Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. It said the most dreadful things, it said nothing about being a person. Andrea Weiss is a documentary filmmaker and author with a Ph.D. in American History. Fifty years ago, a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn was raided by police, and what followed were days of rebellion where protesters and police clashed. They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. Dick Leitsch:Mattachino in Italy were court jesters; the only people in the whole kingdom who could speak truth to the king because they did it with a smile. And that's what it was, it was a war. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, we did use the small hoses on the fire extinguishers. Oh, tell me about your anxiety. Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. They could be judges, lawyers. ", Martin Boyce:People in the neighborhood, the most unlikely people were starting to support it. 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. If anybody should find out I was gay and would tell my mother, who was in a wheelchair, it would have broken my heart and she would have thought she did something wrong. 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. They can be anywhere. When we got dressed for that night, we had cocktails and we put the makeup on. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. You were alone. Ellinor Mitchell 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. All of the rules that I had grown up with, and that I had hated in my guts, other people were fighting against, and saying "No, it doesn't have to be this way.". Marcus spoke with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his conversations with leaders of the gay-rights movement, as well as people who were at Stonewall when the riots broke out. Before Stonewall 1984 Unrated 1 h 27 m IMDb RATING 7.5 /10 1.1K YOUR RATING Rate Play trailer 2:21 1 Video 7 Photos Documentary History The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. John Scagliotti 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. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. 1984 documentary film by Greta Schiller and Robert Rosenberg, "Berlinale 2016: Panorama Celebrates Teddy Award's 30th Anniversary and Announces First Titles in Programme", "Guest Post: What I Learned From Revisiting My 1984 Documentary 'Before Stonewall', "See the 25 New Additions to the National Film Registry, From Purple Rain to Clerks", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Before Stonewall - Independent Historical Film", Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (Newly Restored), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Before_Stonewall&oldid=1134540821, Documentary films about United States history, Historiography of LGBT in the United States, United States National Film Registry films, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 19 January 2023, at 05:30. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. 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. Suzanne Poli I mean I'm talking like sardines. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. Because if they weren't there fast, I was worried that there was something going on that I didn't know about and they weren't gonna come. 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. We went, "Oh my God. Stonewall Forever is a documentary from NYC's LGBT Community Center directed by Ro Haber. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. 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. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. 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. How do you think that would affect him mentally, for the rest of their lives if they saw an act like that being? That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Never, never, never. 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. So I run down there. And I think it's both the alienation, also the oppression that people suffered. And so Howard said, "We've got police press passes upstairs." Urban Stages Is that conceivable? Doug Cramer Tires were slashed on police cars and it just went on all night long. Martin Boyce:I had cousins, ten years older than me, and they had a car sometimes. Charles Harris, Transcriptions William Eskridge, Professor of Law:The Stonewall riots came at a central point in history. I never saw so many gay people dancing in my life. The shop had been threatened, we would get hang-up calls, calls where people would curse at us on the phone, we'd had vandalism, windows broken, streams of profanity. All the rules were off in the '60s. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. 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. Jerry Hoose:Gay people who had good jobs, who had everything in life to lose, were starting to join in. Samual Murkofsky This 19-year-old serviceman left his girlfriend on the beach to go to a men's room in a park nearby where he knew that he could find a homosexual contact. His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. The music was great, cafes were good, you know, the coffee houses were good. Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. 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. The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School The award winning film Before Stonewall pries open the closet door, setting free the dramatic story of the sometimes horrifying public and private existences experienced by gay and lesbian Americans since the 1920s. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" Narrator (Archival):Note how Albert delicately pats his hair, and adjusts his collar. Trevor, Post Production It eats you up inside. And the police were showing up. It is usually after the day at the beach that the real crime occurs. I really thought that, you know, we did it. It was right in the center of where we all were. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. 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. Jerry Hoose:And we were going fast. And if enough people broke through they would be killed and I would be killed. Eric Marcus, Recreation Still Photography You see, Ralph was a homosexual. In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. 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. Homosexuals do not want that, you might find some fringe character someplace who says that that's what he wants. Martin Boyce:There were these two black, like, banjee guys, and they were saying, "What's goin' on man?" We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Well, little did he know that what was gonna to happen later on was to make history. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. There was no going back now, there was no going back, there was no, we had discovered a power that we weren't even aware that we had. Not able to do anything. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. Martin Boyce:I heard about the trucks, which to me was fascinated me, you know, it had an imagination thing that was like Marseilles, how can it only be a few blocks away? Danny Garvin:And the cops just charged them. 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. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. Long before marriage equality, non-binary gender identity, and the flood of new documentaries commemorating this month's 50th anniversary of the Greenwich Village uprising that begat the gay rights movement, there was Greta Schiller's Before Stonewall.Originally released in 1984as AIDS was slowly killing off many of those bar patrons-turned-revolutionariesthe film, through the use of . We didn't want to come on, you know, wearing fuzzy sweaters and lipstick, you know, and being freaks. Dr. Socarides (Archival):I think the whole idea of saying "the happy homosexual" is to, uh, to create a mythology about the nature of homosexuality. A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Nobody. Raymond Castro:New York City subways, parks, public bathrooms, you name it. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Before Stonewall. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Frank Kameny 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. Other images in this film are Martha Shelley Lester Senior Housing Community, Jewish Community Housing Corporation That's more an uprising than a riot. It was an age of experimentation. On this episode, the fight for gay rights before Stonewall. Danny Garvin:Something snapped. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. Windows started to break. I had never seen anything like that. It was as if they were identifying a thing. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement. And here they were lifting things up and fighting them and attacking them and beating them. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. The term like "authority figures" wasn't used back then, there was just "Lily Law," "Patty Pig," "Betty Badge." WGBH Educational Foundation New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. A sickness of the mind. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. The Underground Lounge Heather Gude, Archival Research 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. David Alpert So you couldn't have a license to practice law, you couldn't be a licensed doctor. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Dick Leitsch:So it was mostly goofing really, basically goofing on them. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. You see these cops, like six or eight cops in drag. Chris Mara And you felt bad that you were part of this, when you knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was that? Gay bars were to gay people what churches were to blacks in the South. Giles Kotcher