Gay rights protests 1960s

By Emily Sullivan, Historian

June is Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ+ collective and the freedom of LGBTQ+ individuals to be themselves. While the COVID pandemic has forced the cancellation of most Parade events, we can still take time to convey on the history of Pride, and how members of the LGBTQ+ society have fought for their rights and visibility.

The Stonewall Inn. Marsha P. Johnson, a prominent activist in New York City&#;s lgbtq+ community, is credited by some as one of the first people to throw a projectile during the Stonewall Riots, although Johnson personally denied the claim. Learn more about her life and legacy here. Source: Wikimedia

Pride is held in June to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising, a series of riots that began on June 28, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City&#;s Greenwich Village. Prior to the riots, American gay rights activists favored methods that emphasized nonviolence and education on how gay people could assimilate into American society. By the late s, the atmosphere was ripe for change. Years of Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War protests, combined with the rising popularity of counterculture, prompted gay people fed up with social di

The Stage

ss: Homophile Movement (cont’d)

Public Protest

On Sept, , Craig Rodwell, Randy Wicker, and other activists and representatives of the Fresh York League for Sexual Freedom picketed the Whitehall Induction Center in Recent York City to march the military’s anti-homosexual policies. This may have been homosexuals&rsquo first public object in the U.S.

Numerous protests occurred in In April, activists protested discrimination in the U.S. and Cuba against homosexuals. Their compact but visible demonstrations in front of the Together Nations building in Modern York City brought attention to their cause. In May, the East Coast Homophile Organizations staged the first demonstration in front of the White Home. Seven men, including Jack Nichols, and three women, including Judy Grahn, picketed. Wire services reported on the event. In July, demonstrators picketed the Pentagon to protest discrimination in the military. In August, demonstrators protesting anti-gay policies picketed the State Department for the first period. Then in October , the East Coast Homophile Organizations sponsored a second demonstration at the Light House, just 5 months after its first. The FBI repor

Barbara Gittings Helps Lead First 'Annual Reminder' Protests

Vice squads–police units devoted to “cleaning up” undesirable parts of urban life–routinely raided the bars frequented by Queer people. Laws against people of the same sex dancing together or wearing clothing made for the opposite sex were used as justification to arrest patrons. By the s in New York Capital, the mafia owned many of these establishments and its members would bribe officers in order to avoid fines. Sometimes the arrangement meant that patrons would be forewarned of a pending raid in time to change their clothing and stop dancing. That wasn’t true during the early morning hours of June 28 , when the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.

When they arrived at Stonewall, the police locked the doors so that no one could escape as they conducted arrests. As certain patrons were released, they united a large crowd that had been gathering outside the bar. Those chosen for arrest started resisting the police officers with the encouragement of the jeering crowd. Violence broke out and the crowd overwhelmed police, who were forced to call in reinforcements. The conflict lasted into the ne

The Year of Queer Liberation

The Right to Be

Mattachine Society of New York. "Homosexuals Are Different . . ." Poster, s. NYPL, Manuscripts and Archives Division, Mattachine Society of New York Records.

The year marked a major turning point in the politics of sexuality in America. Same-sex relationships were discreetly tolerated in 19th-century America in the establish of romantic friendships, but the 20th century brought increasing legal and medical regulation of homosexuality, which was considered a perilous illness. This change in attitude was accompanied by pockets of resistance, spaces that gays and lesbians carved out for their erotic self-expression. Sometimes these spaces were hidden, appreciate the gay bars in Greenwich Village and Harlem that were frequented only by those in the know. Sometimes they were in plain sight, prefer the homoerotic subtexts and in-jokes of Hollywood movies. The repression of homosexuality reached its peak in the s with the McCarthy era. During the paranoia of the Freezing War, gays, lesbians, and transgender people were seen as a corrupt, lurking menace, easily used as pawns by communists.

Gays and lesbians began to organiz

gay rights protests 1960s