Stonewall Riots Research Paper

"I was a radical, a revolutionist. I am still a revolutionist … I am glad I was in the Stonewall riot. I remember when someone threw a Molotov cocktail, I thought, 'My god, the revolution is here. The revolution is finally here!'" (Rivera 1). This quote comes from an actual Stonewall riots participant, Sylvia Rivera. Rivera was a transgender activist at the forefront of the gay rights movement along with many other participants of the Stonewall riots. Although the Stonewall riots protest happened almost fifty years ago, its impact and influence on the past gay rights movement, as well as the modern-day gay rights movement, can still be seen today. Many historians consider the Stonewall riots as the initial catalyst for the gay rights movement,

This particular bar was run by the Italian mafia without a proper liquor license. The Stonewall Inn was also notorious as "a meeting place for gay men and transvestites" ("The Stonewall Riots" 2). Because of this, the police saw the bar as an easy target because solicitation of gay sex and transvestism were illegal under the local laws at that time. During the raid, the police arrested the bartenders for liquor violations and took people who were not wearing at least three articles of gender-appropriate clothing into custody. Police raids were nothing new to the patrons of Stonewall Inn, as many of them had been targeted before for being gay. This raid was different from all the other raids, however, because many of the Stonewall patrons began to resist arrest. As this resistance continued, the raid eventually turned into a riot. With this escalation to a riot, the police locked themselves inside of the Stonewall Inn. While locked inside, the patrons of the bar would throw bottles of alcohol at the police, and their anger quickly escalated to the point where the rioters were "trying to break down the locked doors of the club, even tearing out a parking meter from the sidewalk [to use] as a battering ram" ("Gay Rights Movement" 2). After about forty-five minutes of rioting, the tactical police force (TPF) came to Stonewall Inn and rescued the trapped police officers inside the bar. After rescuing the police, the TPF fought with the crowd outside of the bar, using nightsticks to beat people down. The following night, thousands of people crowded on Christopher Street, where Stonewall Inn is located, to show their support for the gay community. People continued to crowd the streets at night outside of Stonewall Inn for about three days after the initial event, but tensions eventually cooled to the point where nightly protest stopped. While the protest stopped, the