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picDate of picture unknown; from the styles, about the time of Stonewall. Here are some links to information, and a couple of articles, on the history of gay pride.

The wikipedia's telling of the Stonewall Story: And the wikipedia's very comprehensive gay rights timeline:

Some others:

Stonewall Inn's Brochure Text

The Stonewall Inn is the birthplace of the gay liberation movement - - when on the weekend of Judy Garland's death a group of drag queens and other patrons of the bar fought back against police harassment and made history by saying "no" to intolerance and "yes" to empowerment. The Stonewall patrons refused to be treated as second class citizens.

Every year gay men and lesbians celebrate our pride during the month of June in honor of the Stonewall rebellion, which took place on June 27, 1969. On that night police raided the Stonewall Inn for the second time in a week. Although such raids on gay bars were common around that time, the police action that evening was particularly virulent.

This night was far different than past raids: on this evening the drag queens inside the bar, as well as other patrons and passerby outside, had decided they would no longer be pushed around by a hostile police force. After a short while, as the cops raiding the bar lost control of a growing crowd of people, a paddy wagon arrived.

The crowd began to throw things and attempted to turn the wagon over as the police pulled away. The enraged crowd, calling for gay liberation and encouraged by their growing numbers, was not going to let them off without a struggle. The rebellion continued the following night and would continue throughout the next week.

A lthough some of the faces naturally changed from night to night the patter remained the same. Gay people in the area became more militant in their opposition to the police and would themselves "patrol" the neighborhood, frequently arm in arm with another, not permitting the "authorities" to diminish in any way the growing gay visibility of the area.

The Stonewall events received more press than the gay liberation movement had heretofore seen. The spirit of protest in the country, stemming from the civil rights movement to the antiwar sentiment and the rebellion against President Nixon (who was increasingly out of touch with the younger generation), also fueled the fire of our movement, providing gay men and lesbian leaders with the momentum needed to more visibly continue our struggle for change.

Kidlink History

The Stonewall Rebellion The Stonewall Rebellion was a spontaneous act of resistance to the police harassment that had been inflicted on the Gay and Lesbian community since the inception of the modern vice squad in metropolitan police forces. The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar located in New York City?s Greenwich Village. On the night of June 28th, 1969, a police inspector and seven other officers from the Public Morals Section of the New York Police Department arrived shortly after midnight, served a warrant charging that alcohol was being sold without a license, and announced that employees would be arrested. The patrons were ejected from the bar by the police while others lingered outside to watch, and were joined by passers-by. The arrival of the paddy wagons changed the mood of the crowd from passivity to defiance. The first vehicle left without incident apart from catcalls from the crowd. The next individual to be forced from the bar was a woman. She put up a struggle that galvanized the bystanders into action. The crowd erupted and the confrontation between the police and Gay people lasted through the following two nights. The event sparked a new, highly visible, mass phase of political organization for Gay and Lesbian rights. The event has been commemorated by Pride Parades and Festivals held each year in New York City on a designated weekend in June. Events and Pride Parades are held in many metropolitan cities throughout the United States. The Stonewall Inn was declared a national historical landmark, and one of three percent of U.S. landmarks deemed to be of national importance. Andrew Dolkart, historian at Columbia University, was quoted as saying "It's a key site in 20th century history." Source:

Yet Another Version

In 1933, with the repeal of Prohibition, cops on the take would have lost all their extra income had it not been for gay bars. They were aided by a State Liquor Authority ban on serving homosexuals, and this was the basis of a shift in graft from what was being served -- to who. An occasional police raid kept the system in good running order and provided the boys in blue with the fun of putting on a good show.

No one could have imagined that this shakedown system could ever go out of fashion, but in 1969 it breathed its last. The Stonewall Inn at 51 Christopher Street opened in 1930, in street level space which was created by joining two former stables built ninety years earlier. Popular at first for weddings, by the late 1960's the crowd was male and ranged from college types to those who were more flamboyant. Rumors circulated about management ties to organized crime and a call-boy service being run on the second floor, but nobody really cared.

The Stonewall was a second home to those who were considered too outrageous to be allowed entry to the straight-laced jazz club two doors down. Perhaps it was the full moon, but what started as a police raid on June 28, 1969 ended in a full-scale riot. Although conservative patrons remained docile as they were turned out by the cops, their flamboyant bar mates, when they were roughed up, fought back. Seeing their friends roughed up, the crowd in the street reacted hurling epithets, then loose coins, then beer bottles and garbage cans.

The police called for assistance after they had barricaded themselves inside. The Tactical Patrol Force was there in minutes, in full riot gear. For hours the TPF charged the taunting crowd, which scattered through the irregular streets around Christopher Park and then regrouped. The police were dumbfounded as they never expected gays to fight back. But the defiance was as real as the guns the police had drawn.

The riot ended in the early morning with only a few injuries. Only the assumption that homosexuals would ever again accept prejudice and discrimination without resistance had died. Annual parades are now held at the end of June in most American cities to commemorate the Stonewall riot and the movement for gay rights that began on that night. The former Stonewall Inn now houses a men's apparel shop.

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