On This Day In Gay History- June 28th... The Stonewall Riots

"Before Stonewall, you took your life into your hands when you tried to be openly gay. Whenever we celebrate pride, a component of that pride should be that we are proud of our history & struggle & that we fought back against oppression & managed to have lives under that difficulty."

Martin Duberman, author of Stonewall

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, a group of Hispanics, hippies, drag queens, & queers got fed up with being harassed by the police because they were gay. It’s hard to imagine police handcuffing, harassing, & arresting gay people for simply gathering in public, but that’s what happened, routinely, before Stonewall’s spontaneous uprising of gay men & lesbians in New York’s Greenwich Village. What happened then galvanized the gay rights movement? For younger people, who have grown up in a world with increasing legal protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender community, it’s hard to imagine that just 4 decades ago, gay people’s jobs, families, & homes were threatened, & their lives restricted or ruined if they were out of closet.

While not the first rebellion, the Stonewall riots are the most famous instance of homosexuals fighting back against government persecution. From all accounts, the riots were not pretty or organize. Stonewall was 6 nights of street riots with some of the least empowered elements of society: the closeted, fearful, & disenfranchised, fighting the police batons & pepper spray with what they had, mostly fists, signs, garbage cans, bottles, & shoes. For gay Boomers, the uprising is a defining moment to celebrate as we look back at how far we have come in four short decades & look ahead to the future. In 1969, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn who refused to be intimidated by police oppression had no idea they were about to change history. They just wanted equality. In the 1950s, Rosa Parks had no idea she was about to change history when she refused to move to the back of the bus, either. As she famously recounted: "The reason that I did not move from my seat was that my feet were tired."  Those queers at the Stonewall Inn were tired too. From such humble origins, movements ignite.

NY TIMES, June 29th, 1969

It was just 50 years ago, homosexuals were classified as subversives by the US Department of State; we were officially recognized as security risks to the country. The FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, as did the US Postal Service. The names of people arrested for public indecency & lewd behavior (men holding hands, women wearing suits) were published regularly in newspapers. Being queer was officially recognized as a psychopathic condition, & was a valid reason to be fired from your job. Gay men & women forced out of the government positions by the 1000s each year. If gay people regularly congregated together, the police department’s “Public Morals Squad” would be called in to intervene. Police brutality was commonplace. Hope for the future was pretty bleak; there were no substantial gay rights organizations. The only real community gay people had was in underground establishments, often maintained with help from the Mafia, or by bribing the police.

I wonder what we’ll imagine next for the older LGBT community? I wonder if those on the front lines of gay "out" aging will keep walking that line between activism & diplomacy. If the first 40+ years of our civil rights movement are any indication, will the next 40 take us into a future of greater equality, with more allies? Will the Stonewall legacy of fighting for being out & for equality motivate us to pave new trails for gays & lesbians at age 50+? Will DOMA be struck down? I think we owe that not only to ourselves & to the generations, but also to those who stood up for us at Stonewall.

For over a decade I needed to explain Stonewall to a group of 6 young people that I supervised, many of the group were gay, but even the straight kids went drinking & dancing at Portland's gay clubs. None of them had heard of Stonewall. I had to explain it to them, & they got quite an earful. I continue to reflect on all the things many "baby queers" just don't know about or care about:

Harvey Milk?

Judy Garland?

Camp?

Musical Theatre?

People could be arrested for dancing with someone of the same sex ?

Gay bars were once hidden & "coded"?

George Cukor?

Cole Porter?

Leonard Bernstein?

Tennessee Williams?

Truman Capote?

Montgomery Clift?

James Dean?

Dag Hammerskjold?

Rudolf Nureyev

Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Walt Whitman?

Rock Hudson?

Tales Of The City?

Frida Kahlo?

Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert?

Billie Jean King?

Elton John?

George Michael?

Martina Navratilova?

Billie Jean King?

Greg Louganis?

Neil Patrick Harris?

A world with no Internet Hook-up sites?

A world with no GRNDR?

A world before HIV?

Post Apocalyptic Bohemia remembers our history & as long as this blog continues, I will attempt to get down that history & those individuals that played a part, in hopes that somebody cares.

On This Day In Gay History... STONEWALL

I had to explain Stonewall to a group of 6 young people that I supervise. 2 of the group are gay. None of them had heard of Stonewall. I had to explain it to them, & they got quite an earful.

That the amazing news from New York State should have happened during NYC's Gay Pride & so close to this landmark anniversary was just icing on the wedding cake.

