Speaker 1: What We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: A policeon was dragging this queen and she was struggling,
Speaker 2: and he dragged her to the petty wagon and was
Speaker 2: right there and threw her in. He looked away for
Speaker 2: a second and you could see her foot and her
Speaker 2: sequined high heel come out and kick him on the shoulder.
Speaker 2: She just sent him flying six feet. He looked at us,
Speaker 2: He dusted herself off, and he went back into that wagon,
Speaker 2: and you heard flesh and bone against metal and dripping,
Speaker 2: ugly dripping and moaning. And he came out of the
Speaker 2: back of the car triumphant, and everybody went silent, and
Speaker 2: he closed the door. He turned around and said, all right,
Speaker 2: your faggots, you saw what you saw. Not get the
Speaker 2: fuck out of you. Well we always listened to.
Speaker 1: But not this time.
Speaker 2: Her kicking him was the first sign that this night
Speaker 2: would be like no other.
Speaker 1: As a gay kid, growing up religious and in the South,
Speaker 1: I thought being gay was the worst thing I could
Speaker 1: ever be. Now, as a journalist, I'm trying to un
Speaker 1: learn that by seeking out our history, and what I've
Speaker 1: found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance, and love.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll meet Martin Boyce, a Stonewall regular
Speaker 1: who one night found himself in the middle of the
Speaker 1: historic riot that would change everything. From My Heart podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Gon Solve this and this is what we loved.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for all gay millennials, but I had
Speaker 1: no idea what Stonewall was until I was in my twenties.
Speaker 1: I grew up going to public school in Texas, and
Speaker 1: Stonewall just wasn't really something we learned about. It's funny, though,
Speaker 1: I do remember my first time going to Stonewall. I
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old and I had just moved to
Speaker 1: New York for college, and I was deeply closeted, but
Speaker 1: I just wanted to dance with other gay people. I
Speaker 1: ended up getting into the bar using my Pennsylvania fake ID,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at the window and there was
Speaker 1: this bright neon sign that said Stonewall. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: where I was, and I had no idea that almost
Speaker 1: fifty years before that night, I was at the site
Speaker 1: of the most important uprising in Queer American history. Almost
Speaker 1: half of Americans don't know what Stonewall is, so I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to someone who's actually there. Martin Boyce.
Speaker 1: My next guest was he's seventy six now, but on
Speaker 1: the first night of the Stonewall riots in June nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, he was twenty one, five seven and skinny,
Speaker 1: with brunette hair that had blonde streaks in it.
Speaker 2: He lived with his.
Speaker 1: Father and grandmother in New York. At that time, bars
Speaker 1: could be shut down if any of their gay patrons
Speaker 1: were caught hugging or kissing, or even dancing with each other,
Speaker 1: and those gay patrons could be arrested for disorderly conduct.
Speaker 1: At that point in the sixties, queer people in New
Speaker 1: York had found a home in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1: The Stone Wall In was in the heart of the village,
Speaker 1: and it was one of those few places that queer
Speaker 1: people could dance at. Even though they could still get arrested.
Speaker 1: That feeling of escaping their reality just to dance, even
Speaker 1: for a night was worth it. This was the queer
Speaker 1: culture that Martin was Immerston, Miss Martin. That's what they
Speaker 1: used to call you, right, what would they call me?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. You have to reveal your personality
Speaker 2: to get an it was you. It was up to them.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, hopefully I'll be lucky enough to get
Speaker 1: a name. So why don't we start off by talking
Speaker 1: about when you came out and what that was like.
Speaker 1: You were born in nineteen forty eight and you grew
Speaker 1: up basically in the fifteen and sixties. So tell me
Speaker 1: what it was like when you came out.
Speaker 2: Hopeless. I mean, if you were a gay person, it
Speaker 2: was hopeless being gay in the fifties. It was the
Speaker 2: worst thing you could possibly be and there was no explanation,
Speaker 2: no understanding, or just accept it.
Speaker 1: And how old were you when you came out?
Speaker 2: Well, I came out officially at seventeen, but I was
Speaker 2: gay since I was seven. Everybody knew. Everyone's waiting for
Speaker 2: me to say, you know, I was gay, And finally
Speaker 2: I told my dad, you know I'm gay. If you
Speaker 2: want to throw me at the house, drow me at
Speaker 2: the house. And my father said, no, I love you.
