before stonewall documentary transcript

Transcript Enlarge this image 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. Raymond Castro:I'd go in there and I would look and I would just cringe because, you know, people would start touching me, and "Hello, what are you doing there if you don't want to be touched?" And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. John van Hoesen We don't know. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. This is every year in New York City. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. Martha Babcock In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. 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. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:If someone was dressed as a woman, you had to have a female police officer go in with her. I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. 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. Alexis Charizopolis Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. Barak Goodman hide caption. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, setting off a three-day riot that launched the modern American gay rights movement. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. [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]. 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. 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. So it was a perfect storm for the police. They would bang on the trucks. Robin Haueter He pulls all his men inside. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. 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. 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 the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. I mean it didn't stop after that. Jimmy hadn't enjoyed himself so much in a long time. Chris Mara, Production Assistants Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. We knew that this was a moment that we didn't want to let slip past, because it was something that we could use to bring more of the groups together. But we couldn't hold out very long. and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. There are a lot of kids here. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Just making their lives miserable for once. Beginning of our night out started early. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. National Archives and Records Administration Martha Shelley Noah Goldman Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. The police weren't letting us dance. Before Stonewall. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. This time they said, "We're not going." Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. 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.". In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Marc Aubin The Chicago riots, the Human Be-in, the dope smoking, the hippies. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. 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. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, and Shirley Willer, president of the Daughters of Bilitis, spoke to Marcus about being gay before the Stonewall riots happened and what motivated people who were involved in the movement. A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. Don't fire until I fire. and someone would say, "Well, they're still fighting the police, let's go," and they went in. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. And the cops got that. The Stonewall riots inspired gay Americans to fight for their rights. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. I really thought that, you know, we did it. John O'Brien:All of a sudden, the police faced something they had never seen before. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Like, "Joe, if you fire your gun without me saying your name and the words 'fire,' you will be walking a beat on Staten Island all alone on a lonely beach for the rest of your police career. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . A medievalist. Even non-gay people. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". And the police were showing up. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. 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. Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. 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. Dan Martino Evan Eames And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. Louis Mandelbaum But we're going to pay dearly for this. 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. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Jerry Hoose They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. David Alpert And that's what it was, it was a war. It was right in the center of where we all were. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. Samual Murkofsky Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution Greg Shea, Legal But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. All the rules were off in the '60s. It must have been terrifying for them. 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. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. That never happened before. Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free dramatic stories from the early 1900's onwards of public and private existence as experienced by LGBT Americans. Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. 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. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. 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?". Lauren Noyes. 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. Raymond Castro:Incendiary devices were being thrown in I don't think they were Molotov cocktails, but it was just fire being thrown in when the doors got open. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. But the . Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. 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. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. Trevor, Post Production I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. And I just didn't understand that. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg.

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