STEIN, Marc (ed.)
The Stonewall Riots A Documentary History

June 28, 1969, 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 in history as the most galvanizing period 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.

Across 200 documents, Marc Stein presents a unique record of the lessons and legacies of Stonewall. Drawing from sources that include mainstream, alternative, and LGBTQ media, gay-bar guide listings, state court decisions, political fliers, first-person accounts, song lyrics, and photographs, Stein paints an indelible portrait of this pivotal moment in the LGBT movement. In The Stonewall Riots, Stein does not construct a neatly quilted, streamlined narrative of Greenwich Village, its people, and its protests; instead, he allows multiple truths to find their voices and speak to one another, much like the conversations you'd expect to overhear in your neighborhood bar. [publisher's note]

Published by New York University Press, 2019
Queer Culture / Politics