Speaker 1: Really. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was a working class cab driver, a real matro man,
Speaker 2: but he understood.
Speaker 1: You'd seen all kinds of walks of life because he
Speaker 1: was just.
Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty three, so he watched this horror for thirty
Speaker 2: forty years. Yeah, what horror, the torment of gay people.
Speaker 1: M So, what about your grandma? What did she say?
Speaker 2: My grandmother was like Italian Sicilian, and there she was,
Speaker 2: you know, with her shawl and her ear rings and
Speaker 2: her black hair. Cop parted in the middle. And my
Speaker 2: father said, you know, you got to tell your grandmother
Speaker 2: you're gay. I was like, I do and she said, yes,
Speaker 2: you gotta tell her. And I told my grandmother. I
Speaker 2: said to my grandmother, you know, Grandma, I'm gay. She said,
Speaker 2: what what does it mean. I said, well, you see,
Speaker 2: I'm homosexual. She goes, what is that? What does that mean?
Speaker 2: I said, Grandma, she understood this. I'm a fairy and
Speaker 2: she said, oh, she said yeah. She said I chose
Speaker 2: your mother when you were born, the very day you
Speaker 2: were born. And that was that. I was out wow,
Speaker 2: because my grandmother was the one that said we're all
Speaker 2: gay now and then wow.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in a pretty progressive very.
Speaker 2: But in a non progressive world society.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So tell me what it was like coming of
Speaker 1: age in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2: The impression was incredible. And one day I went down
Speaker 2: to the trucks because we all went to the trucks.
Speaker 1: When you said trucks, you mean the abandoned trucks that
Speaker 1: gay men would go find people to have sex with
Speaker 1: for cruising. Yeah, and how old were you?
Speaker 2: Oh about eighteen?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: And we went down there. We'd always go down there,
Speaker 2: and it was always interesting because so forbidden, the trucks
Speaker 2: were open and elicit. I went down to the trucks
Speaker 2: and there was nobody there. I mean, nobody was there.
Speaker 2: That was really scary.
Speaker 1: And that was not normal, not normal.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden I heard a voice saying, girl,
Speaker 2: save yourself, Please, girl, save yourself. And I was like,
Speaker 2: what's going on with the coming of that? Boys, please
Speaker 2: listen to me. You gotta listen to me, listen. And
Speaker 2: then I looked under the car finally because that's where
Speaker 2: the sound seemed to be coming. And there was miss.
Speaker 1: Marsha you mean Marcia P. Johnson.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I knew her. And she was very nice.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know who I was standing up and
Speaker 2: that's where I know she was. She always wanted somebody,
Speaker 2: anybody of danger. She was that kind of queen.
Speaker 1: And Grandma, really, what was she warning you about?
Speaker 2: There was a group of boys and their wife beat
Speaker 2: her t shirts with bats. They saw me because they
Speaker 2: were trying to.
Speaker 1: Beat you up.
Speaker 2: Oh they were going to come out there and beat me.
Speaker 2: Oh they were Those bats were ready to move.
Speaker 1: You could tell because they knew you were gay.
Speaker 2: Oh of course I was obviously gay. You could see
Speaker 2: that blood was the only thing that was satisfied them.
Speaker 2: And then a truck drive across the way at the
Speaker 2: highway towards the river called me into the car. He
Speaker 2: thought what was happening? And I ran over him, got
Speaker 2: into the car and he took me to Fourth Street
Speaker 2: to get the bus to go home, and I saved myself.
Speaker 2: Every day was a danger like that.
Speaker 1: So growing up in the nineteen sixties, being gay in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, you were always scared that people were
Speaker 1: gonna beat you up.
Speaker 2: Of course, I remember my father tried to teach me
Speaker 2: how to use a knife. He showed me how to
Speaker 2: stick it in somebody, but then you had to turn
Speaker 2: it wow to twist it inside, and I thought, I
Speaker 2: can't do this.
Speaker 1: He had taught you that because you were gay, and
Speaker 1: he knew you needed to defend yourself.
