Remembering the Stonewall Riots
This year's Atlanta Pride marks 40 years since turning point for LGBT rights
Oct 30, 2009 | By: LAURA DOUGLAS-BROWN
http://www.sovo.com/2009/10-30/news/localnews/10800.cfm (http://www.sovo.com/2009/10-30/news/localnews/10800.cfm)
The sultry night of june 27, 1969, began routinely enough. Gay men, "flame queens" and lesbians headed out for a night at the Stonewall Inn, a popular Mafia-run gay bar on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.
There, they would suffer the indignities of waiting in line to pass muster with the bouncer and drinking watered-down, illegal alcohol for a chance to escape for a few hours the more serious indignities that many faced the rest of the week. Most gay men and lesbians lived deeply in the closet, and people could be arrested simply for dressing in drag.
But this night wouldn't turn out to be routine at all. The New York Police Department's First Division of Public Morals showed up to raid the gay bar, expecting the patrons to simply slink off into the night.