猫咪社区

We Are Everywhere, from the creators of the popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, is a large-format tribute to the fight for queer liberation. Featuring more than 300 documentary images of activism in the decades preceding and following the Stonewall Riots of June 1969, the book presents an inclusive, intersectional, and challenging view of queer history. In this excerpt, frustration with police violence at the Democratic Convention in Chicago sets the stage for Stonewall鈥攁 riot in direct response to business-as-usual harassment.

The Democratic National Convention riots radicalized Leo Laurence, a 鈥渢iny, angry man鈥� who returned to San Francisco with promises of a 鈥淗omosexual Revolution of 鈥�69.鈥� Attacking the city鈥檚 gay establishment, Laurence served briefly as editor of Vector, the magazine of the Society for Individual Rights (S.I.R.), though he was removed after he and his lover, Gale Whittington, publicly lambasted S.I.R. as 鈥渕iddle-class bigots,鈥� urging other gays to come out. Whittington lost his job at the States Line Company as a result of the publicity.

Declaring 鈥渨ar on both gay and straight establishments,鈥� Laurence founded the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF)鈥攚hich Jim Kepner described as 鈥渢he first full-fledged Gay Lib type group鈥濃�攊n April 1969. For months, the group picketed the States Line Company and other antigay businesses, but by Friday, June 27 one CHF member was so frustrated with nonviolent tactics, he predicted confrontations with police.

Although Rodwell hated the Stonewall鈥攁 Mafia-run, police-harassed, condemnable hole in the wall鈥攖his felt different.鈥�

In the early hours of Saturday, June 28, New York鈥檚 Craig Rodwell was heading home from his Greenwich Village bookstore when he saw a crowd gathered outside the Stonewall Inn. Although Rodwell hated the Stonewall鈥攁 Mafia-run, police-harassed, condemnable hole in the wall鈥攖his felt different. When police had raided the bar a few nights before, no crowd had gathered; in fact, people ran from Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, as they had during the five other bar raids in the Village that month. No one mingled while cops attacked a popular cruising area at the docks on June 3, nor did anyone stand around as vigilantes descended on a cruising park in Queens on June 20.

Impromptu public gatherings by and for queer people didn鈥檛 happen in 1969, and by collecting on the street outside the Stonewall, 鈥減eople deviated from the script.鈥� For Rodwell, who鈥檇 participated in virtually every homophile demonstration on the East Coast since 1964, 鈥渆verything came together at that one moment,鈥� as a simple bar raid backfired into a five-night melee during which queers beat the cops back into the very bar they鈥檇 tried to clear; a butch dyke鈥檚 efforts to avoid arrest triggered a shower of coins, bricks, and Molotov cocktails; the famous 鈥淪tonewall Girls鈥濃�攁 kick line of young street queens鈥攖aunted the militarized Tactical Police Force through the neighborhood鈥檚 narrow streets; Marsha P. Johnson climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy object onto the windshield of a police car; chants of 鈥淟iberate Christopher Street!鈥� and 鈥淕ay Power!鈥� echoed through the Village; and Allen Ginsberg told Lucian Truscott that the newly militant gays had 鈥渓ost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago.鈥�

The sense of solidarity, empowerment, and liberation coursing through Greenwich Village was overwhelming.鈥�

The sense of solidarity, empowerment, and liberation coursing through Greenwich Village was overwhelming. 鈥淔rom going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone in order to get in. We were just out on the streets,鈥� Chris Babick recalled. 鈥淐an you imagine?鈥� For Joan Nestle, who remembered holding her girlfriend鈥檚 hand on Christopher Street the weekend the riots started, it felt 鈥渓ike the world, really, had been turned upside down.鈥�

The events of 1969 collectively known as the Stonewall Riots* were not, by any definition, the 鈥渟tart鈥� of Gay Liberation, nor did they mark the 鈥渇irst time鈥� queer people fought back, physically or otherwise. To emphasize Stonewall, Dorr Legg said, is to act 鈥渁s though there weren鈥檛 20 years before of a hell of a lot of hard work by hundreds and hundreds of dedicated people who put their lives and their jobs and everything else on the line.鈥� What set Stonewall apart, though, was that activists now had a nationwide infrastructure to spread the story. The tale was used, from the beginning, to build the movement, and the riots must therefore be 鈥渧iewed as an achievement of gay liberation rather than as a literal account of its origins.鈥� Put another way, as sociologists Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Suzanna M. Crage argue, what 鈥渕any people assume to be a basic fact about the gay movement鈥攖hat it started with Stonewall鈥攊s a story that the movement successfully promoted.鈥� Nonetheless, activists like Craig Rodwell, Martha Shelley, Dick Leitsch, and Bob Kohler drew on experiences from other social justice movements to harness the queer energy flooding Greenwich Village as the riots unfolded. History鈥檚 focus on the crowd鈥檚 physical aggression often diminishes the organizing that took place on Christopher Street. Those passing out pamphlets, in other words, are as historically significant as those throwing bricks.

鈥淒O YOU THINK HOMOSEXUALS ARE REVOLTING?鈥� screamed one pamphlet. 鈥淵OU BET YOUR SWEET ASS WE ARE.鈥� Another leaflet announced a 鈥淕AY POWER鈥� meeting set for July 9.

In a 1985 critique, theorist bell hooks argued that feminist consciousness-raising had failed to 鈥渃ontinually confront women with the understanding that the feminist movement to end sexist oppression can be successful only if we are committed to revolution, to the establishment of a new social order.鈥� The movement itself was not a revolution, she said, it was a rebellion, which is 鈥渁 stage in the development of revolution 鈥� represent[ing] the assertion of their humanity on the part of the oppressed.鈥� By creating sustainable communities and customs, rebellions, which generally begin with individual acts of unplanned violence or tumult, 鈥渂reak the threads that have been holding the system together.鈥澛�Riots start rebellions, in other words, and rebellions can lead to revolution.

To call the Stonewall Riots a 鈥渞ebellion鈥� therefore feeds the historically inaccurate narrative placing Stonewall as the moment when 鈥渆verything changed.鈥� In fact, the riots didn鈥檛 change everything; it was the work inspired by the riots鈥攖he rebellion鈥攖hat proved paradigmatic.

Excerpted with permission from We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation by Matthew Riemer and Leighton Brown (Ten Speed Press, 2019.)

*Although some writers and activists refer to the events around Stonewall as either the 鈥淪tonewall Uprising鈥� or the 鈥淪tonewall Rebellion,鈥� we consciously use 鈥淪tonewall Riots.鈥� As an initial matter,聽Webster鈥檚聽defines聽riot聽as 鈥渁 violent public disorder 鈥β爏pecifically: a tumultuous disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together and acting with a common intent,鈥� a definition that, by all accounts, perfectly summarizes Stonewall.聽Uprising, on the other hand, is 鈥渁 usually localized act of popular violence in defiance usually of an established government,鈥� and聽rebellion, which appears to be the most popular alternative to聽riot聽in this context, is defined either as 鈥�1. open, armed, and usually unsuccessful defiance of or resistance to an established government鈥� or 鈥�2. resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition.鈥�

Inspiration in Your Inbox

Sign up to receive email updates from 猫咪社区!

Share

Enter Your Email(Required)

CAPTCHA

Email

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.