7 Stonewall Riots Background The Stonewall riots, which were a key turning point for the LGBT movement, began in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Back then, the police routinely raided gay bars, conducted uncalled-for ID checks, and made arrests—often roughing up patrons in the process. As the police checked IDs, harassed Stonewall patrons, and made arrests, people became increasingly angry. Patrons resisted and a crowd gathered outside. Protesters hurled bottles and debris at the police and through the bar’s windows. The police reacted with violence, beating and arresting the patrons-turned-protesters. The riots con- tinued from Saturday until Wednesday, with hundreds of people joining in on the fight. But Stonewall wasn’t the first confrontation between the police and LGBT people. In 1959, patrons of Cooper’s Donuts in Los Angeles, an all-night restaurant that was in the Skid Row neighborhood and was popular with drag queens and people who today might identify as transgender, responded to police harassment one evening by chasing off the officers who fled in a patrol car. Eight years later, after the Los Angeles police beat and arrested gay patrons at the Black Cat Tavern who were ringing in the New Year, PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education) organized a protest that drew hundreds of participants. In 1966 at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, drag queens and transgender patrons fought back against the police when they were attempting to arrest a patron for “female impersonation,” smashing windows, vandalizing a police car, and burning down a nearby newspaper stand. The following evening, in response to a decision by the restaurant’s owners to ban drag queens and transgender patrons, community members picketed the restaurant. Nonviolent methods of resistance also occurred before the Stonewall riots, including the regional East Coast Homophile Organizations (ECHO) marches in Philadelphia. While these early confrontations and protests didn’t get the attention of the Stonewall riots, they were important milestones of resistance. Today, Stonewall symbolizes many things, but, most importantly, it served as a catalyst for the uprising that occurred after the riots, when the burgeoning national LGBT liberation movement experienced explosive growth and became more visible, political, and powerful. Relevant Gay Rights groups: ● Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed in New York City in 1969 immediately after the Stonewall riots. ● Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded by former members of GLF in December of 1969 in New York City. ● Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was created in 1970 to advocate on behalf of homeless drag queens and runaways in New York City.