The Birth of a Movement

So now that we know why LGBTQ people need Pride, another question arises: how did we get from the oppressions of the past--when gay people were forced to remain in the closet or face institutionalization, beatings and arrests--to where we are today? Who paved the way for the gay rights movement of today? Who is the Rosa Parks of the gay rights movement?

Although there is no real equivalent figure to Rosa Parks, there is a specific day to which most people point as the beginning of the gay rights movement: June 28, 1969. It was on that day that the four day riots known to us today as the Stonewall Uprising began.

A movement existed before the Stonewall Uprising, though--groups known as homophile groups had contingencies all across the country. Two of the most famous groups include the Mattachine society and the Daughters of Bilitis. They held protests and served as the public face of gay people, on occasion going on TV. Interestingly enough, in one interview for a television special, a leader of the Mattachine society specifically stressed that gays weren’t looking for the right to marry one another (something especially fascinating with the recent win for gay marriage in New York).

In 1969, a mayoral election in New York City led to a crackdown on gay bars, as well as a significant increase in the number of violent vigilante attacks against gays. Up and down Christopher Street, widely-considered the center of the gay community in New York City, bars were raided and arrests made--in fact, the Stonewall Inn had been raided only a few nights before June 28th.

To quickly explain the story, here’s a video from hip-hip radio show host Jay Smooth [note: this video is a few years old and makes reference early in to an incident that happened in 2009. Stick it out a few seconds. Jay makes it worth it]:

Although there were three nights of riots, they received very little publicity; the New York Times merely printed a news brief about it, and it didn’t spread to any other papers. The Village Voice did print an actually story about it, but in the process became the focus of the first gay-rights rally as the newly-united community protested against the use of the word ‘fag’ in the article; from that point onward the Village Voice used the word ‘gay’ instead. Despite the limited publicity, however, the uprising changed the direction of the gay movement. A year from the start of the riots, the first parade was held in New York City, marching from Christopher Street to Central Park despite uncertain numbers and several bomb threats. Ultimately 2000 people marched in broad daylight, marking the birth of the gay rights movement. The incident was so decisive, Pride events in Germany are called ‘Christopher Street Days’. It is to the brave people who rioted at the Stonewall Inn that we owe the victory in New York, and indeed every victory won for LGBTQ people today.