before stonewall documentary transcript

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. Danny Garvin:With Waverly Street coming in there, West Fourth coming in there, Seventh Avenue coming in there, Christopher Street coming in there, there was no way to contain us. Martin Boyce:We were like a Hydra. Based on Frank Simon's documentary follows the drag contestants of 1967's Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant, capturing plenty of on- and offstage drama along the way. WPA Film Library, Thanks to Lauren Noyes. And we all relaxed. Dick Leitsch:You read about Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams and Gore Vidal and all these actors and stuff, Liberace and all these people running around doing all these things and then you came to New York and you found out, well maybe they're doing them but, you know, us middle-class homosexuals, we're getting busted all the time, every time we have a place to go, it gets raided. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. Martha Shelley:If you were in a small town somewhere, everybody knew you and everybody knew what you did and you couldn't have a relationship with a member of your own sex, period. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Things were being thrown against the plywood, we piled things up to try to buttress it. Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. TV Host (Archival):That's a very lovely dress too that you're wearing Simone. Then the cops come up and make use of what used to be called the bubble-gum machine, back then a cop car only had one light on the top that spun around. There were gay bars in Midtown, there were gay bars uptown, there were certain kinds of gay bars on the Upper East Side, you know really, really, really buttoned-up straight gay bars. Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors People standing on cars, standing on garbage cans, screaming, yelling. Jerry Hoose Doug Cramer Because that's what they were looking for, any excuse to try to bust the place. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. Daniel Pine The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. I was celebrating my birthday at the Stonewall. Vanessa Ezersky In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. 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. John O'Brien:Cops got hurt. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:At a certain point, it felt pretty dangerous to me but I noticed that the cop that seemed in charge, he said you know what, we have to go inside for safety. But everybody knew it wasn't normal stuff and everyone was on edge and that was the worst part of it because you knew they were on edge and you knew that the first shot that was fired meant all the shots would be fired. Martin Boyce:You could be beaten, you could have your head smashed in a men's room because you were looking the wrong way. The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. Hear more of the conversation and historical interviews at the audio link. June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. As you read, keep in mind that LGBTQ+ is a relatively new term and, while queer people have always existed, the terminology has changed frequently over the years. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Today, that event is seen as the start of the gay civil rights movement, but gay activists and organizations were standing up to harassment and discrimination years before. J. Michael Grey But it was a refuge, it was a temporary refuge from the street. Don't fire until I fire. Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. Danny Garvin 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. Narrator (Archival):Do you want your son enticed into the world of homosexuals, or your daughter lured into lesbianism? I said, "I can go in with you?" Giles Kotcher It was done in our little street talk. Paul Bosche Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution Raymond Castro:Incendiary devices were being thrown in I don't think they were Molotov cocktails, but it was just fire being thrown in when the doors got open. It was a down at a heels kind of place, it was a lot of street kids and things like that. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:That night I'm in my office, I looked down the street, and I could see the Stonewall sign and I started to see some activity in front. Jerry Hoose:And I got to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, crossed the street and there I had found Nirvana. Where did you buy it? In 1969 it was common for police officers to rough up a gay bar and ask for payoffs. A sickness that was not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious. Narrator (Archival):Sure enough, the following day, when Jimmy finished playing ball, well, the man was there waiting. Narrated by Rita Mae Brownan acclaimed writer whose 1973 novel Rubyfruit Jungle is a seminal lesbian text, but who is possessed of a painfully grating voiceBefore Stonewall includes vintage news footage that makes it clear that gay men and women lived full, if often difficult, lives long before their personal ambitions (however modest) That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. There are a lot of kids here. Things were just changing. I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. Transcript Aired June 9, 2020 Stonewall Uprising The Year That Changed America Film Description When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of. Fred Sargeant:Things started off small, but there was an energy that began to flow through the crowd. But I gave it up about, oh I forget, some years ago, over four years ago. Martha Shelley:In those days, what they would do, these psychiatrists, is they would try to talk you into being heterosexual. It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. Daily News I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. I hope it was. The overwhelming number of medical authorities said that homosexuality was a mental defect, maybe even a form of psychopathy. The idea was to be there first. She was awarded the first ever Emmy Award for Research for her groundbreaking work on Before Stonewall. Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisings included: Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967 Black Night Brawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961. You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Danny Garvin:It was the perfect time to be in the Village. Geoff Kole And some people came out, being very dramatic, throwing their arms up in a V, you know, the victory sign. Somebody grabbed me by the leg and told me I wasn't going anywhere. Dick Leitsch:And the blocks were small enough that we could run around the block and come in behind them before they got to the next corner. "You could have got us in a lot of trouble, you could have got us closed up." Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:If someone was dressed as a woman, you had to have a female police officer go in with her. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . I would get in the back of the car and they would say, "We're going to go see faggots." The documentary "Before Stonewall" was very educational and interesting because it shows a retail group that fought for the right to integrate into the society and was where the homosexual revolution occurred. 