Riot Night Revisted

The 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots will be remembered in numerous ways this weekend~ listed in the extended post.

A brief history…

Something unremarkable happened on June 27, 1969 in New York’s Greenwich Village, an event which had occurred a thousand times before across the U.S. over the decades. The police raided a gay bar.

At first, everything unfolded according to a time-honored ritual. Seven plain-clothes detectives and a uniformed officer entered and announced their presence. The bar staff stopped serving the watered-down, overpriced drinks, while their Mafia bosses swiftly removed the cigar boxes which functioned as tills. The officers demanded identification papers from the customers and then escorted them outside, throwing some into a waiting paddy-wagon and pushing others off the sidewalk.

But at a certain point, the “usual suspects” departed from the script and decided to fight back. A debate still rages over which incident sparked the riot. Was it a ‘butch’ lesbian dressed in man’s clothes who resisted arrest, or a male drag queen who stopped in the doorway between the officers and posed defiantly, rallying the crowd?

These images were shot by a Times photographer named Larry Morris on the evening of Wednesday, July 2, 1969.

News of the Stonewall Riots trickled down to Atlanta in briefs and blurbs. The mainstream press dedicated little coverage to the riot.

Boykin pointed out that there wasn’t a Stonewall march in Atlanta until 1971. He said the event that prompted the founding of the Gay Liberation Front in Georgia was a raid of a movie theater in Ansley Mall. The theater was showing “Lonesome Cowboys,” a homoerotic send-up of western films, when police stopped the movie and arrested everyone. Read the rest of this great article here.

More at SoVo.

Events Celebrating LGBTQ rights as Human Rights!

Friday June 26th:

What: Film Screening & discussion: “Unveiled”

Focus: the intersection of discrimination based on sexuality, gender and immigration status

Where: Manuel’s Tavern

Time: 6.30PM

Saturday June 27th:

What: “Transgender Rights Now” March and Rally for Transgender, GLB people and friends and allies.

Where: Freedom Park (Moreland Ave. and Freedom Parkway)There will be 3 banner trans issues highlighted by the march

* Employment Non-Discrimination

* Access to Public Services (health care, housing, etc.)

* Public Safety (bathrooms, prisons, police, etc.)

March Time: Step-off time is at 3:00pm

Rally for transgender rights scheduled at 4:00pm on the steps of First Existentialist Church on Candler Ave.

Finally a Stonewall commemoration performance

Where: First Existentialist Congregation

470 Candler Park Dr NE

Atlanta, GA 30307-2113

Time: 4:30 pm

All events are free and open to the public. Please join us!