Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. Dan Bodner Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. 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. 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." Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. Lilli M. Vincenz [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Windows started to break. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. 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. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Queer was very big. Glenn Fukushima But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. Charles Harris, Transcriptions First Run Features Just let's see if they can. The Activism That Came Before Stonewall And The Movement That - NPR Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. You had no place to try to find an identity. 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. archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files [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. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:At the peak, as many as 500 people per year were arrested for the crime against nature, and between 3- and 5,000 people per year arrested for various solicitation or loitering crimes. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. Why 'Before Stonewall' Was Such a Hard Movie to Make - The Atlantic Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community They didn't know what they were walking into. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. You were alone. 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. David Huggins 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. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. And when you got a word, the word was homosexuality and you looked it up. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. It's not my cup of tea. I had never seen anything like that. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. He pulls all his men inside. Before Stonewall | The New York Public Library Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. We'll put new liquor in there, we'll put a new mirror up, we'll get a new jukebox." Paul Bosche Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. 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. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. The mob was saying, you know, "Screw you, cops, you think you can come in a bust us up? Liz Davis 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.". Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. 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. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." And the police were showing up. Alexis Charizopolis Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Narrator (Archival):This is a nation of laws. So I run down there. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Fred Sargeant:We knew that they were serving drinks out of vats and buckets of water and believed that there had been some disease that had been passed. 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." A sickness of the mind. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. John O'Brien:The election was in November of 1969 and this was the summer of 1969, this was June. Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. And this went on for hours. Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. 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. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. Robin Haueter A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. 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. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. Danny Garvin:We became a people. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. And that's what it was, it was a war. 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. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. Getty Images I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. This Restored Documentary Examines What LGBTQ Lives Were Like Before Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. And gay people were standing around outside and the mood on the street was, "They think that they could disperse us last night and keep us from doing what we want to do, being on the street saying I'm gay and I'm proud? Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. 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. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:All throughout the 60s in New York City, the period when the New York World's Fair was attracting visitors from all over America and all over the world. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. They are taught that no man is born homosexual and many psychiatrists now believe that homosexuality begins to form in the first three years of life. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. 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. 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. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. Susana Fernandes Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:But there were little, tiny pin holes in the plywood windows, I'll call them the windows but they were plywood, and we could look out from there and every time I went over and looked out through one of those pin holes where he did, we were shocked at how big the crowd had become. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." We could easily be hunted, that was a game. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. For those kisses. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. Quentin Heilbroner Suzanne Poli Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. They were to us. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. John van Hoesen Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Jeremiah Hawkins Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? In the Life This book, and the related documentary film, use oral histories to present students with a varied view of lesbian and gay experience. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. Geoff Kole This was in front of the police. It's like, this is not right. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. Almost anything you could name. 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. 1969: The Stonewall Uprising - Library of Congress Joe DeCola You know, it's just, everybody was there. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. BEFORE STONEWALL - Alliance of Women Film Journalists It was like a reward. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Scott McPartland/Getty Images Before Stonewall - Wikipedia Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. MacDonald & Associates Dana Gaiser Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. All I knew about was that I heard that there were people down in Times Square who were gay and that's where I went to. I have pondered this as "Before Stonewall," my first feature documentary, is back in cinemas after 35 years. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. BBC Worldwide Americas 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. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. Ellinor Mitchell I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. They could be judges, lawyers. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. 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. Corbis Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. So I got into the subway, and on the car was somebody I recognized and he said, "I've never been so scared in my life," and I said, "Well, please let there be more than ten of us, just please let there be more than ten of us. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Before Stonewall (1984) Movie Script | Subs like Script Chris Mara I was proud. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. But that's only partially true. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:It was always hands up, what do you want? That's it. Revealing and. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed. And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with.
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