewall' | Bartleby The New York State Liquor Authority refused to issue liquor licenses to many gay bars, and several popular establishments had licenses suspended or revoked for "indecent conduct.". Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed. The police weren't letting us dance.
Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And by the time the police would come back towards Stonewall, that crowd had gone all the around Washington Place come all the way back around and were back pushing in on them from the other direction and the police would wonder, "These are the same people or different people?". Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. 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. ABCNEWS VideoSource They didn't know what they were walking into. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. That was our world, that block. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. It was fun to see fags. Geoff Kole Director . The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. Judy Laster But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. Jerry Hoose:I remember I was in a paddy wagon one time on the way to jail, we were all locked up together on a chain in the paddy wagon and the paddy wagon stopped for a red light or something and one of the queens said "Oh, this is my stop." On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Charles Harris, Transcriptions You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Martin Boyce:I heard about the trucks, which to me was fascinated me, you know, it had an imagination thing that was like Marseilles, how can it only be a few blocks away? You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Pamela Gaudiano WPA Film Library, Thanks to Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Yvonne Ritter:I did try to get out of the bar and I thought that there might be a way out through one of the bathrooms. I was a homosexual. The shop had been threatened, we would get hang-up calls, calls where people would curse at us on the phone, we'd had vandalism, windows broken, streams of profanity. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. WGBH Educational Foundation Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. Susan Liberti We had been threatened bomb threats. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." And we had no right to such. Trevor, Post Production But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. They can be anywhere. 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. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. ITN Source We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. 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. Chris Mara, Production Assistants In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. People could take shots at us. The New York Times / Redux Pictures And we all relaxed. Katrina Heilbroner Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. 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.
Before Stonewall : Throughline : NPR He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. 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. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually.