Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary "Before All the rules were off in the '60s. Tom Caruso John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. And the cops got that. Doric Wilson:And I looked back and there were about 2,000 people behind us, and that's when I knew it had happened. John O'Brien:Whenever you see the cops, you would run away from them. John DiGiacomo Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." Eventually something was bound to blow. I was a man. But that's only partially true. So if any one of you, have let yourself become involved with an adult homosexual, or with another boy, and you're doing this on a regular basis, you better stop quick. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Louis Mandelbaum Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. So in every gay pride parade every year, Stonewall lives. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. At least if you had press, maybe your head wouldn't get busted. Suzanne Poli You cut one head off. I mean does anyone know what that is? Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. ITN Source 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. Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." Richard Enman (Archival):Ye - well, that's yes and no. Sophie Cabott Black 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. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. He pulls all his men inside. Martin Boyce:And I remember moving into the open space and grabbing onto two of my friends and we started singing and doing a kick line. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. I mean they were making some headway. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. The medical experimentation in Atascadero included administering, to gay people, a drug that simulated the experience of drowning; in other words, a pharmacological example of waterboarding. [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. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. 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. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Alan Lechner 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. 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. Martha Shelley:When I was growing up in the '50s, I was supposed to get married to some guy, produce, you know, the usual 2.3 children, and I could look at a guy and say, "Well, objectively he's good looking," but I didn't feel anything, just didn't make any sense to me. I had never seen anything like that. Dan Bodner Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Never, never, never. It was tremendous freedom. 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. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:So you're outside, and you see like two people walking toward these trucks and you think, "Oh I think I'll go in there," you go in there, there's like a lot of people in there and it's all dark. 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? Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:If someone was dressed as a woman, you had to have a female police officer go in with her. 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. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? Historic Films Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. They didn't know what they were walking into. Fred Sargeant:The press did refer to it in very pejorative terms, as a night that the drag queens fought back. Jerry Hoose:I remember I was in a paddy wagon one time on the way to jail, we were all locked up together on a chain in the paddy wagon and the paddy wagon stopped for a red light or something and one of the queens said "Oh, this is my stop." Stonewall: A riot that changed millions of lives - BBC News A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. The men's room was under police surveillance. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. 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." This was in front of the police. Marjorie Duffield We assembled on Christopher Street at 6th Avenue, to march. Susan Liberti Transcript of Re-Release: The Stonewall | Happy Scribe 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. They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. Danny Garvin:With Waverly Street coming in there, West Fourth coming in there, Seventh Avenue coming in there, Christopher Street coming in there, there was no way to contain us. Except for the few mob-owned bars that allowed some socializing, it was basically for verboten. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Vanessa Ezersky Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. 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. They were the storm troopers. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Director . And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. And I had become very radicalized in that time. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. Leroy S. Mobley You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. And we had no right to such. That this was normal stuff. A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Doing things like that. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. David Alpert 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. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. I guess they're deviates. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." I was a homosexual. 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's like, this is not right. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. Getty Images 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. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. You know, it's just, everybody was there. 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. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. Transcript Enlarge this image To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, activists rode their motorcycles during the city's 1989 gay-pride parade.

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