Civil Rights Movements

This online resource is a research supplement to Marc Stein, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (New York: New York University Press, 2019). It provides references for primary documents related to the materials reprinted in The Stonewall Riots; most of the sources come from newspapers, magazines, and newsletters. It is not comprehensive or complete.

The Stonewall riots that took place in New York in June 1969 are widely credited with catalyzing the modern LGBT+ civil rights movement. Join us as we commemorate 50 years since the riots with Stonewall historian Marc Stein, lesbian writers and activists Pamela Sneed and Kelly Cogswell, and stories celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Drag March. The episode is presented by your host, historian Claire Potter, executive editor of Public Seminar.

The June 2019 pride month marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York, the widely accepted start of the LGBTQ rights movement. But LGBTQ activism began even sooner in the U.S., with similar riots and demonstrations in San Francisco. We'll talk about that history of activism before and after Stonewall with historian Marc Stein, and hear what that legacy looks like in present-day San Francisco with co-founder of Compton's Transgender Cultural District, Honey Mahogany.

On the Fourth of July in 1969, the Berkeley Barb published one of the earliest media reports on the Stonewall Riots in New York City. The article was authored by Leo Laurence, one of the co-founders of San Francisco’s Committee for Homosexual Freedom, and “Gays Hit NY Cops” began by declaring, “Homosexuals took to the streets in New York City last weekend and joined the revolution.” Laurence’s account was supportive of the rioters, but deliberately noted that those who had fought back at Stonewall were “joining” rather than “starting” the revolution. J. Marks, identified as the author of Rock and Other Four-Letter Words and an eyewitness to the riots, was quoted as telling Laurence, “The gay community in New York City has been inspired by your homosexual liberation stories in the BARB.” These stories, which began appearing several months before Stonewall, had reported on the Bay Area’s “gay revolution” as well as the alliances that gay radicals had tried to forge with other leftist movements, and the demonstrations that CHF had organized to protest police violence, capitalist exploitation, and the war machine.

Newspaper interview with Marc Stein, professor of history at San Francisco State University, Author of "The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History."

In June 28, 1969, in Greenwich Village, The New York City Police Department fueled by bigoted liquor licensing practices and an omnipresent backdrop of homophobia and transphobia, raided the Stonewall Inn, a neighborhood gay bar, in the middle of the night. The raid was met with a series of responses that would go down as the most important moment in LGBTQ history in this country’s fight for sexual and gender liberation: a riotous reaction from the bar’s patrons and surrounding community, followed by six days of protests. Marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots, we are in conversation with Marc Stein, professor of history at San Francisco State University and editor of the book The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History.

Marc Stein talked about the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and their impact on the LGBTQ movement. Professor Stein was interviewed from outside the Stonewall National Monument in New York’s Greenwich Village to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a key turning point in the movement.

In celebration of Pride Month this year, The Brian Lehrer Show will be taking a closer look at the LGBTQ rights movement, decade by decade. Up first, Marc Stein, professor of history at San Francisco State University, discusses the moment when it all started: Stonewall, 1969. He is also the editor of The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (NYU Press, 2019) and author of Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement (New York: Routledge, 2012).

Marc Stein, Professor of History at San Francisco State University and editor of The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History, discusses the legacy of Stonewall through documents that include mainstream, alternative, and LGBTQ media, gay-bar guide listings, state court decisions, political fliers, first-person accounts, song lyrics, and photographs.

Blog interview with Marc Stein about his new book, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History. In it, he compiles 200 documents that shed light on the years immediately preceding and after the events at Stonewall.

Before the Stonewall riots, there was another — very different — group of gay and lesbian protests called the Annual Reminders in Philadelphia. Marc Stein, a professor at San Francisco State University, explains why these demonstrations are a little-known piece of LGBTQ history and how they reflected a larger cultural shift in the U.S.

Interview with Mark Stein on Page 3 of this issue of Prizm.

History Happens interviewed Marc Stein, vice chair of the GLBT Historical Society Board of Directors. A professor of history at San Francisco State University, Stein is the author of the new book The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (NYU Press, 2019). His research places Stonewall in a broader national context that positions the riots not as a starting point, but as a turning point.