before stonewall documentary transcript

before stonewall documentary transcript

Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:There were no instructions except: put them out of business. You know, it's just, everybody was there. America thought we were these homosexual monsters and we were so innocent, and oddly enough, we were so American. People started throwing pennies. For the first time the next person stood up. (158) 7.5 1 h 26 min 1985 13+. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:And then the next night. Martha Shelley I was a homosexual. Doric Wilson:And we were about 100, 120 people and there were people lining the sidewalks ahead of us to watch us go by, gay people, mainly. Ed Koch, mayorof New York City from1978 to 1989, discussesgay civil rights in New York in the 1960s. 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. 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. I mean it didn't stop after that. I went in there and they took bats and just busted that place up. (c) 2011 Andy Frielingsdorf, Reenactment Actors That was our world, that block. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:I had been in some gay bars either for a story or gay friends would say, "Oh we're going to go in for a drink there, come on in, are you too uptight to go in?" The first police officer that came in with our group said, "The place is under arrest. Seymour Wishman 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. I was proud. A New York Police officer grabs a man by the hair as another officer clubs a. Doric Wilson:When I was very young, one of the terms for gay people was twilight people, meaning that we never came out until twilight, 'til it got dark. Do you want them to lose all chance of a normal, happy, married life? As president of the Mattachine Society in New York, I tried to negotiate with the police and the mayor. 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) Jimmy knew he shouldn't be interested but, well, he was curious. 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. 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. 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. 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. I learned, very early, that those horrible words were about me, that I was one of those people. Before Stonewall - Trailer BuskFilms 12.6K subscribers Subscribe 14K views 10 years ago Watch the full film here (UK & IRE only): http://buskfilms.com/films/before-sto. 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. And we were singing: "We are the Village girls, we wear our hair in curls, we wear our dungarees, above our nellie knees." And they were gay. But I had only stuck my head in once at the Stonewall. One time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. Calling 'em names, telling 'em how good-looking they were, grabbing their butts. 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. The Mafia owned the jukeboxes, they owned the cigarette machines and most of the liquor was off a truck hijacking. [2][3] Later in 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. Susan Liberti Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:They were sexual deviates. Martin Boyce:For me, there was no bar like the Stonewall, because the Stonewall was like the watering hole on the savannah. 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. 'Cause I really realized that I was being trained as a straight person, so I could really fool these people. Participants of the 1969 Greenwich Village uprising describe the effect that Stonewall had on their lives. I say, I cannot tell this without tearing up. You know. Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:So you're outside, and you see like two people walking toward these trucks and you think, "Oh I think I'll go in there," you go in there, there's like a lot of people in there and it's all dark. TV Host (Archival):Are those your own eyelashes? 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. Virginia Apuzzo: I grew up with that. Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:Our radio was cut off every time we got on the police radio. In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's LGBT community. We went, "Oh my God. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). On June 27, 1969, police raided The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. But after the uprising, polite requests for change turned into angry demands. Virginia Apuzzo:It's very American to say, "This is not right." There may be some here today that will be homosexual in the future. And the people coming out weren't going along with it so easily. Yvonne Ritter:I had just turned 18 on June 27, 1969. Jerry Hoose:The open gay people that hung out on the streets were basically the have-nothing-to-lose types, which I was. Activists had been working for change long before Stonewall. Mike Nuget And the Village has a lot of people with children and they were offended. Tom Caruso Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:And they were, they were kids. 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. That summer, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village. Martha Shelley:I don't know if you remember the Joan Baez song, "It isn't nice to block the doorway, it isn't nice to go to jail, there're nicer ways to do it but the nice ways always fail." Dick Leitsch:And I remember it being a clear evening with a big black sky and the biggest white moon I ever saw. It was as if an artist had arranged it, it was beautiful, it was like mica, it was like the streets we fought on were strewn with diamonds. Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Evan Eames And today we're talking about Stonewall, which were both pretty anxious about so anxious. Scott Kardel, Project Administration Seymour Pine, Deputy Inspector, Morals Division, NYPD:We only had about six people altogether from the police department knowing that you had a precinct right nearby that would send assistance. Martin Boyce They were just holding us almost like in a hostage situation where you don't know what's going to happen next. I had never seen anything like that. 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. 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. Doric Wilson And as awful as people might think that sounds, it's the way history has always worked. Stacker put together a timeline of LGBTQ+ history leading up to Stonewall, beginning with prehistoric events and ending in the late 1960s. Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries . Martha Shelley:The riot could have been buried, it could have been a few days in the local newspaper and that was that. 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. John O'Brien:I knew that the words that were being said to put down people, was about me. 