American Experience; Stonewall Uprising; Interview with David Carter, 3 of 3

What was happening is that you had all these young gay people who had come to Ranch Village looking for freedom at a time when they know that they're being there at a time where they're seeing you know homosexuality praised and musicals like hair when they're seeing homosexuality beginning to be portrayed in a positive way on the screen a whole era of freedom and at this time you're seeing more and more rest you're seeing more and more violence against gay people you're seeing the police corruption and then you have the most popular gay bar in the nation the most popular one in Ranch Village at the center at the heart of the ghetto there's a serious raid on it where the intent is to shut it down

and that blew a gasket you know it was too much it was one bridge too far so to speak and it makes sense I mean that's that's in 69 that's what you did right I mean it's you know gay they took their cue from the era exactly I mean they'd seen you know students on TV take over campuses take over administration buildings they'd seen black people you know not willing to wait for integration taking militant action you know burning down you know having rights to they burn down sections of cities all of this you know the anti-war movement they were getting impatient with what was happening the so-called progress toward a demilitarization and Vietnam people who tried a peaceful approach with the US government were not now advocating blowing up buildings you know SDS had become extremely militant violent at times you know so it was a whole tin or the times you know we're not going to wait you know our patients that's not

unlimited great very briefly because I know you want this in your film and I'm sorry I was trying to do this how do you describe politically what happened after Stonewall you know that we have some of the people took the ball and ran with they didn't just let this event die as a one or five night field how do you get from there to the first day pride march but you know you know short short you know layman's terms yeah yeah yeah yeah initials it's like talking to some guy in the in the army you know well let's sign ups in the end and then they have to you know I don't know what you think yeah yeah they don't really mean you know you know how can can you do it without okay okay find each other do people organize people who participated in the Stonewall riots said that through that they found a community a sense of family a sense of support and out of that spontaneously they formed new organizations that were modeled on a new left model on what they were seeing on

TV every night the militancy the in your face the confrontational side and when they formed these new organizations that made the movement a mass movement that made it the movement for gays civil rights in America a mass movement finally so finally the issue of gay rights got on the political map of America for good because of the Stonewall riots and the organizing that came out of it organizing of a different and new kind that's great and I can't believe I was asking you to say this can you say they created movements with names like the gay liberation front which turned into the gay act of a salient and an organization which took the first march into a national and finally international yeah to give we like to say it once yeah yeah historical people who are like you watching this going yeah they do know what they're talking to you they didn't want to mention it too much yeah yeah yeah can you fold that into a dramatic little pressure sure sure okay hmm immediately after the Stonewall riots the gay liberation front was organized that

led to the formation of the gay activist alliance those organizations together were key in organizing the first Christopher Street liberation day march the first annual celebration of the Stonewall uprising that spread nationally and internationally and it's still spreading around the world today every year there's a new country that celebrates the Stonewall uprising and thus the message of gay freedom of gay civil rights continues to spread around the globe today I'm only concerned that your button 50 years ago um I just think it could have been said like even short it just sort of yeah yeah it would not work you know we'll have our one main link with another just in a little more um conversational okay okay out of the Stonewall riots came the gay liberation front the gay activist alliance they started organizing it became a mass movement people found each other and finally gay rights was on the political map of America for good

yeah right not just a little bit yeah just to get you to grab a little bit Stonewall riots probably have to be called it proved that gay people and how do you want to phrase that and how do they organize and how do they write their name yeah yeah okay okay the Stonewall riots prove that gay people were not powerless there they found their voice and they organized and they continue to organize and they continue to become a more powerful force and to get their rights to earn their rights to fight for their rights and they got them and they're were continuing to get them today was that good or I should try again yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I think I'm done with my shopping list the parents of the glue that we okay okay um what could I say something first about you know the

the the the coinciding of the geographic you know the the the sheer geography of transportation social nexus and so forth people always ask why did the Stonewall rights happen and they're usually asking for one cause a lot of it had to do with geography the Stonewall Inn was located at the heart of the gay ghetto it was at the center of several transportation nexus and it was at the heart of a social geography it was close to the corner the intersection uh the main cruising area used to be Greenwich Avenue it went down Christopher Street the intersection of Christopher and Greenwich Avenue became known as the corner because it was the most popular place for gay men to meet they were a stone straw way of that on top of that they had a a hub light transportation nexus which fed in subway lines path train cars telephones it was all set up the perfect location for a ride if there had to be one I don't think it was inevitable there

would be riots I think this was the one place it could happen it was the perfect place because it was a place that had endured it had earned loyalty therefore it was open to all sections of the community it was the one place where people could go on and count to be able to dance and to dance slowly to have romantic expression and it was one place it had so much hard and soul you know everybody was welcome there you had the the college kids you had the business types you had the street kids you had the drag queens you had a few lesbians it covered the waterfront so it was a place that was a kind of imperfect home but for a lot of people it was home so when it was threatened with being taken away there was a spontaneous revolt in defense of the closest thing they had them to a community center to a heart for the gay community okay sure sure the stonewall in at

