Stonewall then and now

“The joke is that if everyone who claims they took part in the famous 1969 uprising in lower Manhattan that catalyzed America’s gay-rights movement actually had been there, the crowd would have filled Yankee Stadium.”

Michael Bronski –

In truth, the crowd that day numbered about 200, at least at first. And they weren’t protesters but mostly patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a popular Greenwich Village gay bar. The trouble started when the police arrived in the wee hours of June 28 to raid the Mafia-run tavern on a trumped-up liquor-license charge. Officers started pushing customers and workers into police vehicles. But instead of dispersing as they had during past routine raids, those who hadn’t been grabbed began cheering those who had. The crowd of onlookers swelled as tourists and neighborhood residents stopped to investigate. Then, according to multiple accounts, a lesbian who was fighting attempts to haul her into a squad car cried out, “Why don’t you guys do something!” The air grew thick with chants — along with bottles and bricks. The officers barricaded themselves in the bar and radioed for back-up as a riot flared. More violent demonstrations shook the neighborhood in the following days.

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