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. John O'Brien:We had no idea we were gonna finish the march. I was a man. 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. 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. Revealing and. Susana Fernandes Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt:As much as I don't like to say it, there's a place for violence. All the rules were off in the '60s. Danny Garvin:Bam, bam and bash and then an opening and then whoa. 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. So in every gay pride parade every year, Stonewall lives. There's a little door that slides open with this power-hungry nut behind that, you see this much of your eyes, and he sees that much of your face, and then he decides whether you're going to get in. And they were having a meeting at town hall and there were 400 guys who showed up, and I think a couple of women, talking about these riots, 'cause everybody was really energized and upset and angry about it. 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. Raymond Castro:I'd go in there and I would look and I would just cringe because, you know, people would start touching me, and "Hello, what are you doing there if you don't want to be touched?" All of this stuff was just erupting like a -- as far as they were considered, like a gigantic boil on the butt of America. Dick Leitsch:We wore suits and ties because we wanted people, in the public, who were wearing suits and ties, to identify with us. I made friends that first day. Interviewer (Archival):Are you a homosexual? That's it. 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. It was not a place that, in my life, me and my friends paid much attention to. In the trucks or around the trucks. I mean I'm talking like sardines. Chris Mara, Production Assistants This was ours, here's where the Stonewall was, here's our Mecca. If you would like to read more on the topic, here's a list: Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and NPR One. 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. Martin Boyce:And then more police came, and it didn't stop. And I raised my hand at one point and said, "Let's have a protest march." and I didn't see anything but a forest of hands. Richard Enman (Archival):Well, let me say, first of all, what type of laws we are not after, because there has been much to-do that the Society was in favor of the legalization of marriage between homosexuals, and the adoption of children, and such as that, and that is not at all factual at all. 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. Few photographs of the raid and the riots that followed exist. 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. Danny Garvin:People were screaming "pig," "copper." They call them hotels, motels, lovers' lanes, drive-in movie theaters, etc. Slate:The Homosexuals(1967), CBS Reports. He pulls all his men inside. Danny Garvin:He's a faggot, he's a sissy, queer. 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 Before Stonewall. Stonewall Forever Explore the monument Watch the documentary Download the AR app About & FAQ Privacy Policy I would wait until there was nobody left to be the girl and then I would be the girl. Just making their lives miserable for once. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:So at that point the police are extremely nervous. 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. Dick Leitsch:And that's when you started seeing like, bodies laying on the sidewalk, people bleeding from the head. We were all there. I didn't think I could have been any prettier than that night. I really thought that, you know, we did it. And there, we weren't allowed to be alone, the police would raid us still. Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Yes, entrapment did exist, particularly in the subway system, in the bathrooms. Producers Library Mayor John Lindsay, like most mayors, wanted to get re-elected. And so we had to create these spaces, mostly in the trucks. In 1924, the first gay rights organization is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. Charles Harris, Transcriptions In 1969 the police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, leading to three nights of rioting by the city's gay community. William Eskridge, Professor of Law: The 1960s were dark ages for lesbians and gay men all over America. "Daybreak Express" by D.A. It's very American to say, "You promised equality, you promised freedom." Slate:The Homosexual(1967), CBS Reports. 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. Hugh Bush A medievalist. hide caption. Yvonne Ritter:And then everybody started to throw pennies like, you know, this is what they were, they were nothing but copper, coppers, that's what they were worth. Every arrest and prosecution is a step in the education of the public to the solution of the problem. WPA Film Library, Thanks to David Carter, Author ofStonewall:There was also vigilantism, people were using walkie-talkies to coordinate attacks on gay men. It's like, this is not right. 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. The history of the Gay and Lesbian community before the Stonewall riots began the major gay rights movement. But we had to follow up, we couldn't just let that be a blip that disappeared. Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And I keep listening and listening and listening, hoping I'm gonna hear sirens any minute and I was very freaked. Dick Leitsch:And so the cops came with these buses, like five buses, and they all were full of tactical police force. Jay Fialkov 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. Lauren Noyes. Alfredo del Rio, Archival Still and Motion Images Courtesy of They didn't know what they were walking into. John O'Brien:If a gay man is caught by the police and is identified as being involved in what they called lewd, immoral behavior, they would have their person's name, their age and many times their home address listed in the major newspapers. Getty Images Danny Garvin Mary Queen of the Scotch, Congo Woman, Captain Faggot, Miss Twiggy. Because its all right in the Village, but the minute we cross 14th street, if there's only ten of us, God knows what's going to happen to us.". Alexis Charizopolis We don't know. Gay people were not powerful enough politically to prevent the clampdown and so you had a series of escalating skirmishes in 1969. It must have been terrifying for them. 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. Narrator (Archival):This involves showing the gay man pictures of nude males and shocking him with a strong electric current. We had been threatened bomb threats. Dick Leitsch:It was an invasion, I mean you felt outraged and stuff like you know what, God, this is America, what's this country come to? In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. 