Lake View East in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois — The American Midwest (Great Lakes)
Stonewall
— The Legacy Project —
Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, August 26, 2021
1. Stonewall Marker
Inscription.
Stonewall. .
Stonewall The Riot that Started a Revolution June 28, 1969, . Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, law enforcement officials kept track of suspected homosexuals and the places that catered to them. Police regularly raided bars, seizing alcohol, and shutting down establishments. It was not uncommon for the people arrested during these raids to be exposed in newspapers, fired from their jobs, jailed, or confined to mental institutions. On June 27, 1969, about 200 patrons packed New York City’s Stonewall Inn. In the early morning hours of June 28th the police attempted a large-scale raid on the Mafia-owned gay club. No one – not the police or the people they were targeting – knew what was about to happen. While the police waited for patrol wagons to cart away the arrested suspects and seized alcohol, the bar’s patrons began to resist. Men refused to show their IDs, and those in drag refused to accompany female officers to a bathroom to have their gender confirmed. The mood gradually turned from somber resignation to camp humor to angry shouts. When a lesbian arrested inside the bar was brutalized while being placed in a police car, rage exploded among the several hundred people who had gathered in an uncharacteristic mob on the street. As the crowd erupted, the arresting officers – who were outnumbered more than 50 to 1 – barricaded themselves inside the bar. Within hours over 1000 people arrived and five more days of rioting engulfed the streets surrounding the club. Though the events of that immortal night were neither the first protest actions nor the first clashes between the police and LGBT people in the U.S., the unique confluence of rage and circumstances at the Stonewall Inn are considered the flashpoint that launched the modern LGBT Civil Rights Movement. Each year the world’s LGBT communities unite to celebrate June as Pride Month, with hundreds of parades to commemorate the day when the most marginal elements of the LGBT community – homeless street youth and transgender persons – sparked an uprising that rejected decades of non-confrontation, fear, and oppression to declare their outrage in one unmistakable voice that resonates to this day.
Stonewall
The Riot that Started a Revolution
June 28, 1969
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, law enforcement officials kept track of suspected homosexuals and the places that catered to them. Police regularly raided bars, seizing alcohol, and shutting down establishments. It was not uncommon for the people arrested during these raids to be exposed in newspapers, fired from their jobs, jailed, or confined to mental institutions. On June 27, 1969, about 200 patrons packed New York City’s Stonewall Inn. In the early morning hours of June 28th the police attempted a large-scale raid on the Mafia-owned gay club. No one – not the police or the people they were targeting – knew what was about to happen. While the police waited for patrol wagons to cart away the arrested suspects and seized alcohol, the bar’s patrons began to resist. Men refused to show their IDs, and those in drag refused to accompany female officers to a bathroom to have their gender confirmed. The mood gradually turned from somber resignation to camp humor to angry shouts. When a lesbian arrested inside the bar was brutalized while being placed in a police car, rage exploded among the several hundred people who had gathered in an uncharacteristic mob on the street. As the crowd erupted, the arresting officers – who were outnumbered
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more than 50 to 1 – barricaded themselves inside the bar. Within hours over 1000 people arrived and five more days of rioting engulfed the streets surrounding the club. Though the events of that immortal night were neither the first protest actions nor the first clashes between the police and LGBT people in the U.S., the unique confluence of rage and circumstances at the Stonewall Inn are considered the flashpoint that launched the modern LGBT Civil Rights Movement. Each year the world’s LGBT communities unite to celebrate June as Pride Month, with hundreds of parades to commemorate the day when the most marginal elements of the LGBT community – homeless street youth and transgender persons – sparked an uprising that rejected decades of non-confrontation, fear, and oppression to declare their outrage in one unmistakable voice that resonates to this day.
Erected 2014 by The Legacy Project.
Topics and series. This historical marker is listed in this topic list: Civil Rights. In addition, it is included in the The Legacy Walk series list. A significant historical date for this entry is June 28, 1969.
Location. 41° 56.698′ N, 87° 38.97′ W. Marker is in Chicago, Illinois, in Cook County. It is in Lake View East. Marker is on North Halsted Street north of West Newport Avenue, on the right when traveling south
Photographed By Andrew Ruppenstein, August 26, 2021
2. Stonewall Marker - wide view
The marker is visible here mounted to a rainbow pylon that it shares with a marker for Harvey Milk.
. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 3444 North Halsted Street, Chicago IL 60657, United States of America. Touch for directions.
"The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising or the Stonewall rebellion) were a series of spontaneous demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States of America. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered a watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights
in the United States."
(Submitted on January 4, 2022.)
Additional keywords. lgbt lgbtq
Credits. This page was last revised on January 30, 2023. It was originally submitted on January 3, 2022, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California. This page has been viewed 114 times since then and 9 times this year. Photos:1, 2. submitted on January 3, 2022, by Andrew Ruppenstein of Lamorinda, California.
