Shoulders to Stand On

Gay Pride - Why?

by Evelyn Bailey

All over the world, gay pride parades, picnics and festivals are held – to remember, to celebrate an event that changed the course of history – Stonewall!

What really happened that Friday night?  What follows are excerpts from an eyewitness account given by Morty Manford taken from Making Gay History by Eric Marcus.

In the Fall of 1968 Morty Manford began his freshman year at Columbia College.  One of the first things he did after arriving was to call the Student Homophile League.  Morty attended a meeting but was not “terribly inspired by what I saw, and nothing they were doing really interested me.” 

Impact of the Stonewall Riots on Participants

by Evelyn Bailey

On Friday evening June 27, 1969 at 3 a.m., eight plainclothes officers (including two women) raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.   

The employees were arrested for selling liquor without a license.  The customers were allowed to leave one at a time.  They waited outside for their friends.  Many had been in such raids before.  One observer referred to the gathering as festive with those exiting the club striking poses swishing and camping. 

Then there was a sudden mood change when the paddy wagon arrived and the bartender, doorman, three drag queens and a struggling lesbian were shoved inside.  There were cat calls and cries to topple the paddy wagon.  Once the paddy wagon left the police moved quickly back into the Stonewall Inn and locked themselves in.

Gay Liberation in Rochester, New York

Excerpts from an article by Michael Robertson in the Empty Closet, June 1975

“We have fled from blackmailing cops, from families who disowned or ‘tolerated’ us; we have been drummed out of the armed services, thrown out of schools, fired from jobs, and beaten by punks and policemen.  Straight cops patrol us, straight legislators govern us, straight employers keep us in line, straight money exploits us.  We have pretended everything is OK because we haven't been able to see how to change it - - we've been afraid.”

Out of this intolerable reality and the struggle of all peoples to be treated as human beings was born the gay liberation movement. In this article I want to focus on the event that catapulted gay liberation into the 20th century full-blown, and specifically its effect on Rochester, New York.

It was this month 39 years ago that some thing unremarkable happened. On June 27, an event which had occurred a thousand times before across the United States over the decades took place. THE POLICE RAIDED A GAY BAR! The very first public response to overt harassment was demonstrated. The Stonewall Riots mark the conscious organized beginning of the gay liberation movement. They also mark the beginning of Gay Pride.