Paul Bosche Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. Martin Boyce:It was another great step forward in the story of human rights, that's what it was. Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Dick Leitsch:Mattachino in Italy were court jesters; the only people in the whole kingdom who could speak truth to the king because they did it with a smile. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center The men's room was under police surveillance. It was like a reward. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. And they wore dark police uniforms and riot helmets and they had billy clubs and they had big plastic shields, like Roman army, and they actually formed a phalanx, and just marched down Christopher Street and kind of pushed us in front of them. Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. John O'Brien:It was definitely dark, it was definitely smelly and raunchy and dirty and that's the only places that we had to meet each other, was in the very dirty, despicable places. And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. You had no place to try to find an identity. And they were gay. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. Noah Goldman Doing things like that. Abstract. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Ed Koch who was a democratic party leader in the Greenwich Village area, was a specific leader of the local forces seeking to clean up the streets. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. They pushed everybody like to the back room and slowly asking for IDs. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:The mob raised its hand and said "Oh, we'll volunteer," you know, "We'll set up some gay bars and serve over-priced, watered-down drinks to you guys." From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. And I just didn't understand that. 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. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. But I'm wearing this police thing I'm thinking well if they break through I better take it off really quickly but they're gunna come this way and we're going to be backing up and -- who knows what'll happen. Joe DeCola Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. This produced an enormous amount of anger within the lesbian and gay community in New York City and in other parts of America. Giles Kotcher The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And by the time the police would come back towards Stonewall, that crowd had gone all the around Washington Place come all the way back around and were back pushing in on them from the other direction and the police would wonder, "These are the same people or different people?". And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Geoff Kole Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. BEFORE STONEWALL - Alliance of Women Film Journalists 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR Alexis Charizopolis Before Stonewall 1984 Unrated 1 h 27 m IMDb RATING 7.5 /10 1.1K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 2:21 1 Video 7 Photos Documentary History The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. 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. Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files Even non-gay people. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. Things were just changing. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We were looking for secret exits and one of the policewomen was able to squirm through the window and they did find a way out. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. We don't know. The police weren't letting us dance. Synopsis. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. The medical experimentation in Atascadero included administering, to gay people, a drug that simulated the experience of drowning; in other words, a pharmacological example of waterboarding. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. The award winning film Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. Dick Leitsch:And the blocks were small enough that we could run around the block and come in behind them before they got to the next corner. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. Brief Summary Of The Documentary 'Before Stonewall' | Bartleby We heard one, then more and more. Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Corbis (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. Queer was very big. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. Yvonne Ritter:It's like people who are, you know, black people who are used to being mistreated, and going to the back of the bus and I guess this was sort of our going to the back of the bus. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. Review: 'Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community' And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. They can be anywhere. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. But we went down to the trucks and there, people would have sex. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. Samual Murkofsky And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Is that conceivable? Martha Shelley They would bang on the trucks. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's gay community. The award-winning documentary film, Before Stonewall, which was released theatrically and broadcast on PBS television in 1984, explored the history of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States prior to 1969. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's LGBT community. John van Hoesen A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. Before Stonewall - Letterboxd People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. Homo, homo was big. Raymond Castro:So then I got pushed back in, into the Stonewall by these plain clothes cops and they would not let me out, they didn't let anybody out. He pulls all his men inside. I hope it was. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:In states like New York, there were a whole basket of crimes that gay people could be charged with. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. Danny Garvin:It was a chance to find love. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. People started throwing pennies. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation And it was fantastic. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. PDF BEFORE STONEWALL press kit - First Run Features Eventually something was bound to blow. I was a man. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. And it just seemed like, fantastic because the background was this industrial, becoming an industrial ruin, it was a masculine setting, it was a whole world. John O'Brien:And deep down I believed because I was gay and couldn't speak out for my rights, was probably one of the reasons that I was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. Glenn Fukushima Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Dick Leitsch:You read about Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal and all these actors and stuff, Liberace and all these people running around doing all these things and then you came to New York and you found out, well maybe they're doing them but, you know, us middle-class homosexuals, we're getting busted all the time, every time we have a place to go, it gets raided. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. I told the person at the door, I said "I'm 18 tonight" and he said to me, "you little SOB," he said. ITN Source WGBH Educational Foundation Before Stonewall : Throughline : NPR 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. We went, "Oh my God. Jeremiah Hawkins The Underground Lounge "We're not going.". Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. It gives back a little of the terror they gave in my life. Vanessa Ezersky That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. Trevor, Post Production And then they send them out in the street and of course they did make arrests, because you know, there's all these guys who cruise around looking for drag queens. The New York State Liquor Authority refused to issue liquor licenses to many gay bars, and several popular establishments had licenses suspended or revoked for "indecent conduct.". Based on And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. We were scared. Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". Cause I was from the streets. If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. "BEFORE STONEWALL" - MetroFocus 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. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. In the trucks or around the trucks. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Producers Library 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. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. kui Before Stonewall streaming: where to watch online? - JustWatch Not able to do anything. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." 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. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. I mean they were making some headway. We had been threatened bomb threats. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. 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. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. Available via license: Content may be subject to . And they started smashing their heads with clubs. Evan Eames For those kisses. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Raymond Castro:We were in the back of the room, and the lights went on, so everybody stopped what they were doing, because now the police started coming in, raiding the bar. Windows started to break. And that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chik-n-Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the Village. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". We were winning. So it was a perfect storm for the police. It was an age of experimentation. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. Because one out of three of you will turn queer. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. The events. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . Suzanne Poli Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. Amber Hall Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Why 'Before Stonewall' Was Such a Hard Movie to Make - The Atlantic Before Stonewall. First you gotta get past the door. National Archives and Records Administration I'm losing everything that I have. Charles Harris, Transcriptions But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." A sickness of the mind. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. Greg Shea, Legal Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." 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. The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Judith Kuchar Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Martin Boyce:That was our only block. They were the storm troopers. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. ", Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And he went to each man and said it by name. When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. David Carter Documentary | Stonewall Forever This 1968 Film Put Drag Queens In The Spotlight Before Stonewall - HuffPost All rights reserved. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Before Stonewall - Trailer - YouTube People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was a bottle club which meant that I guess you went to the door and you bought a membership or something for a buck and then you went in and then you could buy drinks. Historic Films [1] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. And I knew that I was lesbian. Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back.