Now, 50 years later, the film is back. Before Stonewall (1984) - Plot Summary - IMDb It was as bad as any situation that I had met in during the army, had just as much to worry about. The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. Cop (Archival):Anyone can walk into that men's room, any child can walk in there, and see what you guys were doing. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. Fred Sargeant:In the '60s, I met Craig Rodwell who was running the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. Meanwhile, there was crowds forming outside the Stonewall, wanting to know what was going on. Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. 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. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. 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. There are a lot of kids here. We could lose our memory from the beating, we could be in wheelchairs like some were. The film combined personal interviews, snapshots and home movies, together with historical footage. Windows started to break. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. 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. Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International 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. Pennebaker courtesy of Pennebaker Hegedus Films Don't fire until I fire. And the rest of your life will be a living hell. Slate:Activity Group Therapy (1950), Columbia University Educational Films. That wasn't ours, it was borrowed. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. Alexandra Meryash Nikolchev, On-Line Editors Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:The Stonewall, they didn't have a liquor license and they were raided by the cops regularly and there were pay-offs to the cops, it was awful. Abstract. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. Queer was very big. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. You know, Howard's concern was and my concern was that if all hell broke loose, they'd just start busting heads. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. Louis Mandelbaum Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. The events of that night have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Everyone from the street kids who were white and black kids from the South. Why 'Before Stonewall' Was Such a Hard Movie to Make - The Atlantic David Alpert We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. Beginning of our night out started early. That's what happened on June 28, but as people were released, the night took an unusual turn when protesters and police clashed. But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. And I just didn't understand that. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. But, that's when we knew, we were ourselves for the first time. Frank Kameny The events that took place in June 1969 have been described as the birth of the gay-rights movement, but that's only partially true. I was a homosexual. You cut one head off. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. Dick Leitsch:New York State Liquor Authority had a rule that one known homosexual at a licensed premise made the place disorderly, so nobody would set up a place where we could meet because they were afraid that the cops would come in to close it, and that's how the Mafia got into the gay bar business. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. All the rules were off in the '60s. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The police would zero in on us because sometimes they would be in plain clothes, and sometimes they would even entrap. John DiGiacomo John O'Brien:And then somebody started a fire, they started with little lighters and matches. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. The ones that came close you could see their faces in rage. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Just let's see if they can. Paul Bosche Before Stonewall. And that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chik-n-Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the Village. Fifty years ago, a riot broke out at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Martin Boyce:It was another great step forward in the story of human rights, that's what it was. There were occasions where you did see people get night-sticked, or disappear into a group of police and, you know, everybody knew that was not going to have a good end. 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." A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free dramatic stories from the early 1900's onwards of public and private existence as experienced by LGBT Americans. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. You had no place to try to find an identity. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:The moment you stepped out that door there would be hundreds facing you. Daniel Pine Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:There were complaints from people who objected to the wrongful behavior of some gays who would have sex on the street. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. I was a man. I mean they were making some headway. The mirrors, all the bottles of liquor, the jukebox, the cigarette machines. It was a 100% profit, I mean they were stealing the liquor, then watering it down, and they charging twice as much as they charged one door away at the 55. Judith Kuchar 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 . Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. It won the Best Film Award at the Houston International Film Festival, Best Documentary Feature at Filmex, First Place at the National Educational Film Festival, and Honorable Mention at the Global Village Documentary Festival. And the cops got that. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Eric Marcus, Writer:It was incredibly hot. People talk about being in and out now, there was no out, there was just in. So it was a perfect storm for the police. Hugh Bush Clever. They were to us. You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. What Jimmy didn't know is that Ralph was sick. And in a sense the Stonewall riots said, "Get off our backs, deliver on the promise." Patricia Yusah, Marketing and Communications Raymond Castro:If that light goes on, you know to stop whatever you're doing, and separate. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. Your choice, you can come in with us or you can stay out here with the crowd and report your stuff from out here. 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. I first engaged in such acts when I was 14 years old. They were supposed to be weak men, limp-wristed. It was a horror story. Martin Boyce:Mind you socks didn't count, so it was underwear, and undershirt, now the next thing was going to ruin the outfit. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography And so there was this drag queen standing on the corner, so they go up and make a sexual offer and they'd get busted. Susana Fernandes I never believed in that. We were thinking about survival. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:At the peak, as many as 500 people per year were arrested for the crime against nature, and between 3- and 5,000 people per year arrested for various solicitation or loitering crimes. You know, all of a sudden, I had brothers and sisters, you know, which I didn't have before. We knew that this was a moment that we didn't want to let slip past, because it was something that we could use to bring more of the groups together. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. 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. He may appear normal, and it may be too late when you discover he is mentally ill. John O'Brien:I was a poor, young gay person. 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. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. For the first time, we weren't letting ourselves be carted off to jails, gay people were actually fighting back just the way people in the peace movement fought back. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. So anything that would set us off, we would go into action. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. I famously used the word "fag" in the lead sentence I said "the forces of faggotry." Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. So gay people were being strangled, shot, thrown in the river, blackmailed, fired from jobs. I made friends that first day. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The federal government would fire you, school boards would fire you. One was the 1845 statute that made it a crime in the state to masquerade. 