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." Detective John Sorenson, Dade County Morals & Juvenile Squad (Archival):There may be some in this auditorium. Martha Shelley:Before Stonewall, the homophile movement was essentially the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilitis and all of these other little gay organizations, some of which were just two people and a mimeograph machine. More than a half-century after its release, " The Queen " serves as a powerful time capsule of queer life as it existed before the 1969 Stonewall uprising. Somehow being gay was the most terrible thing you could possibly be. Fred Sargeant:The tactical patrol force on the second night came in even larger numbers, and were much more brutal. 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 . Do you understand me?". I grew up in a very Catholic household and the conflict of issues of redemption, of is it possible that if you are this thing called homosexual, is it possible to be redeemed? His movements are not characteristic of a real boy. Martin Boyce:In the early 60s, if you would go near Port Authority, there were tons of people coming in. I mean does anyone know what that is? American Airlines You were alone. The mayor of New York City, the police commissioner, were under pressure to clean up the streets of any kind of quote unquote "weirdness." We'll put new liquor in there, we'll put a new mirror up, we'll get a new jukebox." You gotta remember, the Stonewall bar was just down the street from there. I said, "I can go in with you?" Hunted, hunted, sometimes we were hunted. Leaflets in the 60s were like the internet, today. We knew that this was a moment that we didn't want to let slip past, because it was something that we could use to bring more of the groups together. We had no speakers planned for the rally in Central Park, where we had hoped to get to. Absolutely, and many people who were not lucky, felt the cops. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips . Also, through this fight, the "LGBT" was born. I was wearing my mother's black and white cocktail dress that was empire-waisted. But I was just curious, I didn't want to participate because number one it was so packed. And it was fantastic. 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. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:What they did in the Stonewall that night. There was the Hippie movement, there was the Summer of Love, Martin Luther King, and all of these affected me terribly. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:TheNew York TimesI guess printed a story, but it wasn't a major story. 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." Ellen Goosenberg The Catholic Church, be damned to hell. Lucian Truscott, IV, Reporter,The Village Voice:There were gay bars all over town, not just in Greenwich Village. I was never seduced by an older person or anything like that. And Howard said, "Boy there's like a riot gonna happen here," and I said, "yeah." It was a leaflet that attacked the relationship of the police and the Mafia and the bars that we needed to see ended. Giles Kotcher Atascadero was known in gay circles as the Dachau for queers, and appropriately so. Then during lunch, Ralph showed him some pornographic pictures. This time they said, "We're not going." 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. I mean I'm only 19 and this'll ruin me. kui I entered the convent at 26, to pursue that question and I was convinced that I would either stay until I got an answer, or if I didn't get an answer just stay. Urban Stages Dr. Socarides (Archival):Homosexuality is in fact a mental illness which has reached epidemiological proportions. There may be some girls here who will turn lesbian. Original Language: English. Where did you buy it? The Laramie Project Cast at The Calhoun School The last time I saw him, he was a walking vegetable. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Danny Garvin:Everybody would just freeze or clam up. David Alpert Howard Smith, Reporter,The Village Voice:And by the time the police would come back towards Stonewall, that crowd had gone all the around Washington Place come all the way back around and were back pushing in on them from the other direction and the police would wonder, "These are the same people or different people?". Ed Koch, Councilman, New York City:Gay rights, like the rights of blacks, were constantly under attack and while blacks were protected by constitutional amendments coming out of the Civil War, gays were not protected by law and certainly not the Constitution. Doric Wilson:In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, "I'm a faggot," was horren--, nobody, nobody was ready to do that. Cause I was from the streets. The men's room was under police surveillance. Abstract. 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. I am not alone, there are other people that feel exactly the same way.". Synopsis. Her most recent film, Bones of Contention, premiered in the 2016 Berlin International And it would take maybe a half hour to clear the place out. Linton Media 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. Nobody. The medical experimentation in Atascadero included administering, to gay people, a drug that simulated the experience of drowning; in other words, a pharmacological example of waterboarding. Never, never, never. And the police escalated their crackdown on bars because of the reelection campaign. A gay rights march in New York in favor of the 1968 Civil Rights Act being amended to include gay rights. 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. June 21, 2019 1:29 PM EDT. And the harder she fought, the more the cops were beating her up and the madder the crowd got. [7] In 1989, it won the Festival's Plate at the Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. If there had been a riot of that proportion in Harlem, my God, you know, there'd have been cameras everywhere. Raymond Castro:So finally when they started taking me out, arm in arm up to the paddy wagon, I jumped up and I put one foot on one side, one foot on the other and I sprung back, knocking the two arresting officers, knocking them to the ground. And they started smashing their heads with clubs. It was a horror story. My last name being Garvin, I'd be called Danny Gay-vin. I mean they were making some headway. Former U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with gay rights activist Frank Kameny after signing a memorandum on federal benefits and non-discrimination in the Oval Office on June 17, 2009. And I found them in the movie theatres, sitting there, next to them. I met this guy and I broke down crying in his arms. That night, we printed a box, we had 5,000. 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.

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