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. Liz Davis [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. Noah Goldman Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:It was a bottle club which meant that I guess you went to the door and you bought a membership or something for a buck and then you went in and then you could buy drinks. It's not my cup of tea. Doric Wilson:There was joy because the cops weren't winning. That's what gave oxygen to the fire. Other images in this film are Because one out of three of you will turn queer. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:Those of us that were the street kids we didn't think much about the past or the future. 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. John Scagliotti And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. It was an age of experimentation. This was in front of the police. I really thought that, you know, we did it. 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. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. It must have been terrifying for them. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:The Stonewall pulled in everyone from every part of gay life. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. And I just didn't understand that. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. Because to be gay represented to me either very, super effeminate men or older men who hung out in the upper movie theatres on 42nd Street or in the subway T-rooms, who'd be masturbating. 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. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. He brought in gay-positive materials and placed that in a setting that people could come to and feel comfortable in. John O'Brien:Our goal was to hurt those police. Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. If that didn't work, they would do things like aversive conditioning, you know, show you pornography and then give you an electric shock. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. In the Life TV Host (Archival):Ladies and gentlemen, the reason for using first names only forthese very, very charming contestants is that right now each one of them is breaking the law. 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. And I ran into Howard Smith on the street,The Village Voicewas right there. Almost anything you could name. These homosexuals glorify unnatural sex acts. Sophie Cabott Black [1] To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in 2019, the film was restored and re-released by First Run Features in June 2019. For the first time the next person stood up. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. The severity of the punishment varies from state to state. Dick Leitsch:There were Black Panthers and there were anti-war people. Evan Eames They were afraid that the FBI was following them. Barbara Gittings and Kay Tobin Lahusen Gay History Papers and Photographs, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations In an effort to avoid being anachronistic . It's like, this is not right. This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. And the first gay power demonstration to my knowledge was against my story inThe Village Voiceon Wednesday. So I run down there. 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. 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. There was all these drags queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. Slate:Boys Beware(1961) Public Service Announcement. Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. Getting then in the car, rocking them back and forth. 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. Queer was very big. This was a highly unusual raid, going in there in the middle of the night with a full crowd, the Mafia hasn't been alerted, the Sixth Precinct hasn't been alerted. David Huggins Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. 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. That was scary, very scary. I made friends that first day. Original Language: English. We don't know. John O'Brien:The election was in November of 1969 and this was the summer of 1969, this was June. Revealing and often humorous, this widely acclaimed film relives the emotionally-charged sparking of today's gay rights movement . They'd go into the bathroom or any place that was private, that they could either feel them, or check them visually. It meant nothing to us. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had a column inThe Village Voicethat ran from '66 all the way through '84. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Ellinor Mitchell Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. A medievalist. 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. Tom Caruso Jerry Hoose:I mean the riot squad was used to riots. He said, "Okay, let's go." The scenes were photographed with telescopic lenses. Geordie, Liam and Theo Gude I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. Yvonne Ritter:It's like people who are, you know, black people who are used to being mistreated, and going to the back of the bus and I guess this was sort of our going to the back of the bus. hide caption. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Gay people who were sentenced to medical institutions because they were found to be sexual psychopaths, were subjected sometimes to sterilization, occasionally to castration, sometimes to medical procedures, such as lobotomies, which were felt by some doctors to cure homosexuality and other sexual diseases. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. 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? Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. Leroy S. Mobley And once that happened, the whole house of cards that was the system of oppression of gay people started to crumble. All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. The events. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. It was the only time I was in a gladiatorial sport that I stood up in. That was our world, that block. 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. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. Saying I don't want to be this way, this is not the life I want. Abstract. Raymond Castro:If that light goes on, you know to stop whatever you're doing, and separate. Yvonne Ritter:I did try to get out of the bar and I thought that there might be a way out through one of the bathrooms. 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. People could take shots at us. 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. Janice Flood For those kisses. Danny Garvin:We were talking about the revolution happening and we were walking up 7th Avenue and I was thinking it was either Black Panthers or the Young Lords were going to start it and we turned the corner from 7th Avenue onto Christopher Street and we saw the paddy wagon pull up there. I could never let that happen and never did. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. And, it was, I knew I would go through hell, I would go through fire for that experience. Dan Bodner William Eskridge, Professor of Law:In states like New York, there were a whole basket of crimes that gay people could be charged with. National History Archive, LGBT Community Center 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. