Research Guides: LGBTQIA+ Studies: A Resource Guide: 1969: The Stonewall Uprising (2024)

June 28, 1969 marks the beginning of the Stonewall Uprising, a series of events between police and LGBTQ+ protesters which stretched over six days. It was not the first time police raided a gay bar, and it was not the first time LGBTQ+ people fought back, but the events that would unfold over the next six days would fundamentally change the discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ activism in the United States. While Stonewall became well known due to the media coverage and the subsequent annual Pride traditions, it was a culmination of years of LGBTQ+ activism. Historians have noted that the shift in activism, if Stonewall truly represented one at all, was a shift primarily for white cisgender people, as people of color and gender non-conforming people never truly had the benefit of concealing their marginalized identities.

While the events of Stonewall are often referred to as "riots," Stonewall veterans have explicitly stated that they prefer the term Stonewalluprising orrebellion. The reference to these events as riots was initially used by police to justify their use of force.

"The rebellion (it was never a 'riot') lasted five inconsecutive nights (they were not 'riots')..." -STONEWALL Veterans' Association

It is important to note that there were a number of uprisings against police & statebrutality, harassment and entrapment of the LGBT+ communities in the U.S.in the years before Stonewall. These events and the people involved have not received as much historical attention as Stonewall, but are just as central to understandings of U.S. LGBTQIA+ histories.Some of the pre-Stonewall uprisingsincluded:

• Pepper Hill Club Raid, Baltimore, Maryland in 1955. Over 162 people arrested.
• Hazel's (Hazel's Inn), Sharp Park, California February 1956
• Coopers Do-Nut Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1959
• Black NiteBrawl, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, August 5, 1961
• Compton's Cafeteria Raid, San Francisco, California, 1966
• Black Cat Raid, Los Angeles, California, 1967

• STONEWALL Veterans' Association External

  The S.V.A. consists of actual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Straight
  (G.L.B.T.S.) patrons from the ~original~ STONEWALL Club in New York City with
  routine and dangerous N.Y.C. police raids and/or participants in the historic 1969
  Stonewall Rebellion!

• Black Nite External

  Primary sources related to the Black Nite Brawl in August 1961 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

There have been many incidents in which police interaction with LGBTQ+ communities has resulted in violence, and in response, protest. Bars were one of the few places LBGTQ+ people could gather in public, and these spaces were frequently raided throughout the 1950s-1970s. It is important to note that in addition to arresting LGBTQ+ people, first-hand accounts reveal the violence that police enacted on those they had arrested. Often, those who had survived police raids were hospitalized or had to seek medical care for their injuries. Notably, an uncounted number of LGBTQ+ people have died as a result of police raids on gay spaces. Police violence and bar raids did not end after Stonewall. One poignant example is the murder of Frederick Wiliam Paez on the 11th anniversary of Stonewall (June 28 1980) who was shot by a police officer who had solicited him.

To find additional materials on this topic, search the Library of Congress Online Catalog:

• Police Brutality

• Demonstrations-1960-1980

• Gay Rights

• Police 1960-1980

• Pickets- 1960-1980

• Archives of Sexuality and Gender External This link opens in a new window

  • 

  
  The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history. Collections currently available at the Library of Congress are:

  • LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part I
  • LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II
  • Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century
  • International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture

• Phyllis Lyon/Del Martin And The Daughters Of Bilitis External This link opens in a new window

  • 

  
  As outspoken lesbian organizers for civil rights, civil liberties, and human dignity whose personal relationship fueled decades of political activism, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin created and helped shape the modern gay and feminist movements. They are stellar examples of engaged citizens: women of extraordinary courage, persistence, intelligence, humor, and decency, who refused to be silenced by fear. Not only were they founders in 1955 of the first lesbian rights organization in U.S. history, the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), but they also were instrumental in the formation and growth of other related social movements, including the contemporary womens rights movement.

• LGBT Thought and Culture External This link opens in a new window

  • 

  
  LGBT Thought and Culture is an online resource hosting books, periodicals, and archival materials documenting LGBT political, social and cultural movements throughout the twentieth century and into the present day. The collection illuminates the lives of lesbians, gays, transgender, and bisexual individuals and the community with content including selections from The National Archives in Kew, materials collected by activist and publisher Tracy Baim from the mid-1980s through the mid-2000s, the Magnus Hirschfeld and Harry Benjamin collections from the Kinsey Institute, periodicals such as En la Vida and BLACKlines, select rare works from notable LGBT publishers including Alyson Books and Cleis Press, as well as mainstream trade and university publishers. LGBT Thought and Culture provides key resources of interest to students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, psychology, counseling, history, political science, gender studies, cultural studies, and religious studies.

• We Are Everywhere by Leighton Brown; Matthew Riemer

  Call Number: HQ76.3.U5 R495 2019

  ISBN: 9780399581816

  Published/Created: 2019-05-07

  A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account @lgbt_history, released in time for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential and empowering introduction to the history of the fight for queer liberation. Combining exhaustively researched narrative with meticulously curated photographs, the book traces queer activism from its roots in late-nineteenth-century Europe--long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969--to the gender warriors leading the charge today.

• Pride Parades by Katherine McFarland Bruce

  Call Number: HQ76.965.G38 B78 2016

  ISBN: 9781479803613

  Published/Created: 2016-10-04

  On June 28, 1970, two thousand gay and lesbian activists in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago paraded down the streets of their cities in a new kind of social protest, one marked by celebration, fun, and unashamed declaration of a stigmatized identity. Forty-five years later, over six million people annually participate in 115 Pride parades across the United States.

• The Stonewall Reader by Edmund White (Foreword by); New York Public Library (Editor)

  Call Number: HQ76.8.U5 S77 2019

  ISBN: 9780143133513

  Published/Created: 2019-04-30

  For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising - the most significant event in the gay liberation movement and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of firsthand accounts, diaries, periodic literature and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. Most importantly, this anthology shines a light on forgotten figures who were pivotal in the movement, such as Lee Brewster, head of the Queens Liberation Front and Ernestine Eckstine, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s.

• Stonewall by Martin Bauml Duberman

  Call Number: HQ76.8.U5 D85 1993

  ISBN: 9780593083987

  Published/Created: 2019-06-04

  On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the routine compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back. The five days of rioting that ensued changed forever the face of gay and lesbian life. In Stonewall, renowned historian and activist Martin Duberman tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history. With riveting narrative skill, he recreates those revolutionary, sweltering nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights.

• Stonewall by David Carter

  Call Number: HQ76.8.U5 C37 2004

  ISBN: 9780312671938

  Published/Created: 2010-05-25

  In 1969, a series of riots over police action against The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village, changed the landscape of hom*osexual society quite literally overnight. Since then, the term 'Stonewall' itself has become almost synonymous with the struggle for gay rights. Based on hundreds of interviews, an exhaustive search of public and previously sealed files and over a decade of intensive research, Stonewall tells the definitive story of this singular event in history.

• The Gay Crusaders by Tobin, Kay

  Call Number: HQ76.8.U5 T6 1972