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. Frank Simon's documentary follows the drag contestants of 1967's Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, capturing plenty of on- and offstage drama along the way. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. 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. 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. Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? Marjorie Duffield You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. It's like, this is not right. 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. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. You know, it's just, everybody was there.
Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn has undergone several transformations in the decades since it was the focal point of a three-day riot in 1969. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. That was our world, that block. We love to hear from our listeners! But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. hide caption. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. 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." Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. Barney Karpfinger Before Stonewall. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" Jeremiah Hawkins But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street.
Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. And when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. Ellinor Mitchell Colonial House 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. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month's 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller's Before Stonewall.Originally released in 1984as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionariesthe film, through the use of .
Before Stonewall | Apple TV I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. That's more an uprising than a riot. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." I hope it was. Greg Shea, Legal Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. 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. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:The Stonewall, they didn't have a liquor license and they were raided by the cops regularly and there were pay-offs to the cops, it was awful. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village.
Before Stonewall (1984) - IMDb The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. Raymond Castro:If that light goes on, you know to stop whatever you're doing, and separate. They were not used to a bunch of drag queens doing a Rockettes kick line and sort of like giving them all the finger in a way. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. And, I did not like parading around while all of these vacationers were standing there eating ice cream and looking at us like we were critters in a zoo. The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. 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. Frank Kameny Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. 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. One of the world's oldest and largest gay pride parades became a victory celebration after New York's historic decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! 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. And the Stonewall was part of that system. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Other images in this film are Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? Katrina Heilbroner But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. 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. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. The cops were barricaded inside. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. 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:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. And it was fantastic. Martha Babcock But the . Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. Alexis Charizopolis
archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files Tom Caruso
Before Stonewall - Rotten Tomatoes So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. Janice Flood Liz Davis Louis Mandelbaum
LGBTQ+ History Before Stonewall | Stacker They were to us.
Before Stonewall : Throughline : NPR