53 Christopher Street in the late 60s was the most popular gay bar in all of New York City it was also probably the largest gay bar in all of America it drew people from thousands of miles away who heard of it it was a it was a magnet for gay people it was a kind of a mecca for some I think we've got a lot of people I think the one thing I feel like you you could try it like in another time conversation with where it's really central in your book what's the irony all you

got always people talking to you where there was this someone's a freedom social freedom yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the situation of gay people in New York City in the mid 1960s was very paradoxical because Greenwich Village was the one known famous gay neighborhood in the entire country and people came there from all over they came there looking for freedom kids who been thrown out of their families for being gay flocked there and they were hoping to find freedom the irony is here were people coming from all over country to a bohemian gay ghetto but it was the most oppressive time in gay history it was the time when entrapment was so bad that over 100 people being arrested a week so the fact that you had and this also happened this also happened during

the greatest wave of freedom in recent memory you know the the 60s when you think of the 60s that conjures up images of freedom experimentation progress social progress sexual freedom so people come to New York City looking for this and what did they get they get arrested they get thrown out of apartments they get entrapped so here is the place that you know so so Greenwich Village at the time was a bit of a rush for gay people it had the image of freedom it had some of the look of freedom but it didn't really have the the feeling of freedom okay okay in a way gay people coming to Greenwich Village looking for freedom in the 1960s was somewhat like seeking water from a mirage you had the look of

feet of you had the look of freedom you had a little bit of atmosphere freedom but it wasn't true freedom you would come here and you get entrapped you would get beaten up you get arrested you get harassed by the police you would have you would have the the people who lived in the neighborhood hate you throw things throw garbage out the windows on you so it wasn't true freedom you know it was in this happened at the time of the 1960s a time of incredible freedom of this country incredible increase in social demands for freedom free expression all this was happening but not for gay people actually join the rights and support of them I think this is partly because of the happened

in Greenwich Village happened in the 1960s a time of freedom of time of solidarity sometimes among oppressed people but they were a small group but they were there and I think that that shows that from the beginning there's potential for non-gay support for gay civil rights yeah well I think part of what you have part of what is happening is that the Kimsey report made people realize there are a lot more people who are homosexual homosexuals began to realize there are more homosexuals the population of the United States expanded gay people began to identify as gay and flock to cities looking for freedom so when you had a

lot of openly gay people here that got a reaction people didn't like it people thought you know staying the closet and there was a pushback there was a pushback for example I forget his name Rosenthal who became a eventually head editor of the New York Times editor in chief he returned to New York City after being abroad for several years in the mid-60s he was shocked at the openness of homosexuality in New York City he saw homosexuals all over New York City he was appalled so you had a lot of people like that behind the clamp down that came in the mid-60s the cleanups the efforts to push gay people off the streets back into the closet don't be so visible don't be so open so what you had yeah gay people in the mid-1960s became more open this is partly because of the sexual revolution the increasing population gay people after Kimsey were more likely

to identify as gay they flocked to the cities you had a burgeoning gay population in America cities New York was the biggest city you had the most visible gay population here and that created a backlash that was why you got the the clamp downs of the police going out and cleaning up the streets you're going to push the the homosexuals off the streets you're going to entrat them you're going to arrest them you're going to you know throw them in jail you're going to bust them you're going to put pressure on the heat zone to get to become invisible again that's what happened even after the Stonewall riots gay people who lived in the village be walking down the street a cop would come up to him and say get out of here the guy said I live here I don't care get out of here you shouldn't be out here on the street there was a push a lot of it was a reaction on society a reaction on the part of society to gay people beginning to become visible to establishing a gay society a gay counterculture a gay culture whatever you want to call it gay people were becoming visible

in the media on TV and books people didn't like it they were becoming visible on the streets that calls to backlash yeah yeah okay because of this backlash the notion that people could come here and find total freedom find fulfillment find an ideal gay life was a bit of mirage it wasn't as ideal as they thought it would be once they got here it wasn't as free what kind of press when the Stonewall riots happened there were a few articles and a few large newspapers it was covered some of the gay press some of the alternative press it wasn't under the radar

but it didn't get a lot of press and I think that was purely because of the homophobia of the times I couldn't be taken seriously by the media it would be a bit today as if there was a you know a bunch of people shooting heroin had a you know riot it'd be seen as unusual but this it's not a respectable group it's unusual it's interesting but yeah it's quite relevant I mean this was air television and radio and thousands of cameras it wasn't quite OJ with the camera yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah um the lack of media coverage of the Stonewall riots shows the homophobia of the times if it had happened