It was just 50 years ago, homosexuals were classified as subversives by the US Department of State; we were officially recognized as security risks to the country. The FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, as did the US Postal Service. The names of people arrested for public indecency & lewd behavior (men holding hands, women wearing suits) were published regularly in newspapers. Being queer was officially recognized as a psychopathic condition, & was a valid reason to be fired from your job. Gay men & women forced out of the government positions by the 1000s each year. If gay people regularly congregated together, the police department’s “Public Morals Squad” would be called in to intervene. Police brutality was commonplace. Hope for the future was pretty bleak; there were no substantial gay rights organizations. The only real community gay people had was in underground establishments, often maintained with help from the Mafia, or by bribing the police.

On June 27, 1969, the NYC tactical police force raided a popular Greenwich Village gay bar- the Stonewall Inn. Raids were not unusual in 1969; in fact, they were conducted regularly without much resistance. But, that night the street erupted into violent protest as the crowds in the bar fought back. The backlash & several nights of protest that followed have come to be known as the Stonewall Riots.

Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives & experiences of gays & lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gay people into calls for pride & action. In the past 42 years, we have all been witness to an astonishing rise of gay culture that has changed this country & the world, forever.

Click on image in enlarge...NYTimes, July 29,

Rich Words On Frank Rich's Birthday

I am a fan of Frank Rich & his writings. His memoir- Ghost Light is one of my favorite books about the theatre. I was lucky to see him in 2008 in a conversation with Stephen Sondheim at the Newmark Theatre in Portland, What an evening! I always looked forward to his theatre reviews, even when I disagreed with his assertions & I treasure his Op-Ed pieces in the NY Times. What he says today about the Gay Rights Movement & the history of Stonewall is beautifully written & important. He is a reminder of how our straight allies make a very real difference in our struggle.

Frank Rich is a treasure. Is it really possible that he didn't know one single out person while he was at Harvard? I think this Op-Ed is a timely reminder of how much work is still to be done & that Forty Years Later: Still Second Class Americans.

For the first time, a majority of Americans (52 percent) believe “gays & lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married", according to a recent CNN poll.

Rich: "None of this means that full equality for gay Americans is a done deal. Even if it were, that would be scant consolation to the latest minority groups to enter the pantheon of American scapegoats, Hispanic immigrants and Muslims. We are still a young, imperfect, unfinished country. As a young black man working as a nurse in a 1980s AIDS clinic memorably says in 'Angels in America' by Tony Kushner:  “The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it.”

Rich left the NY Times this spring, after 31 years, where he was the lead Theatre Critic until 1994 when he became an Op-Ed columnist. He is now with my favorite publication- New York Magazine. Happy Birthday, Mr Rich!

On This Day In Gay History... The Stonewall Riots

I had to explain Stonewall to a group of 6 young people that I supervise. 2 of the group are gay. None of them had heard of Stonewall. I had to explain it to them, & they got an earful.

 It was just 50 years ago, homosexuals were classified as subversives by the US Department of State; we were officially recognized as security risks to the country. The FBI kept lists of known homosexuals, as did the US Postal Service. The names of people arrested for public indecency & lewd behavior  (men holding hands, women wearing suits) were published regularly in newspapers. Being queer was officially recognized as a psychopathic condition, & was a valid reason to be fired from your job. Gay men & women forced out of the government positionsby the 1000s each year. If gay people regularly congregated together, the police department’s “Public Morals Squad” would be called in to intervene. Police brutality was commonplace. Hope for the future was pretty bleak; there were no substantial gay rights organizations. The only real community gay people had was in underground establishments, often maintained with help from the Mafia, or by bribing the police.

On June 27, 1969, the NYC tactical police force raided a popular Greenwich Village gay bar- the Stonewall Inn. Raids were not unusual in 1969; in fact, they were conducted regularly without much resistance. But, that night the street erupted into violent protest as the crowds in the bar fought back. The backlash & several nights of protest that followed have come to be known as the Stonewall Riots.

Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives & experiences of gays & lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gay people into calls for pride & action. In the past 41 years, we have all been witness to an astonishing rise of gay culture that has changed this country & the world, forever.

