On the night of the 27th to the 28th of June, 1969, The Stonewall Inn bar on New York’s Christopher Street was once again raided by the police. The Stonewall was known as a cruising bar, a place where gay men gathered looking for sex.
One of its doormen, Ed Murphy, was involved in a blackmail 67operation involving customers who worked at Wall Street. One of Murphy’s duties at the door was to handout, every month, an envelope to a representative of the Sixth Precinct rumoured to contain up to US$1.200 in cash.
However, The Stonewall’s clientele had been changing. It had become a hangout for Drag Queens, transvestites and transsexuals. The 27th of June had been the burial of actress Judy Garland, widely adored by this community. It had been an emotional day and the girls were already feeling rather sensitive.
Suspected crossdressers were taken into the toilets by female police officers to have their genitalia checked. Thirteen people were arrested, including staff and those violating the state’s gender-appropriate clothing laws.
The first, meaningful, acts of resistance came from these transvestites, crossdressers and transsexuals. When a police officer hit a butch female/trans man, believed to be Stormé DeLarverie, they hit back. Mayhem ensued.
Fourteen years old, Allyson Allante, was arrested, as was Maria Ritter. Tammy Novak was placed in a police wagon but managed to escape and ran away. The doorman, Ed Murphy, was handcuffed to another man, but they managed to escape and jumped into a taxi to visit an S&M enthusiast friend who knew how to remove handcuffs.
Soon, in the early hours of the 28th June, the crowd outside the bar grew and a full blown riot that lasted five days had begun. The police were cowered inside the bar, and the girls were set free from the police wagon; police cars were set on fire; Marsha P Johnson was seen dropping a heavy weight onto another police car, Zazu Nova and Christina Hayworth were also active in the riot.
A few days later, the Gay Liberation Front was formed, followed months later by the Gay Activists Alliance. The first Pride March took place a year later on Sunday 28th June 1970. We have a lot to be thankful to these brave girls.
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hangout (n.): a place where someone goes to, or frequent, regularly.
burial (n.): ceremony where the body of the deceased is entered.
mayhem (n.): chaos
to ensue (v.): to happen, or to take place, as a consequence of something
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