Stonewall Riots Essay

In 1969 in Greenwich Village, New York, a 6 day riot took place that would launch the first Pride March and launch the Gay Rights movement as a national movement. The conflict was started when police raided the Stonewall bar, a bar that was a safe place for homosexuals to visit, and violence erupted between the two groups. In the end, homosexuals were granted more rights and gained more acceptance in American culture.

It was not uncommon for the New York Police Department Morals Task Force to raid gay bars. In fact, during the two decades leading up to the Stonewall Riots, the raids were more commonplace than naught. Many have speculated as to why the raids were common – some saying it was because of the Italian Mafia’s involvement in owning those establishments, and consequently forgetting to bribe the local police; others believe it to be based in bias, hatred, and ignorance of people different from oneself. In the Stonewall Inn’s specific case, it could have been a combination of both. The Inn, which was owned by the Mafia, was actually a bottle club, meaning they did not own a liquor license. You had to be a member to drink there. While these various theories are most likely true, as far as ancillary causes, the fact remains that there was an

Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution, was written by David Carter in New York, and published in 2004. This book serves the purpose of identifying Stonewall as the starting point for the modern gay revolution as a whole. It argues that the riots set a spark that ignited America in favor of homosexual rights as well as political and social opportunity. This book is valuable because it not only acknowledges the riots at Stonewall as important, but shows how they transformed homosexual life and the movement entirely. Carter persuades readers to see New York as a venue for revolution, and acknowledges the challenges faced throughout the beginning of the movement,

Obviously, the gay community will not stop to remember the major events leading to gay liberation in the U.S. Those who witnessed the June 28, 1969 violent demonstrations by a group of gays at the Stonewall Inn, located in the Greenwich Village near Manhattan, New York City, will forever remember the impact of that early morning hours riots against police raid in the history of gay liberation movement.

The riots started at around 3 am on June 28th, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in Brooklyn, New York City when police raided the inn, on the pretense of the bar’s lack of a liquor license. They began checking identification and taking people into the bar’s bathroom to determine their sex. The patrons of the bar were held outside as police threw the bar’s unstamped alcohol into patrol wagons. A crowd of Greenwich Village residents and the area’s homeless youth gathered to watch as the bar’s patrons were arrested.

The Stonewall Riots in 1969 leading to the first Gay Pride Parade in 1970 started a public discourse on LGBT rights (The Stonewall Riots). In the years to follow, two opposing mass movements manifested: the LGBT movement and the Religious Right movement. The LGBT movement aimed to get equal rights for homosexuals. The Religious Right focused on stopping the perceived moral decay of America and protecting children from lesbians and gays. While these movements had polar opposite goals, they used surprisingly similar methods to get their messages across.

It was approximately three a.m. on the twenty-eighth of June, 1969 when outside the Stonewall Inn, a monumental riot began. On Christopher Street in New York City, a police raid had just taken place in the gay bar due to the selling of liquor without a license, and arrests were made to anyone without a minimum of three articles of gender appropriate clothing on in accordance to New York law. This was one of several police raids that occurred in a gay bar in such a small amount of time, and the LGBT community made their anger very clear that morning. The event that took place as a result of these raids known as the Stonewall Riots became the catalyst for the Gay Liberation Front, and the Gay Activist Alliance, as well as many new

There are certainly various points in history that can be construed as trailblazing for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. One event in particular, however, sparked awareness and a call to action that previously could never have been conceptualized in the United States. This unforgettable incident, the Stonewall riots of 1969, altered the public’s view of the gay community and arguably jumpstarted the next revolution in an entirely new civil rights movement.

During the mid 1900’s, New York City’s queer citizens were discriminated against and faced an anti-gay system. The Stonewall Uprisings were a set of raids and riots in the 1960’s that took place for six days involving thousands of people in Greenwich Village. They were the result of hundreds of years of discrimination and violence against gay and transgender people in America as well as the influence of new thinkers like the writers of the “Beat Generation” who were trying to express their individuality and unconventional thinking. Because of this movement, gay liberation and the fight for modern LGBT rights in the United States changed. Activist groups formed and were inspired to find safe places for them to express their sexual orientation

club located in New York, known as the ‘Stonewall Inn’ turned violent. Outside, hundreds of protesters and sympathizers began rioting against the sudden police force. While the NYPD had been justified in closing down the club, the events which would follow over the next six days would go on to spark revolution, and establish the LGBT movement for gay civil rights. It is inevitably because of these protests that the LGBT community has the rights and freedom that they have today. However, the Stonewall Riots are not as recognized as a copious amount of protests and revolts, and are a severely underrated historical event, which resulted in the removal of

These kind of raids were not uncommon but this night would be different from the others. The patrons were so tired of getting harassed and treated badly that they began to resist and grew aggressive when the police started to arrest people. Over the next few nights there were a series of more demonstrations riots which came to be collectively known at the Stonewall Riots. The actions of the police on that night were the last straw for a group of people who had constantly dealt with oppression and marginalization and marked a change in the way that gay people across the country handled their situation. They were finished with the attitude of the 1960s that called for peaceful resistance against their lack of freedom and negative treatment; they took the fight for equal treatment into their own hands

The Importance of the Stonewall Riots and Their Lasting Effects on the Gay Rights Movement

Until the last half of the 20th century, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals were victims of discrimination in American society and in statutory laws, which limited their basic rights. On the night of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and arrested three drag queens by using excessive force. Bar patrons and spectators, tired of police oppression, stood up and fought back. This was the first major protest based on equal rights for homosexuals. The Stonewall Riots became a turning point for the homosexual community in the United States sparking the beginning of the gay rights movement, and encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual, or "LGBT," to fight for their rights.

The gay liberation movement occurred in Greenwich Village, New York. In June 1969, police invaded the Stone Wall Inn, a bar for gays. The gay people at the club became angered by the police actions, because they felt that it was unprovoked harassment. They fought for several nights, refusing to have the bar closed. This incident, generally referred to as Stonewall, has been noted as the beginning of the awakening of gays into personal and sexual liberation.

In Greenwich Village on a warm July morning in 1969, a group of gay men and women are brawling with police officers. This is Stonewall. These riots mark the start of the Gay Liberation movement–a social cause hampered by public stigma–such as the AIDS Epidemic, religious intolerance, negligence of an almost criminal level by the United States government, and outright scorn from all directions. Stonewall marked the first critically important instance of the gay community “fighting back” against all of this injustice. The following decades would result in an unprecedented shift in public opinion. They would not, however, result in an unprecedented shift in congressional representation. The lack of representation is dangerous to the LGBT