The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Pacifica is a city in San Mateo County, California, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay.
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities.
The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco, and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979, in San Francisco. Earlier that day White had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the lightest possible conviction for his actions. The lesser conviction outraged the city's gay community, setting off the most violent reaction by gay Americans since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
José Julio Sarria, also known as The Grand Mere, Absolute Empress I de San Francisco, and the Widow Norton, was an American political activist from San Francisco, California, who, in 1961, became the first openly gay candidate for public office in the United States. He is also remembered for performing as a drag queen at the Black Cat Bar and as the founder of the Imperial Court System.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
The Black Cat Bar or Black Cat Café was a bar in San Francisco, California. It originally opened in 1906 and closed in 1921. The Black Cat re-opened in 1933 and operated for another 30 years. During its second run of operation, it was a hangout for Beats and bohemians but over time began attracting more and more of a gay clientele, and becoming a flashpoint for what was then known as the homophile movement, a precursor to the gay liberation movement that gained momentum in the 1960s.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place worldwide in the 1950s.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 1960s.
The Black Cat Tavern is an LGBT historic site located in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. In 1967, it was the site of one of the first demonstrations in the United States protesting police brutality against LGBT people, preceding the Stonewall riots by over two years.
The Tavern Guild was an association of gay bar owners and liquor wholesalers that formed in 1962 in San Francisco, California, and lasted until 1995.
The Patch was an LGBT bar formerly located at 610 W. Pacific Coast Highway in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, California. The Patch, along with the Black Cat Tavern, played a pivotal role in the gay rights movement, when, in August 1968, it was one of the first sites where there was open resistance to the constant police harassment of gay establishments and meeting places in Southern California.
Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) was a gay political organization. It was established in 1966 as a radical gay political organization that from its origination set a new tone for gay political groups like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), ACT UP and the Radical Faeries. PRIDE led aggressive, unapologetic demonstrations against the oppression by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) of gay gatherings or same-sex meetings in the city of Los Angeles. PRIDE's monthly single-page newsletter evolved into The Advocate, the nation's longest running gay news publication.
The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was an alleged uprising in reaction to police harassment of LGBT people at a 24-hour donut cafe in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Whether the riot actually happened, the date, location and whether or not the cafe was a branch of the Cooper chain are all disputed, and there is a lack of contemporary documentary evidence, with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stating that any records of such event would have been purged years ago.
Maud's was a lesbian bar at 937 Cole Street in San Francisco's Cole Valley neighborhood which opened in 1966 and closed in 1989. At the time of its closing, which was captured in the film, Last Call at Maud's, it was claimed to be the oldest lesbian bar in the United States. Its history, documented in the film and other media, spanned almost a quarter-century of LGBT events.
The White Horse Inn is a gay bar located at 6551 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Bushrod Park neighborhood. It officially opened in 1933 but is rumored to have operated as a gay speakeasy since before the end of Prohibition. It is said to be the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the United States, along with Cafe Lafitte in New Orleans, Louisiana which has also operated since 1933. The White Horse is situated geographically near the Oakland-Berkeley border and in close proximity to the University of California, Berkeley campus.
Diego Viñales was a former Argentinian student who was swept up in a police raid on the Snake Pit gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village in March 1970. The raid at the Stonewall Inn that had sparked rioting and gay activism had occurred the previous summer, but such raids were still common. Taken to the police station, Viñales, who was on an expired student visa and fearful of deportation, tried to escape by jumping out a second-floor window. He landed on a spiked fence. Viñales suffered grave injuries but survived and was arrested. Protest marches in response to the day's events were led by gay activist groups formed in the wake of Stonewall and helped spark greater community awareness and interest in the upcoming Christopher Street Liberation Day events scheduled for 28 June to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
The Tay-Bush Inn raid was a police raid on an all-night, one-room café in San Francisco, California around 3 a.m. on September 14, 1961. There 103 LGBT patrons were arrested. It is considered a pivotal event in the history of LGBT rights in San Francisco. It was the largest raid on a gay bar in this city, and received the most press coverage. The arrested were described in the press as mostly white and middle class men.
Tommy's Place and 12 Adler Place were two interconnected lesbian bars in the North Beach district of San Francisco. Together, they created the first business in San Francisco that was owned and managed by out lesbians, beginning in the late 1940s. Tommy's Place/12 Adler Place was the site of an infamous 1954 police raid, during the era of the Lavender Scare. The raid was heavily covered by local media and ultimately contributed to the bar's 1955 closure.
Gayola was a type of bribe used by American police departments against gay bars in the post-war era. Liquor laws prevented bars from knowingly selling alcoholic beverages to gay patrons, so police departments commonly demanded payoffs from gay bar owners as a way to prevent shutdowns and raids.
