The Stonewall riots , also known as the Stonewall uprising , Stonewall rebellion , 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, , 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.
American gays and lesbians in the s and s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries. The last years of the s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement , the Counterculture of the s , and antiwar demonstrations.
These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the s and s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia [3] [4] and catered to an assortment of patrons, popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens , representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, hustlers , and homeless youth.
Police raids on gay bars were routine in the s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later.
Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.
