A New Kind of Democracy? Political and Cultural Developments in the 1960s 435showed up weekly to collect a cash payoff since the bar did not have a liquor
license and did not meet many state sanitary laws. A doorman let customers
in and did his best to keep the cops out. It was the best-known gay bar in the
city. Police often raided the Stonewall, and other gay bars, but because of the
payoffs the managers and bartenders were often tipped off and kept the clients
from dancing, touching each other, or doing anything that the police might
use as an excuse to harass them. When raided, the bar patrons lined up
against the wall ad showed police their identification cards. Those who had
no ID or men dressed in drag were usually arrested, the others told to leave.
In June 1969, police raids were becoming more frequent and some gay bars
were forced to close. On June 29th, the police raided The Stonewall, but
something different happened. The patrons, tired of the harassment, fought
back and symbolically, and in reality, created the modern Gay Rights Movement.
To gays, it was their “Rosa Parks moment.”
There were 200 people in the bar that night, mostly men. When the police
came in a little after midnight and told them to line up for an ID check, they
did not cooperate, and they were all put under arrest. The police wagons were
not there yet, so many patrons went outside, and people on the streets and
from other bars came out to see what was happening, and the crowd grew to
about 150. When a lesbian resisted the police, she was hit on the head with
a billy club for complaining that her handcuffs were too tight and then a
police officer picked her up and threw her into the back of the wagon. The
crowd, now over 600 and mostly gay, had enough and tried to overturn the
police wagon and threw coins and beer bottles at the police. Some officers
went inside The Stonewall for their own safety but the crowd continued the
barrage, throwing garbage cans, rocks, and bricks inside the bar. More police
arrived and got the cops out of The Stonewall, detained anyone they could,
and sent them off to jail. By 4 A.M. the streets were clear and 13 people had
been arrested. The Stonewall was a wreck as the patrons, and possibly the
cops, broke pay phones, toilets, mirrors, cigarette machines, and the jukebox
in their fight against the police. Word of the Stonewall “riot” spread through-
out the gay community and thousands showed up the next night, starting fires
in garbage cans and again getting into fights with the police who had been
once more called out to stop the disturbance. Another battle raged until 4
A.M. While called a “riot” by the police and media, the events at Stonewall
were a political uprising, provoked by years of oppression, harassment, and