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. Vanessa Ezersky Susan Liberti They didn't know what they were walking into. Alexis Charizopolis Where did you buy it? A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a man during a confrontation in Greenwich Village after a Gay Power march in New York. It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. John O'Brien:I was with a group that we actually took a parking meter out of theground, three or four people, and we used it as a battering ram. And when she grabbed that everybody knew she couldn't do it alone so all the other queens, Congo Woman, queens like that started and they were hitting that door. Getty Images David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. That's more an uprising than a riot. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." We went, "Oh my God. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. That was our world, that block. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. Before Stonewall : Throughline : NPR Jerry Hoose:The bar itself was a toilet. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. It was terrifying. The lights came on, it's like stop dancing. Naturally, you get careless, you fall for it, and the next thing you know, you have silver bracelets on both arms. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt I was proud. 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. 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." Michael Dolan, Technical Advisors Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. John O'Brien:In the Civil Rights Movement, we ran from the police, in the peace movement, we ran from the police. Stonewall Uprising | American Experience | PBS Danny Garvin:We had thought of women's rights, we had thought of black rights, all kinds of human rights, but we never thought of gay rights, and whenever we got kicked out of a bar before, we never came together. So I got into the subway, and on the car was somebody I recognized and he said, "I've never been so scared in my life," and I said, "Well, please let there be more than ten of us, just please let there be more than ten of us. It eats you up inside not being comfortable with yourself. Dick Leitsch:Very often, they would put the cops in dresses, with makeup and they usually weren't very convincing. Brief Summary Of The Documentary 'Before Stonewall' | Bartleby All I knew about was that I heard that there were people down in Times Square who were gay and that's where I went to. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. Never, never, never. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. I had never seen anything like that. But we're going to pay dearly for this. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. Historic Films Doug Cramer The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." Ellen Goosenberg Jerry Hoose And all of a sudden, pandemonium broke loose. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. We'd say, "Here comes Lillian.". They frequent their own clubs, and bars and coffee houses, where they can escape the disapproving eye of the society that they call straight. PDF BEFORE STONEWALL press kit - First Run Features Diana Davies Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had been in some gay bars either for a story or gay friends would say, "Oh we're going to go in for a drink there, come on in, are you too uptight to go in?" Oddball Film + Video, San Francisco They could be judges, lawyers. 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. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. 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. The police weren't letting us dance. Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. We love to hear from our listeners! But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Slate:Perversion for Profit(1965), Citizens for Decency Through Law. BBC Worldwide Americas Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. The men's room was under police surveillance. 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. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. A year earlier, young gays, lesbians and transgender people clashed with police near a bar called The Stonewall Inn. Martha Babcock The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. Homosexuality was a dishonorable discharge in those days, and you couldn't get a job afterwards. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. I have pondered this as "Before Stonewall," my first feature documentary, is back in cinemas after 35 years. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. And then as you turned into the other room with the jukebox, those were the drag queens around the jukebox. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. I guess they're deviates. Before Stonewall - Letterboxd Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Richard Enman (Archival):Present laws give the adult homosexual only the choice of being, to simplify the matter, heterosexual and legal or homosexual and illegal. I really thought that, you know, we did it. Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. And there was tear gas on Saturday night, right in front of the Stonewall. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We were looking for secret exits and one of the policewomen was able to squirm through the window and they did find a way out. It was first released in 1984 with its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and its European premiere at the Berlinale, followed by a successful theatrical release in many countries and a national broadcast on PBS. Jerry Hoose:Who was gonna complain about a crackdown against gay people? But it's serious, don't kid yourselves about it. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. It's the first time I'm fully inside the Stonewall. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. People cheer while standing in front of The Stonewall Inn as the annual Gay Pride parade passes, Sunday, June 26, 2011 in New York. Raymond Castro:I'd go in there and I would look and I would just cringe because, you know, people would start touching me, and "Hello, what are you doing there if you don't want to be touched?" Transcript A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. But we couldn't hold out very long. Ellinor Mitchell 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.". Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy He said, "Okay, let's go." Doric Wilson Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. This time they said, "We're not going." We were going to propose something that all groups could participate in and what we ended up producing was what's now known as the gay pride march. It was like a reward. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? They are taught that no man is born homosexual and many psychiatrists now believe that homosexuality begins to form in the first three years of life. Producers Library It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. In the trucks or around the trucks. We were all there. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. Martin Boyce:Well, in the front part of the bar would be like "A" gays, like regular gays, that didn't go in any kind of drag, didn't use the word "she," that type, but they were gay, a hundred percent gay. Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. It was tremendous freedom. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. Jerry Hoose:I was chased down the street with billy clubs. Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. 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. And they were lucky that door was closed, they were very lucky. MacDonald & Associates This is one thing that if you don't get caught by us, you'll be caught by yourself. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Before Stonewall was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 1985 Sundance Film Festival. The cops were barricaded inside. Joe DeCola and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? 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. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. Seymour Wishman They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. NBC News Archives And they were gay. On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. So I attempted suicide by cutting my wrists. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. You see, Ralph was a homosexual. It must have been terrifying for them. Because one out of three of you will turn queer. We were winning. It was right in the center of where we all were. Danny Garvin
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