before stonewall documentary transcript

Martin Boyce:It was another great step forward in the story of human rights, that's what it was. Frank Kameny 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. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was getting worse and worse. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. It was like a reward. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Lauren Noyes. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." And it was those loudest people, the most vulnerable, the most likely to be arrested, were the ones that were doing the real fighting. A medievalist. Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. Evan Eames 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. Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Tweet at us @throughlineNPR, send us an email, or leave us a voicemail at (872) 588-8805. In the Life We were thinking about survival. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. 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. Susan Liberti Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. John O'Brien:And deep down I believed because I was gay and couldn't speak out for my rights, was probably one of the reasons that I was so active in the Civil Rights Movement. I could never let that happen and never did. Well, it was a nightmare for the lesbian or gay man who was arrested and caught up in this juggernaut, but it was also a nightmare for the lesbians or gay men who lived in the closet. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. Danny Garvin:We became a people. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Fred Sargeant:The effect of the Stonewall riot was to change the direction of the gay movement. Richard Enman (Archival):Well, let me say, first of all, what type of laws we are not after, because there has been much to-do that the Society was in favor of the legalization of marriage between homosexuals, and the adoption of children, and such as that, and that is not at all factual at all. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. So in every gay pride parade every year, Stonewall lives. Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. Windows started to break. It was as if they were identifying a thing. All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". 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? Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. Vanessa Ezersky They really were objecting to how they were being treated. Before Stonewall (1984) - full transcript New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. 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. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. That was scary, very scary. 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. John Scagliotti It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. It was right in the center of where we all were. Do you understand me?". And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. Scott Kardel, Project Administration kui And the rest of your life will be a living hell. Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. Meanwhile, there was crowds forming outside the Stonewall, wanting to know what was going on. Giles Kotcher Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:The mob raised its hand and said "Oh, we'll volunteer," you know, "We'll set up some gay bars and serve over-priced, watered-down drinks to you guys." 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. Original Language: English. 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. The cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. It was tremendous freedom. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. They didn't know what they were walking into. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. 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. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Jay Fialkov Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku We were scared. I said, "I can go in with you?" It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. They frequent their own clubs, and bars and coffee houses, where they can escape the disapproving eye of the society that they call straight. Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. 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. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. Where did you buy it? As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. And a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. In the trucks or around the trucks. 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. Not able to do anything. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. 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. Martha Babcock We did use humor to cover pain, frustration, anger. Trevor, Post Production Janice Flood Over a short period of time, he will be unable to get sexually aroused to the pictures, and hopefully, he will be unable to get sexually aroused inside, in other settings as well. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? View in iTunes. 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. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. First Run Features Before Stonewall, the activists wanted to fit into society and not rock the boat. I'm losing everything that I have. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. Never, never, never. Tom Caruso It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. We didn't want to come on, you know, wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick, you know, and being freaks. Eric Marcus, Writer:The Mattachine Society was the first gay rights organization, and they literally met in a space with the blinds drawn. 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. The police weren't letting us dance. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. Raymond Castro 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. 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. Jorge Garcia-Spitz Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. This is every year in New York City. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. 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 they started smashing their heads with clubs. [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. And I had become very radicalized in that time. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. 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.". I had never seen anything like that. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. The Stonewall had reopened. Martin Boyce:All of a sudden, Miss New Orleans and all people around us started marching step by step and the police started moving back. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Eric Marcus has spent years interviewing people who were there that night, as well as those who were pushing for gay rights before Stonewall. Liz Davis Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. The newly restored 1984 documentary "Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community," re-released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the seminal Stonewall riots, remains a . This 1955 educational film warns of homosexuality, calling it "a sickness of the mind.". You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. Marjorie Duffield And she was quite crazy. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. They were to us. Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. And I hadn't had enough sleep, so I was in a somewhat feverish state, and I thought, "We have to do something, we have to do something," and I thought, "We have to have a protest march of our own." Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. 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. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. Alexis Charizopolis The events. All the rules were off in the '60s. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. 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. As you read, keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is a relatively new term and, while queer people have always existed, the terminology has changed frequently over the years. And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. Cause we could feel a sense of love for each other that we couldn't show out on the street, because you couldn't show any affection out on the street. Other images in this film are Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. 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. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. That never happened before. Noah Goldman Now, 50 years later, the film is back. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. 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. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. I never believed in that. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. And they were gay. Danny Garvin:There was more anger and more fight the second night. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:This was the Rosa Parks moment, the time that gay people stood up and said no. Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." 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 LGBT community. And a whole bunch of people who were in the paddy wagon ran out. Martha Shelley:They wanted to fit into American society the way it was. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. This was the first time I could actually sense, not only see them fearful, I could sense them fearful. And it's that hairpin trigger thing that makes the riot happen. Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. 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. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community is a 1984 American documentary film about the LGBT community prior to the 1969 Stonewall riots. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. Paul Bosche Ellinor Mitchell So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Diana Davies Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. John O'Brien:They went for the head wounds, it wasn't just the back wounds and the leg wounds. Don't fire until I fire. Cause I was from the streets. Seymour Wishman Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We had maybe six people and by this time there were several thousand outside. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. 1984 documentary film by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg, "Berlinale 2016: Panorama Celebrates Teddy Award's 30th Anniversary and Announces First Titles in Programme", "Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary 'Before Stonewall', "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Before Stonewall - Independent Historical Film", Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Restored), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Before_Stonewall&oldid=1134540821, Documentary films about United States history, Historiography of LGBT in the United States, United States National Film Registry films, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 19 January 2023, at 05:30. And, you know,The Village Voiceat that point started using the word "gay.". Dick Leitsch:Well, gay bars were the social centers of gay life. And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. Daily News Gay people were told we didn't have any of that. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". National Archives and Records Administration BBC Worldwide Americas It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. For those kisses.

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