‘Before Stonewell’ LGBT community united under the rainbow
The 1960s exposed inequities
some Americans endured
in a country described by
Francis Scott Key in 1814
when he penned it to be “the
land of the free and the home
of the brave.”
During that eventful decade,
the struggle for Civil
Rights Newly united disfranchised
citizens willing to
prove the anthemic words to
be feasible.
Up north and down south
Blacks picketed, marched,
demonstrated and defied Jim
Crow laws in order to exalt the
lyrics that manifested in the
national anthem in 1931 to
become a kind of calling card
for global citizens yearning to
be free.
By 1964, President Lyndon
B. Johnson was moved to sign
the Civil Rights Act which prohibits
discrimination in public
places. With the stroke of a
pen the most sweeping Civil
Rights legislation became the
order of the day.
Not since Reconstruction
had any such action afforded
freedom for Blacks to pursue
education, housing, employment
and the right of assembly
afforded Caucasians.
In pursuit of establishing
his own identity, Johnson who
was vice president to President
John F. Kennedy before
he was assassinated proposed
“A Great Society.”
From the White House, the
southerner enacted what is
now a historic landmark legislation.
It would take five more
years until another oppressed
citizenry publicly demanded
equality.
Probably exhausted from
repeating the same tedious
tactics other disfranchised
groups exercised in order to
win a measure of acceptability,
on June 28, 1969 members
of the gay and lesbian community
rioted to win attention
with the Stonewall Uprising.
For three consecutive nights
at a gay and lesbian club in
Greenwich Village, known as
Stonewall Inn, members of
the LGBT community rebelled
against police brutality.
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Allegedly the NYPD had
consistently harassed members
of the community who
publicly identified themselves
LGBT. An already contentious
relationship existed
due to alleged early morning
raids, arrests and unfair
discriminatory practices from
the NYPD. Therefore, it was
almost understandable when
Village residents sided with
clubbers who resisted when
NYPD enforcers showed up to
exercise what had become a
ritual of unwarranted arrests
on this particular night.
“We’re not going to take
this anymore!” signaled a
decided action to fight back
after police allegedly conducted
body searches and
other dehumanizing forms of
humiliation.
Police vans known then
as paddy wagons backed up
to the club to fill the entire
patronage that reveled inside.
Patrons refused to budge.
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Many resisted.
The following night a larger
resistance movement challenged
police.
Residents of Greenwich Village
protested in solidarity.
Local newspapers featured
the protests and by the third
night, the tiny club made lead
story point on national newscasts.
For the 50th anniversary a
film titled “Before Stonewall”
provides documentation of the
horrific Civil Rights violation
that spawned a movement.
Through a decade by decade
account, co-directors
Greta Schiller and Robert
Rosenburg detail through eyewitness
accounts, interviews,
archival video footage and pictures
what life was like living
under a radar of suspicion,
disdain and a city and state
that sanctioned persecution
of the sexes.
Although NY claims the
locale for the revolutionary
action, San Francisco, California
is featured for its more
tolerant approach to the then
illegal lifestyle.
Trinidad & Tobago gets a
spotlight in calypso when an
individual testifies about finding
same-sex love in the Car-
A Pride fl ag fl utters in the wind.
Inside Life
By Vinette K. Pryce
Continued on Page 16
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