Speaker 2: Yes, you could not walk down the street. Two queens
Speaker 2: walking down the street. One had to watch him. One
Speaker 2: had to talk, and then you talked and she watched
Speaker 2: because you turned that corner and it could be a catastrophe.
Speaker 1: Wow, how are you meeting people? Because there was no
Speaker 1: grinder back then.
Speaker 2: No, no, your crew. You go to the streets. The
Speaker 2: streets that night were alive. There were certain areas to
Speaker 2: certain streets that were alive. New York and the sixties
Speaker 2: the streets were everything. I mean in the sixties you
Speaker 2: didn't make plans. You left your house and by five
Speaker 2: in the morning you'd come home. But you would experience
Speaker 2: these amazing things in between.
Speaker 1: And what was it like going to a gay bar
Speaker 1: back then? Because it was illegal, right, it was.
Speaker 2: Illegal and it was stuffy. You were trained right away
Speaker 2: to being a raid.
Speaker 1: What do you mean a raid?
Speaker 2: Well, if you went to a gay ball, you had
Speaker 2: to know how to deal with the raid.
Speaker 1: The cops.
Speaker 2: The cops, depending on if they're paid off or if
Speaker 2: they were not paid off, house via the raid would be.
Speaker 2: They would tell you what to do in a raid.
Speaker 2: I mean, like who would tell you other capele we
Speaker 2: met right away on the streets always they would just
Speaker 2: tell you in a matter of conversation, what to do.
Speaker 2: In to May, it sounds very simple. The life would
Speaker 2: go on, and of if they did. You stayed in
Speaker 2: front of your drink, you grabbed your ID, you moved
Speaker 2: away from anybody who were close to or cruising or
Speaker 2: getting close to, and you wait for them to come in.
Speaker 2: They break down the door. They were going to punish you.
Speaker 2: They were gonna let you know that you were not legitimated.
Speaker 2: They were going to let you know your place in
Speaker 2: this world. My dad thought the way I looked when
Speaker 2: I was going out, and he said, you know what,
Speaker 2: He said, here's the cookie jar. There's money in it
Speaker 2: for your bail. And he said, whenever you got one,
Speaker 2: call called me and.
Speaker 1: I'll bail you out with the money and the cook
Speaker 1: You do right. He just did even finish right. So
Speaker 1: let me get this straight, Martin. It is the sixties,
Speaker 1: and every time you go outside you're worried about getting
Speaker 1: beaten up, and every time you go to a bar,
Speaker 1: you're worried about the police coming to arrest you. Your
Speaker 1: dad is teaching you from an early age how to
Speaker 1: protect yourself, and you have just accepted this is what
Speaker 1: life is for a gay person.
Speaker 2: There was nothing else you could do. This is the
Speaker 2: way life was, and this is the way you had
Speaker 2: to live. So why not enjoy what you had? A
Speaker 2: little you had and gays that developed an amazing culture,
Speaker 2: a culture that was really worthy of living.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Stonewall. How did you hear about it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Everybody heard about stone was the moment it opened.
Speaker 2: The whole thing was. You could dance there and it
Speaker 2: was a dump.
Speaker 1: What do you mean a dump?
Speaker 2: It was a horrible physical place. It was just uncared for, unclean.
Speaker 2: So we washed it black walls. I remember seeing the
Speaker 2: place one afternoon and my friend had to go in
Speaker 2: there and what a dump? What a non entity?
Speaker 1: In the daylight you saw it in this Oh it
Speaker 1: was horrible.
Speaker 2: It was horrible place. But at night it was magic.
Speaker 2: People made it magic.
Speaker 1: What was the difference.
Speaker 2: The difference was the attitude of the people and the jukebox.
Speaker 2: The jukebox was the heart and the center of the
Speaker 2: entire bar.
Speaker 1: So it was all about just losing yourself on the
Speaker 1: dance floor.
Speaker 2: Yes, and also from Harlem and Brooklyn came the black queens.
Speaker 2: So they'd come and they practiced their routines in front
Speaker 2: of us. They were doing something in front of the jukebox.