today there would be a lot of TV crews down there there were none that we know of nothing has survived in TV footage of the Stonewall riots only about six or seven images there's almost nothing recorded in terms of images from the Stonewall riots there are not many press reports there's maybe ten or twelve press reports by all five days so it's very limited and this is because of the homophobia of the time it was not taken seriously you know people these people you have to remember that at the time homosexuals were seen as degenerates they were seen as psychopaths they were seen as criminals centers they weren't seen as full human beings they weren't seen as full members of society they weren't seen as people deserving civil rights and so and so we television and newspapers once and thought you know and let's go up to the big rise and I still don't feel like I've heard the word you said today it would be covered but then there was CBS and NBC and ABC up

doing the Harlem riot yeah here in New York City the media capital of the world the Stonewall riots were not well covered by the press that's because of the homophobia of the times they thought their viewers would be offended at best are they not interested in the most charitable interpretation give me that you get me also you smile a little bit this is this is uh yeah they're for them spite words they think she's a bad thing um and it is I I find it deeply ironic you know that people can be fighting for their rights on the streets and beating the cops into submission and you're nobody that's like giving a party nobody shows up yeah uh there's days to cover yeah I mean yeah just to say that again but you're gonna have a little bit because I think it's a point worth making okay okay the Stonewall riots took place in New York City which after all is the media capital of America and the network TVs didn't show up the TV networks didn't show up

the major newspapers didn't get an extensive coverage they buried it in the back pages they were thinking that the readers wouldn't be interested they weren't that interested you know we weren't seeing this uh legitimate civil rights movement to put us uh in the media front and forward like that at the time would have been to legitimizes that was too dangerous too scary then gay people at the time were seeing this boogie man though we were you know we were seeing us criminals degenerates uh it would be giving us too much respect you know more respect than we deserve to you know to treat us as full of human beings to cover seriously to take our issues seriously by the media I think it would be good to say something about the the street youth a little bit a little you know camea portrait you know okay sure okay okay excuse me

the the main fire in the Stonewall riots came from homeless gay youth and these were mainly effeminate young gay men who were so effeminate they couldn't hide their homosexuals they'd been disowned by their families uh they'd been uh their bodies been seared it had a hot irons put on their bodies boiling water thrown on them one of them was thrown through a glass window by his father um and these kids ended up in grinch village seeking a refuge and one of the places they found a refuge was the Stonewall Inn it was uh as one writer at the time described it the most broad minded place in the city where everybody went and so uh it also happened to be across the street

from the park where they hung out and that's one reason when the riots happened the the the street kids were the first to fight you know they saw their dignity as being on the line and they fought ferociously they had these great names you know they were they were uh I think out of shame they used uh made up names like Zazoo Nova uh Miss Twiggy uh uh what was the one who had it the thing like um kiss my ass busy mucullo Betsy May Cula which is a point on kiss my ass and smash on Saturday night after the first night arriving there was an escalation and I think a lot of the reason this happened was because gay people were trying to claim

their territory they've been pushed into a ghetto and here the cops were coming in uh very heavy handedly and I think what they were trying to say is if you're going to force this into a ghetto we're at least going to have some say about running this ghetto it was an attempt to claim some gay space it was a matter of pride too you know here's our number one club you've tried to take away from us we're going to fight for it we're going to fight for this territory we're also going to fight for the right to be openly gay I think that's what the rights were trying to express in many different formats the right to be openly gay and still be seen as fully human bringing in the the right police you know escalated things it made people angry to see all these people with helmets and visors and shields and Billy clubs marching down the street pushing gay people back that created anger the physical beatings that took place in playing view created anger that happened a lot during the rise the police were not gentle

so here's something I can say I don't feel like but I'll see it anyhow it's hard to understand how much anger was expressed to the Stonewall riots Seymour Pine wrote the manual for armed combat I'm sorry Seymour Pine wrote the manual for hand-to-hand combat used in World War II he said he never felt so in danger as he did that night his companion Charles Smythe who fought with him insistently said he was still shaking an hour after the ride why was there so much anger I'm convinced that the immense anger that enabled people to do things like rip up a parking meter pull cobblestones out of the payment

happened because it wasn't just the anger of what would happen the past months even the past years in New York cities in New York City I think there was some kind of tapping into the collective unconscious of gay people this was like an old volcano erupting decades of oppression rage collectively pent up like lava that was trying to boil out maybe even for centuries it was tapped into that anger just a theory okay yeah

There's a little sad, but you have to be micro constant, it's a great sense.