This content was originally shared with the Pomona College community via email on Thursday, July 2, 2020.
2020 marked 51 years since the Stonewall Uprising, a series of civilly disobedient acts that are widely considered the start of the modern LGBTQIA+ movement. While the Stonewall Uprising was not actually the first act of resistance of its kind (a similar, but less remembered, riot took place at San Francisco’s Compton’s Cafeteria nearly three years earlier), it was a significant step in the movement for LGBTQIA+ rights. The riots began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 and continued for six days until July 3, 1969.
“While we may never know who threw the first bottle or brick, who was the first to resist arrest, we do know that the police did not receive the response they were expecting in the early hours of Saturday, 28 June 1969, when they raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Accustomed to meek and fearful acquiescence to regular police raids, they were met instead with a rising tide of anger, shrieks of ‘Gay power!’ and trash cans set alight; the police were forced to call for backup from the Tactical Patrol Force, a riot-control unit that had been set up to deal with militant demonstrations against the war in Vietnam. Skirmishes continued for hours that night and were repeated the following night and into the next week. Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, who had been forced to take shelter inside the Inn from the baying crowd outside, recalled in 1990, ‘For those of us in public morals, things were completely changed … suddenly they were not submissive anymore.’” (“International Effects of Stonewall Riots,” Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History (Vol. 3. ))
While raids on gay bars and nightclubs were common in New York City at the time, and there remains uncertainty regarding exactly how the night turned to violence, young trans people of color, such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, were highly influential in the movement at the time and in subsequent years.
“In a 2018 essay, transgender poet and activist Chrysanthemum Tran said the particulars of who did what don’t matter. Stonewall was a ‘collective uprising,’ and Johnson and Rivera should be acknowledged not just for their actions on those few days, ‘but for their lifelong work of organizing and activism.’ In the wake of the riots, Johnson and Rivera were frequent organizers and participants at gay rights protests. They also founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, or STAR, and opened a house to shelter homeless LGBT youth — the first shelter of its kind in the country.” ("The transgender women at Stonewall were pushed out of the gay rights movement. Now they are getting a statue in New York." The Washington Post)
This week also commemorates the fifth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling that established the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“On June 26, 2015, in an historic 5-4 ruling authored by Justice Kennedy, the Court held, as [Constitutional Accountability Center] had urged, that the Fourteenth Amendment requires marriage equality and that all states must allow same-sex couples to marry as well as recognize same-sex marriages entered into out-of-state. As the Court explained, the previous exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from the institution of marriage burdened the liberty of those couples and denied them the equal protection of the laws guaranteed in the Fourteenth Amendment. In so holding, the Court strongly rejected the argument whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry should be left to state voters, explaining that ‘fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote’ and that the courts must be open to those seeking vindication of their rights.” ("Obervell v. Hodges," Constitutional Accountability Center)
This article includes additional context about the unique nature of the Stonewall Uprising and Victor Silverman, Pomona College Professor of History, looks more deeply at the Compton’s Cafeteria riots of August 1966 in his documentary Screaming Queens, which is available for streaming on various platforms.
Over time, the month of June has been designated as Pride Month throughout the world, with parades and other celebrations taking place throughout cities. In the absence of physical gathering this year, virtual celebrations were held, especially over the last weekend this June, including Pride Live’s Stonewall Day 2020 and Global Pride 2020.