As St. Louis marks its 30th pride event today, its important to review again Stonewall and its impact. Early 1970s St. Louis gays also faced police raids. More of those stories to come on Stlouisgayhistory.com. It took a big action in a big city to get the ball rolling. And roll it has.









Raid 40 years ago sparked riots, gay rights movement
BY MARCUS FRANKLIN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
06/28/2009

NEW YORK — Raymond Castro was a regular at the Stonewall Inn in 1969, finding it a haven from a world where gay men and women could be arrested for kissing or holding hands in public. Inside the bar, where plywood covered the windows, warning lights served as a signal for couples to stop dancing.

When police raided the bar in the past for selling liquor without a license, patrons normally submitted to arrest or dispersed quietly. But on June 28, Castro recalled, people fought back.

As officers tried to throw him in a police wagon, Castro used the vehicle as a spring to push back, knocking them to the ground.

"They literally carried me into the ... wagon and threw me in there," recalled Castro, now 67. "It must've been the motivation of the crowd that inspired me to resist. Or maybe at that point enough was enough."

The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising at the bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village became one of the defining moment of the gay rights movement.

Thousands of people are converging on the city for gay pride events to mark the riots' 40th anniversary, while a bill is pending in the Legislature to make New York the seventh state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Castro said the demonstrations became a catalyst for years of progress allowing gays and lesbians to live more open lives — although he didn't see it at the time.

"I never thought 40 years ago that it would turn out to be much of anything," he said.

"I had no clue of history being made."

It was hot and humid the night police officers raided the inn for selling liquor without a license. Police estimated 200 patrons were thrown out of Stonewall, according to a June 29, 1969, New York Times article.

After the raid, the crowd outside the Stonewall swelled to about 400, according to the Times account, citing police estimates.

Police were "attempting to leave premises with prisoners" when "they were confronted by a large crowd who attempted to stop them from removing prisoners. The crowd became disorderly," read a copy of the NYPD complaint.

Four police officers were injured, including one with a broken wrist, according to the Times, which described the scene as a "rampage" by hundreds of young men.

Thirteen people were arrested that first night on charges including harassment, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the story says.

There are little reminders of Stonewall in Manhattan's Greenwich Village today. The building was designated a national landmark in 1999. It currently houses a bar unaffiliated with the inn.