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. Do you understand me?". You had no place to try to find an identity. We went, "Oh my God. Raymond Castro:We were in the back of the room, and the lights went on, so everybody stopped what they were doing, because now the police started coming in, raiding the bar. 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. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. Because as the police moved back, we were conscious, all of us, of the area we were controlling and now we were in control of the area because we were surrounded the bar, we were moving in, they were moving back. Before Stonewall 1984 Directed by Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg Synopsis 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. Barney Karpfinger But the before section, I really wanted people to have a sense of what it felt like to be gay, lesbian, transgender, before Stonewall and before you have this mass civil rights movement that comes after Stonewall. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:They started busting cans of tear gas. 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. Never, never, never. 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. 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. John O'Brien:Heterosexuals, legally, had lots of sexual outlets. MacDonald & Associates Genre: Documentary, History, Drama. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. Hugh Bush Raymond Castro:There were mesh garbage cans being lit up on fire and being thrown at the police. Raymond Castro:Society expected you to, you know, grow up, get married, have kids, which is what a lot of people did to satisfy their parents. Judith Kuchar Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips . Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Mike Wallace (Archival):Dr. Charles Socarides is a New York psychoanalyst at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. They frequent their own clubs, and bars and coffee houses, where they can escape the disapproving eye of the society that they call straight. Martin Boyce:That was our only block. We didn't necessarily know where we were going yet, you know, what organizations we were going to be or how things would go, but we became something I, as a person, could all of a sudden grab onto, that I couldn't grab onto when I'd go to a subway T-room as a kid, or a 42nd street movie theater, you know, or being picked up by some dirty old man. The homosexual, bitterly aware of his rejection, responds by going underground. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:We would scatter, ka-poom, every which way. You cut one head off. John O'Brien:I was very anti-police, had many years already of activism against the forces of law and order. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. Directors Greta Schiller Robert Rosenberg (co-director) Stars Rita Mae Brown Maua Adele Ajanaku and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. Danny Garvin:We became a people. It was tremendous freedom. And there was like this tension in the air and it just like built and built. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. Doric Wilson:That's what happened Stonewall night to a lot of people. It was narrated by author Rita Mae Brown, directed by Greta Schiller, co-directed by Robert Rosenberg, and co-produced by John Scagliotti and Rosenberg, and Schiller. Not able to do anything. You needed a license even to be a beautician and that could be either denied or taken away from you. The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Teddy Awards, the film was shown at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. In the sexual area, in psychology, psychiatry. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. The most infamous of those institutions was Atascadero, in California. Now, 50 years later, the film is back. Audience Member (Archival):I was wondering if you think that there are any quote "happy homosexuals" for whom homosexuality would be, in a way, their best adjustment in life? A CBS news public opinion survey indicates that sentiment is against permitting homosexual relationships between consenting adults without legal punishment. I wanted to kill those cops for the anger I had in me. And if we catch you, involved with a homosexual, your parents are going to know about it first. And the Stonewall was part of that system. First you gotta get past the door. Creating the First Visual History of Queer Life Before Stonewall Making a landmark documentary about LGBTQ Americans before 1969 meant digging through countless archives to find traces of. 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. Even non-gay people. 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. 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. Doric Wilson:Somebody that I knew that was older than me, his family had him sent off where they go up and damage the frontal part of the brain. But as visibility increased, the reactions of people increased. Available on Prime Video, Tubi TV, iTunes. And Dick Leitsch, who was the head of the Mattachine Society said, "Who's in favor?" 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. Dan Martino Beginning of our night out started early. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." If there's one place in the world where you can dance and feel yourself fully as a person and that's threatened with being taken away, those words are fighting words. Eric Marcus, Writer:Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out. Mike Wallace (Archival):The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. And they were gay. And you will be caught, don't think you won't be caught, because this is one thing you cannot get away with. by David Carter, Associate Producer and Advisor Martha Shelley:We participated in demonstrations in Philadelphia at Independence Hall. And as I'm looking around to see what's going on, police cars, different things happening, it's getting bigger by the minute. 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. [00:00:58] Well, this I mean, this is a part of my own history in this weird, inchoate sense. But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. And it was fantastic. That's more an uprising than a riot. And she was quite crazy. And the cops got that. Alan Lechner Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. It was a real good sound to know that, you know, you had a lot of people out there pulling for you. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. Martin Boyce:And I remember moving into the open space and grabbing onto two of my friends and we started singing and doing a kick line. William Eskridge, Professor of Law:Ed Koch who was a democratic party leader in the Greenwich Village area, was a specific leader of the local forces seeking to clean up the streets. And that, that was a very haunting issue for me. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:Saturday night there it was. John DiGiacomo But we're going to pay dearly for this.

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