NYTimes, July 29, 1969

Stonewall... 40 years later

"Before Stonewall, you took your life into your hands when you tried to be openly gay. Whenever we celebrate pride, a component of that pride should be that we are proud of our history & struggle & that we fought back against oppression & managed to have lives under that difficulty."
Martin Duberman, author of "Stonewall"

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, a group of Hispanics, hippies, drag queens, & queers got fed up with being harassed by the police because they were gay. It’s hard to imagine police handcuffing, harassing, & arresting gay people for simply gathering in public, but that’s what happened, routinely, before Stonewall’s spontaneous uprising of gay men & lesbians in New York’s Greenwich Village. What happened then galvanized the gay rights movemen?. For younger people, who have grown up in a world with increasing legal protections for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, & transgender (LGBT) community, it’s hard to imagine that just four decades ago, gay people’s jobs, families, & homes were threatened, & their lives restricted or ruined.

While not the first rebellion, the Stonewall riots are the most famous instance of homosexuals fighting back against government persecution. From all accounts, the riots were not pretty or organize. Stonewall was six nights of street riots with some of the least empowered elements of society: the closeted, fearful, & disenfranchised, fighting the police batons & pepper spray with what they had, mostly fists, signs, garbage cans, bottles, & shoes. For gay boomers, the uprising is a defining moment to celebrate as we look back at how far we have come in four short decades & look ahead to the future. In 1969, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn who refused to be intimidated by police oppression had no idea they were about to change history. They just wanted equality. In the 1950s, Rosa Parks had no idea she was about to change history when she refused to move to the back of the bus, either. As she famously recounted, "The reason that I did not move from my seat was that my feet were tired." From such humble origins, movements ignite.

I wonder what we’ll imagine next for the older LGBT community? I wonder if those on the front lines of gay "out" aging will keep walking that line between activism & diplomacy. If the first 40 years of our civil rights movement are any indication, will the next 40 take us into a future of greater equality, with more allies? Will the Stonewall legacy of fighting for being out & equality motivate us to pave new trails for gays & lesbians at age 50+? I think we owe that not only to ourselves & to the generations, but also to those who stood up for us at Stonewall.
I have continue to reflect on all the things many "baby queers" don't know about or care:
Harvey Milk?
Judy Garland?
Camp?
Musical Theatre?
you could be arrested for dancing with someone of the same sex ?
gay bars were hidden & "coded"?
no Internet?
Cole Porter?
Leonard Bernstein?
Tennessee Williams?
Truman Capote?
Montgomery Clift?
James Dean?
Dag Hammerskjold?
Rudolf Nuryev?
Ralph Waldo Emerson?
Walt Whitman?
Rock Hudson?
Tales Of The City?
Frida Kahlo?
Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert?
Billie Jean King?
Elton John?
George Michael?
Martina Navratilova?
Billie Jean King?
Greg Louganis?
no Manhunt?
no Craigslist?
Melissa Etheridge ?
no Madonna?
no Rosie?
no Ellen?
no Disco?
no Pride Parades?
no "talk" of same sex marriage?
no President or any politician who would use the word gay (Ronald Reagan?)?
no gay cable TV channels, hell- no cable TV!?!
Noel Coward?
Stephen Sondheim?
Ethel Merman?
Gertrude Stein?
Oscar Wilde?
Harvey Fierstein?
Lord Byron?
Dynasty?
Liza Minelli?
Proust?
Kander & Ebb?
Jerry Herman?
Broadway?
fucking without protection?


let us continue to add to the list...

Portland Pride

I have often been ambivalent about Pride celebrations, do we really need to celebrate something that we intrinsically "are"? Redhead Pride? Left Handed Pride? This weekend is Portland's Pride celebration. The events include a pet parade, a Drag Race, the ubiquitous Pride Parade, a festival on the waterfront in Downtown, & a two day "block party" in the area that comes closest to being a "gay ghetto" in Portland. Do we need Pride Celebrations? I think we do & I think that they are a positive thing for our community & for the world at large. Pride is an annual celebration of gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender people or any person who has different sexual or gender identities. The concept of Pride declares that sexual preference & gender identity are part of a person’s biological make-up & something to be proud of. Someday, when nobody cares that we are gay, when you don't have to worry about being called names or attacked, when there is no hate, when we have full equal rights under the law... maybe we can give up on Pride, until then here are some reasons why Pride is important:

Remembering STONEWALL (40 years ago this month)
celebrating that you are not alone, that there are others like you
celebrate the freedom to be who you are
visibility & strength in numbers
it's political, it's cultural
have fun, get drunk, be silly
Dykes On Bikes
activism
showcase the diversity of the Gay community- Queens, Queers, Drag Queens, Seniors, youth, Presbyterians, PGE workers, P-Flag, marching bands, Gay Chorus, Firemen, Police, dogs, Police dogs, families...
protest
cruise
Marriage Equality
to get rained on

to show how far we have come:




Will you add to this list?