The Symbol and the Legend:

History of the Stonewall Riot

“The word 'Stonewall' has entered the vocabulary of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgendered people everywhere as a potent emblem of the gay community making a stand against oppression and demanding full equality in every area of life,” states Socialism Today. Yet, it is not much more than that. Although commonly believed to be the cornerstone of the Gay Rights Movement, Stonewall Riots were not the fight for freedom that some people envision, but rather a spontaneous mass outrage, the social importance of which is merely in its symbol.

On the night of June 27-28 of the year 1969, nine plain-clothes policemen under the command of Deputy Inspector Pine conducted a raid on the Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village, New York City, which they knew to be a gay bar. After herding the Inn’s clientele out on the street, the police arrested the owners for serving alcohol without a proper license as well as a couple homosexuals just for being there. While they were putting the prisoners into a paddy-wagon, the angry crowd outside began throwing first nickels and pennies, and then bottles at the New York’s finest. A full-fledged riot began. The police quickly barricaded themselves inside the bar while the crowd tried to break into the door with an uprooted parking meter and then attempted to put Stonewall Inn on fire with lighting fuel. When the Tactical Police Force (TPF) arrived, it tried to subdue the hundreds of people, who by that time accumulated outside. Violence broke out, and both sides were injured. According to one participant’s account, “At one point, 7th Avenue from Christopher to West 10th looked like a battlefield in Vietnam.” The crowd dispersed on its own will by 3 a.m., but assembled once again the evening after. The TPF moved in again, but their success in subduing the rioters was quite limited, and the uprisings lasted for at least two more days.

Stonewall Riot really did represent the first time in history when homosexuals dared to fight back against prejudice. However, over the years it became a sort of legend in the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) community. With an oversimplification that great masses of people seem to find appealing, the police, attacking the innocent clientele of the bar, in the minds of many, falls under a mythological archetype of “the evil one”, while the courageous rioters, taking a stand against injustice, became almost martyrs. It is widely believed that Stonewall Riots gave birth to the Gay Rights Movement, and the rights homosexuals have today could not be possibly achieved without the blood spilled that night on the Christopher St. of Greenwich Village.

This legend seems awfully idealistic, and it is. First of all, Gay Rights Movement had its roots in the late 1940’s – early 1950’s when, in search of the new opportunities opened by World War II, many homosexuals chose to stay in urban areas, where there were more chances for them to explore their sexualities. By 1960’s a vibrant GLBT subculture was in place, mostly revolving around gay bars, such as Stonewall. Their first attempts at organizing politically gave birth to the Homophile Movement and a few GLBT organizations. The most famous of them were the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, which conducted such activities as the Annual Reminder Marches to the Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on every 4th of July until Stonewall.

The Homophile Movement not only existed, but also showed considerable progress. It is commonly believed that Stonewall was raided by the police due to the New York State Liquor Authority ban of 1933 on serving alcohol to more that three homosexuals. However, in reality, by 1969 that ban did not exist anymore. In 1965, Dick Leitsch, the president of the Mattachine Society of New York, with the help of the local newspaper’s (Village Voice) reporters and several ACLU representatives, challenged it on the grounds that it denied homosexuals the right to peacefully assemble due to the “more that three” persons provision. The case never did go to court since the authorities caved in and repealed the ban without going through the troubles of a lawsuit. Furthermore, when a liberal by the name of Lindsay was elected the mayor of New York City, Dick Leitsch got him to pass an order, by which only private citizens could bring up charges against homosexuals, thus making police raids illegal. Consequently, by the time Stonewall Riots occurred, all of the rights the rioters were presumably fighting for were already in their grasp.

Moreover, the making of myth out of the events of that June night can be seen even from the differences in the accounts of the rioters themselves. For example, according to some of them, the first outbreak of violence was initiated by a butch lesbian, and, according to the others, by a drag queen. It seems that the participants, too, were eager to make themselves a part of the Stonewall legend.

Deputy Inspector Pine had a legitimate reason for raiding the bar that night, and although homophobia might have played a part in it (he was known for being especially unsympathetic towards the establishments owned by minorities), it was not the official excuse. The fact is that Stonewall Inn was functioning without a license and was owned by a mafia-like structure. The best evidence to support this is that one of the slogans of the riot itself was, “Gay Prohibition Corrupts Cops, Feeds Mafia.” Homosexuals themselves “wanted gay bars to be gay-owned and operated. […] They [the police] did us a favor…” (Richard Amsel) Furthermore, the building that the bar had occupied was at least 90 years old by that time and was far from meeting the building safety guidelines established by the law.

