Perhaps, the theory was, just by existing, Gay-Straight Alliance groups could make gay kids feel less alone, and that itself could reduce suicide risk, which was common among gay teens at the time.
On a June night in 1969, patrons of a New York City gay bar called the Stonewall Inn battled with police and set in motion the modern movement for gay rights. Fifty years later, the milestone anniversary of the event has sparked observations and celebrations nationwide -- as well as reflections from LGBTQ Americans about what cultural acceptance has meant to them.
In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, police arrested LGBTQ people based on an informal "three-article" rule. The Stonewall Riots helped turn the tide against these arrests.
What Appiah misses in his dismissal of the Stonewall Rebellion’s historical importance is that symbols like Rosa Parks sitting down and Stonewall are crucial to social movements as they mobilize and move from the political margins to the center of civic discourse.
Stonewall was a momentous event and its 50th anniversary is being celebrated in many ways across the country, including the exhibit Stonewall 50 exhibit at the New York Historical Society.
The commissioner, James O’Neill, said he was sorry on behalf of the New York Police Department for officers’ actions during a seminal 1969 clash outside a gay bar.
Today, 50 years after the Stonewall uprising that marks the birth of the modern gay-rights movement, we may understand that violence against LGBTQ citizens has been central to the evolution of that movement. But the history of such crimes tends to be lost.
Given the tremendous gains made by LGBTQ activists in the intervening years, it can be difficult for people to remember the oppression suffered by LGBTQ people in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s.
Three years before the Stonewall riots, Julius' Bar in New York City made gay history. Listen to the story of Dick Leitsch, the man who was denied service for being gay in this very bar in 1966 in what has come to be known as the historic "Sip-In."
