before stonewall documentary transcript before stonewall documentary transcript

I mean you got a major incident going on down there and I didn't see any TV cameras at all. Doing things like that. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. John O'Brien:There was one street called Christopher Street, where actually I could sit and talk to other gay people beyond just having sex. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. But we couldn't hold out very long. It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. And we had no right to such. Urban Stages Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . Homo, homo was big. Tires were slashed on police cars and it just went on all night long. Yvonne Ritter:"In drag," quote unquote, the downside was that you could get arrested, you could definitely get arrested if someone clocked you or someone spooked that you were not really what you appeared to be on the outside. But the . And that's what it was, it was a war. Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." 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. And I had become very radicalized in that time. There was at least one gay bar that was run just as a hustler bar for straight gay married men. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? 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. 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. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. It was done in our little street talk. 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. There are a lot of kids here. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. 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. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. The film brings together voices from over 50 years of the LGBTQ rights movement to explore queer activism before, during and after the Stonewall Riots. Just making their lives miserable for once. 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 A sickness of the mind. W hen police raided a Greenwich Village gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on June 28, 1969 50 years ago this month the harassment was routine for the time. 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. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. 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. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. I said, "I can go in with you?" Read a July 6, 1969excerpt fromTheNew York Daily News. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month's 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller's Before Stonewall.Originally released in 1984as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionariesthe film, through the use of . 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. I made friends that first day. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Gay people were never supposed to be threats to police officers. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. For those kisses. Dan Martino Because if you don't have extremes, you don't get any moderation. You know, we wanted to be part of the mainstream society. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. 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. Dr. Socarides (Archival):I think the whole idea of saying "the happy homosexual" is to, uh, to create a mythology about the nature of homosexuality. They would not always just arrest, they would many times use clubs and beat. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. More than a half-century after its release, " The Queen " serves as a powerful time capsule of queer life as it existed before the 1969 Stonewall uprising. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. But we're going to pay dearly for this. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. Fred Sargeant:Someone at this point had apparently gone down to the cigar stand on the corner and got lighter fluid. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Seymour Wishman Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. Audience Member (Archival):I was wondering if you think that there are any quote "happy homosexuals" for whom homosexuality would be, in a way, their best adjustment in life? hide caption. Finally, Mayor Lindsay listened to us and he announced that there would be no more police entrapment in New York City. A lot of them had been thrown out of their families. Jay Fialkov Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives 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. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. David Alpert Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Virginia Apuzzo:It was free but not quite free enough for us. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. 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. 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. This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. They were the storm troopers. The events. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Lauren Noyes. So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. Diana Davies Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. 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. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude 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. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. That this was normal stuff. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. Revealing and. 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. I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. Ellen Goosenberg If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? 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. I mean it didn't stop after that. And it's interesting to note how many youngsters we've been seeing in these films. It was a 100% profit, I mean they were stealing the liquor, then watering it down, and they charging twice as much as they charged one door away at the 55. John van Hoesen Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:What was so good about the Stonewall was that you could dance slow there. Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. 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. A word that would be used in the 1960s for gay men and lesbians. I hope it was. Interviewer (Archival):What type of laws are you after? I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. Things were just changing. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had been in some gay bars either for a story or gay friends would say, "Oh we're going to go in for a drink there, come on in, are you too uptight to go in?" But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We told this to our men. Is that conceivable? The New York Times / Redux Pictures And the rest of your life will be a living hell. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. 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. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. J. Michael Grey 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. Chris Mara I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. 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. 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. This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. They were to us. Vanessa Ezersky But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. Danny Garvin Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. The men's room was under police surveillance. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. Once it started, once that genie was out of the bottle, it was never going to go back in. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. 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. Doug Cramer To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. It was fun to see fags. 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. Dana Kirchoff The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. Alexis Charizopolis Doric Wilson:In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, "I'm a faggot," was horren--, nobody, nobody was ready to do that. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. 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. Evan Eames Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:A rather tough lesbian was busted in the bar and when she came out of the bar she was fighting the cops and trying to get away. Leroy S. Mobley He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. But that's only partially true. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. So it was a perfect storm for the police. 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. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." Martin Boyce:Oh, Miss New Orleans, she wouldn't be stopped. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. All rights reserved. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. Liz Davis It was like a reward. That night, the police ran from us, the lowliest of the low. First you gotta get past the door. 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. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. One never knows when the homosexual is about. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. The groundbreaking 1984 film "Before Stonewall" introduced audiences to some of the key players and places that helped spark the Greenwich Village riots. Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? Martin Boyce:That was our only block. Before Stonewall. David Carter, Author ofStonewall:Most raids by the New York City Police, because they were paid off by the mob, took place on a weeknight, they took place early in the evening, the place would not be crowded. It was tremendous freedom. A medievalist. 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. All kinds of designers, boxers, big museum people. Do you understand me?". Jorge Garcia-Spitz We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Windows started to break. 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. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. I was a man. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. As kids, we played King Kong. Narrator (Archival):This is one of the county's principal weekend gathering places for homosexuals, both male and female. Martha Babcock Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. They really were objecting to how they were being treated. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." Stonewall Uprising Program Transcript Slate: In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. 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. You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. 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. Susan Liberti It meant nothing to us. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Glenn Fukushima Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? And it was fantastic. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. 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. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. Janice Flood Scott Kardel, Project Administration kui Queer was very big. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. You knew you could ruin them for life. Hugh Bush I mean I'm talking like sardines. The cops were barricaded inside. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. Newly restored for the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, Before Stonewall pries open the . ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. Don't fire until I fire. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:There were all these articles in likeLife Magazineabout how the Village was liberal and people that were called homosexuals went there. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. It eats you up inside. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". I mean they were making some headway. Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. Louis Mandelbaum Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. 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.". It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. 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. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. We ought to know, we've arrested all of them. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. You cut one head off. There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. Creating the First Visual History of Queer Life Before Stonewall Making a landmark documentary about LGBTQ Americans before 1969 meant digging through countless archives to find traces of. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being?