before stonewall documentary transcript

They raided the Checkerboard, which was a very popular gay bar, a week before the Stonewall. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:All of a sudden, in the background I heard some police cars. We were all there. In 1999, producer Scagliotti directed a companion piece, After Stonewall. The only faces you will see are those of the arresting officers. They would bang on the trucks. TV Host (Archival):And Sonia is that your own hair? Martin Boyce:It was thrilling. I mean, I came out in Central Park and other places. Jerry Hoose Prisoner (Archival):I realize that, but the thing is that for life I'll be wrecked by this record, see? The New York Times / Redux Pictures It was fun to see fags. Raymond Castro:You could hear screaming outside, a lot of noise from the protesters and it was a good sound. Gay bars were always on side streets out of the way in neighborhoods that nobody would go into. The documentary shows how homosexual people enjoyed and shared with each other. 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. 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. Jerry Hoose:The police would come by two or three times a night. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. I hope it was. 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 a couple of 'em had pulled out their guns. 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 cops would hide behind the walls of the urinals. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:I never bought a drink at the Stonewall. Martin Boyce:I wasn't labeled gay, just "different." We don't know. [00:00:55] Oh, my God. We were scared. We knew it was a gay bar, we walked past it. Fred Sargeant:Three articles of clothing had to be of your gender or you would be in violation of that law. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Based on I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. Jerry Hoose:I was afraid it was over. It was one of the things you did in New York, it was like the Barnum and Bailey aspect of it. 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. It was a way to vent my anger at being repressed. 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. Chris Mara 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. People could take shots at us. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Well, I had to act like I wasn't nervous. 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. But the . Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Daniel Pine Obama signed the memorandum to extend benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States. 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. When you exit, have some identification and it'll be over in a short time." I just thought you had to get through this, and I thought I could get through it, but you really had to be smart about it. The very idea of being out, it was ludicrous. David Huggins It's a history that people feel a huge sense of ownership over. We could easily be hunted, that was a game. Slate:In 1969, homosexual acts were illegal in every state except Illinois. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. 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. Seymour Wishman We had been threatened bomb threats. There are a lot of kids here. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. NBC News Archives Before Stonewall : Throughline : NPR Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:It really should have been called Stonewall uprising. Many of those activists have since died, but Marcus preserved their voices for his book, titled Making Gay History. And Vito and I walked the rest of the whole thing with tears running down our face. archives.nypl.org -- Before Stonewall production files People that were involved in it like me referred to it as "The First Run." Susana Fernandes And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." Hugh Bush This, to a homosexual, is no choice at all. I made friends that first day. Mike Wallace (Archival):Two out of three Americans look upon homosexuals with disgust, discomfort or fear. And these were meat trucks that in daytime were used by the meat industry for moving dead produce, and they really reeked, but at nighttime, that's where people went to have sex, you know, and there would be hundreds and hundreds of men having sex together in these trucks. They'd think I'm a cop even though I had a big Jew-fro haircut and a big handlebar mustache at the time. Queer was very big. Director . 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." 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. I was in the Navy when I was 17 and it was there that I discovered that I was gay. Narrator (Archival):We arrested homosexuals who committed their lewd acts in public places. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Never, never, never. It premiered at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United States on June 27, 1985. A Q-Ball Productions film for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE That never happened before. We didn't expect we'd ever get to Central Park. David Carter And that's what it was, it was a war. 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. John O'Brien:They had increased their raids in the trucks. Here are my ID cards, you knew they were phonies. 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. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots. Tom Caruso It was an age of experimentation. A person marching in a gay rights parade along New York's Fifth Avenue on July 7th, 1979. hide caption. American Airlines If you came to a place like New York, you at least had the opportunity of connecting with people, and finding people who didn't care that you were gay. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." 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. I could never let that happen and never did. For the first time the next person stood up. For those kisses. Alexis Charizopolis It's not my cup of tea. Other images in this film are either recreations or drawn from events of the time. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. Before Stonewall (1984) - IMDb Revisiting the newly restored "Before Stonewall" 35 years after its premiere, Rosenberg said he was once again struck by its "powerful" and "acutely relevant" narrative. John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. 400 Plankinton Ave. Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966 Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959 Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. From left: "Before Stonewall" director Greta Schiller, executive producer John Scagliotti and co-director Robert Rosenberg in 1985. 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." Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? It was nonsense, it was nonsense, it was all the people there, that were reacting and opposing what was occurring. They were afraid that the FBI was following them. A few of us would get dressed up in skirts and blouses and the guys would all have to wear suits and ties. Frank Kameny, co-founder of the Mattachine Society, and Shirley Willer, president of the Daughters of Bilitis, spoke to Marcus about being gay before the Stonewall riots happened and what motivated people who were involved in the movement. Linton Media Barak Goodman WPA Film Library, Thanks to 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. 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. 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.

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