On June 28, 1969, a group of LGBT people fought back against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City.
In many ways, it was the beginning of the LGBT civil rights movement—but if there’s anything I’ve learned as an erstwhile historian, it’s that beginnings are seldom as clear cut as they first appear. One cannot often reduce such broad social changes to a single event, catalyzing as it may have been.
Joan Nestle, who founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1975, perhaps said it best when she wrote:
I certainly don’t see gay and lesbian history starting with Stonewall . . . and I don’t see resistance starting with Stonewall. What I do see is a historical coming together of forces, and the sixties changed how human beings endured things in this society and what they refused to endure. . . . Certainly something special happened on that night in 1969, and we’ve made it more special in our need to have what I call a point of origin . . . it’s more complex than saying that it all started with Stonewall.
(In The Question of Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America since Stonewall
We are at another coming together of forces in LGBT rights, I believe, a confluence of awareness, activism, and impatience that may serve as a historical milestone for those looking back in another 40 years. We build on the achievements of our predecessors, and we hope to leave the world a little better for our children and their peers.
A joyous Pride to all of you.