Also, just as in any case of a violent outbreak, one side cannot be entirely at blame. The police was indeed in violation of the civil rights of the three drag queens and a butch lesbian that they arrested. However, it was the mob that started the violence, not the police. Furthermore, a fight for freedom has to focus on freedom, and the nine New York’s finest barricaded inside the bar hardly presented a threat to the rioters’ rights. The prisoners were liberated, the goal of the initial outbreak of violence was thus accomplished, and yet the riot went on. Lacking any real reason for continuing, with the exception of that described by Robert Brown as the idea of “us against them, and by God, we're winning,” Stonewall situation cannot possibly be considered a part of an organized movement for Gay Rights or even the birth of such. Compared with the methods of Martin Luther King, Jr., who the Homophile movement tried to model itself after, the entire incident seems like an outrage of needless and purposeless violence.

What seems to have motivated most of the rioters was a long-awaited chance to escape the prejudices of the homophobic society. The history of the world shows time and time again that a group of people can only be oppressed for so long before it decides to fight its oppressors. One of the participants of the Stonewall Riots, Sylvia Rivera, later remembered her thoughts from that night, “My God, the revolution is here. The revolution is finally here.” Consequently, essentially they were fighting against prejudice, and as such their fight was extremely idealistic and hence doomed. The opinions of the heterosexual majority of the overall society or of the police could not be changed overnight. The Riots clearly marked a defining moment in the history of the Gay Rights Movement, but it was much more of a revolution emotionally that in a realistic, tangible sense. The violence that took place that night had absolutely no short-term effects. It quieted down after a week or so, with just a few people arrested, and although many of the New York City newspapers covered the story, they dismissed it as a mere “melee”, which shows how little significance they saw in the riots.

However, an important change did take place, it was a sense of open defiance that was given life by the riots. Now, Gay Rights Movement, for the obvious reasons, was never conservative, but at this point it became downright radical. In the words of a member of the Daughters of Bilitis, Barbara Gittings, “[The attitude] changed from ‘We are the bearers of the message’, to ‘We are the message.’” Similarly to the emphasis placed on the limited virtues of the Boston Tea Party and John Brown’s raids, following the Revolution and the Civil War, respectively, despite the pointless, unorganized violence of the riot, Stonewall soon became glorified as a fight against prejudice while in reality it was nothing more than a chance to get back at those who were seen as the main oppressors, the police. It remains as much a symbol of homosexual pride as a rainbow flag and lambda (and perhaps even more so).

As a symbol, Stonewall had an enormous significance. It united the GLBT community, and only a few months thereafter hundreds of gay rights organizations sprang up all across the country like mushrooms after the rain. They promoted pride in one’s sexuality as well as the political activism, which helped the Gay Rights Movement to become what it is today. Although it clearly still has a very long way to go, the movement did accomplish such important legal reforms, as the repeal of Eisenhower’s Executive order of 1953 that banned homosexuals from holding positions in federal offices, repeal of the sodomy laws in numerous states as well as the legalization of adoptions by GLBT parents in some of them, and the chance to enter a civil union, despite still being denied the right to marry. The progress is also exemplified by the fact that in his presidential campaign, Bill Clinton promised to lift the military ban on admitting homosexuals into the armed forces. Although, he eventually agreed on the policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, a couple of decades before no political figure would have even attempted to take on such a reform.

The new generation of homosexuals, seeing the progress taking place after the Stonewall Riot, tends to attribute it to the events of June 27-28, 1969, while the essential factor wasn’t as much in the events as in the release of the suppressed emotions they provided that put Gay Rights Movement onto the arena of political activism. In order to commemorate that day, annual parades are conducted every year in New York as well as multitude of other cities in the United States by the people, who pride themselves on being the ideological descendents of the rioters, and yet have little knowledge of what actually happened in that bar. A few years ago, Stonewall Inn was also pronounced a historical monument, only adding to its great legend.

The Stonewall Riot itself did not accomplish the passage of any new protecting homosexual rights, and, in fact, most of the unjust laws it is thought to have been fought over did not exist anymore by 1969. Its only point was psychological need of the people oppressed in this country from the very time of its colonization to get back at their oppressors. However, it did unite the Gay Rights Movement in the long run, becoming the symbol as well as the legend of heroical defiance and fight for human rights within the GLBT community.