STONEWALL: PLEASE READ: THE TRUTH IS SOMETIMES SHOCKING.
I was shocked to see the word "RIOT" used continually in the NYPL STONEWALL/50 exhibition handout. As someone who was actually standing on Christopher street in front of the mafia bar known as the Stonewall inn from 10:15 until the streets had been reopened to traffic at 1:15. I know it was not a riot. That is when 6 gay men and I: included were Mark Seigal, Marty Robinson, and Michael Brown gathered together at the junction of where Waverly meets Waverly.
We were excited by the night's activities and wanted to continue what had been released. We attempted to conspire together to figure out how to continue the energy released that first night.
We succeeded!
No one who was actually present inside or outside the bar can justify calling what happened a "riot." Under no known definition of 'riot" does the spontaneous release of oppression each of us experienced that might meet the definition of "riot." There was no crowd out of control, no looting, no hospital admissions, no fire department report... What did happen was each of us present on the street experienced at a particular flashpoint the spark of freedom and liberation as we became visible to each other and threw off the internalized homophobia and for once collectively challenged the external homophobia and the policing that the mob, the state, and the church had imposed on each of .us.
To try to place a straight 60's template on what happened diminishes who was there and how we as gay men acted that first night. When David Scott shares his first-hand, eye-witness experience. He says: it seemed more like a collective celebration.
It troubles me deeply that an institution like the New York Public Library which is known around the world as an esteemed research center would use language that misrepresents the reality of what happened. I would have thought they would have known better. As to the confabulators who say different, are simply not telling the truth.
There were no bricks thrown,, No Slyvia Rivera, no ripping of parking meters out of the cement (really dear!) no setting fire to the building, Yes Marsha, who was my friend, did show up around 12: 15. Marsha hung out on the sidelines.
Whatever happened to the phrase "The truth will set you free"?
The second night was much more militant according to a revised memory by Lucian K. Truscott IV a straight writer (and a long time friend)...but again the events of the second did not meet the definition of riot.
I am saddened that people would rather believe false myth than the truly radical event that took place that actually changed history for homosexuals male and female of all gender expression everywhere.
What happened that first night seeded the desire for visibility, equality, and acceptance of same-sex desire and erotic expression. Wanting to be seen as expressing emotion, desire, and personhood as a natural part of human behavior.
Language matters to me ...and I hope to you. What took place the first night of the Stonewall rebellion changed history and gave a new definition to being a gay man or a lesbian of any gender expression.
I use the word rebellion because it best represents to me what actually did happen. Rebellion, in the sense of rebellion against internalized homophobia and the external homophobia, imposed and manipulated by State and Church.
Yes, some choose to use the word "uprising.” But an uprising by definition involves pre-planning. Please, trust me! It was spontaneous that first night ..anyone who tries to take credit is lying.
As to the NYPL opening reception, it was full of memory for me. Both Diana Davies photos were taken when she was an active member of GLF and Mattacine member Kay Tobin, lover and life partner to the late Barbara Gittings. Kay one of the people (including Gittings and Frank Kameny) who took under their wings and mentored the 8 GLF men and 1 woman dissatisfied with the GLF meeting process and left, They were mentored in single-issue politics in sharp contrast to the GLF politics of "no one is truly free until all oppressed people are free.
But the most iconic image that best expresses the true meaning of the STONEWALL/REBELLION was missing. It is the recruitment poster published by the COME OUT cell of the Gay Liberation Front in the Fall of 1969. A photo was taken by Peter Hujar on the street in what is now called Soho of lesbians and gay men running in the street smiling. Out and inviting others to join them in changing the world. Not afraid! Although they had no protection in the workplace nor on the streets or in their homes. …(oh, that is me in the striped pants!)
Please, now take a breath. What I have said may be disrupted to the message you might have heard. I have no reason to lie. I have not changed my story in 50 years.
Jim Fouratt
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