Speaker 2: It was incredible, this new kind of dancing, new kind
Speaker 2: of performance. It was called Vogan later but we didn't
Speaker 2: have a name. And the queens were tried out on
Speaker 2: the Stonewall crowd during the weekdays. It was fantastic, really
Speaker 2: something else to see. Nobody spoke, everybody watched. They were
Speaker 2: the queens doing this new thing, this hip thing. We
Speaker 2: were like the privilege to be part of.
Speaker 1: This is the music. Tell me what was your favorite
Speaker 1: song that was playing?
Speaker 2: So it was really great. I knew good music, the
Speaker 2: kind of music that queens wanted to hear. And they
Speaker 2: controlled that jukebox and drawed it. And every time I
Speaker 2: would go to the jukebox, I was allowed.
Speaker 1: You got the jukebox access because they liked you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was no problem. I was on a little
Speaker 2: pedestal and one day my friend left New York City
Speaker 2: and I got very sad and I got up and
Speaker 2: I played I'm Leaving on a Jet playing by Peter
Speaker 2: Poul and Mary, a folk group.
Speaker 1: Folk music at Stonewall.
Speaker 2: They did not like it. I was ostracized. I was
Speaker 2: not allowed to the jukebox again. I told my dad
Speaker 2: he knew street culture and he said, queens are just
Speaker 2: the same like everybody else. He said, I'll give w
Speaker 2: your allowed. Just buy your berry drink to go let
Speaker 2: your back. I did. I had no money left. It
Speaker 2: was all spent on them. And the day came and
Speaker 2: I was all right. They came me, they opened up.
Speaker 2: I had the way to the jukebox, one quarter, the
Speaker 2: only quarter I had. I played E nine Bretha Franklin,
Speaker 2: respect and the queens started dancing. The crowd started cheering,
Speaker 2: and I was back. I was back in the centrals.
Speaker 2: Com I remember to this day that year, I remember
Speaker 2: that feeling they gave me one more chance.
Speaker 1: When Martin was coming of age, life as a queer
Speaker 1: person wasn't easy in New York. Police raids were common
Speaker 1: for queer people just trying to dance with their friends.
Speaker 1: Homosexual acts were illegal, and being gay was still officially
Speaker 1: considered a mental illness. Stonewall was a respite from all
Speaker 1: of this. From the outside, it didn't look like much,
Speaker 1: but inside it was a safe haven where queer people
Speaker 1: could let loose. The physical building was two stories tall,
Speaker 1: had a red brick exterior, and was mostly surrounded by
Speaker 1: narrow streets. On the hot summer night, of June twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, Martin was excited to go to Stonewall
Speaker 1: with his best friend Bertie. It was a full moon.
Speaker 1: They were dressed up in what he calls scare drag.
Speaker 1: Scare drag isn't dressing in drag. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: tying up your T shirt to show a little belly
Speaker 1: button and putting on some mascara. So that night Martin
Speaker 1: slipped on a tight pink boatnecked T shirt that was
Speaker 1: cropped at the bottom. He put on his eyeliner and
Speaker 1: headed to the village. Stone Wall was already full though,
Speaker 1: and they didn't end up getting in, so he and
Speaker 1: Bertie sat at a stoop right by the bar to
Speaker 1: figure out where to go next, and they started seeing
Speaker 1: some commotion. It was eight cops who were raiding the bar.
Speaker 1: As they kicked the patrons out onto the street. Martin
Speaker 1: and Bertie saw some of their friends outside Stonewall and
Speaker 1: ran into the action. So tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about that night and what actually happened.
Speaker 2: We were sitting on a stoop up from Stonewoo and
Speaker 2: then I heard all this commotion and these lights down
Speaker 2: Stonewol and it was police cause, and the crowd behind me,
Speaker 2: rushing rushing behind. I could feel them talking about a raid,
Speaker 2: and I looked down. I did, there's a raid. It
Speaker 2: was happening. I could tell this just look a ray
Speaker 2: really was ray. And the queen that created a semi
Speaker 2: circuit around the bar. A police one was dragging this
Speaker 2: queen in this open area in between the semicircle and
Speaker 2: the doors of the bar, and she was struggling, and
Speaker 2: he dragged her to the petty wagon and was right
Speaker 2: there and threw her in. He looked away for a second,
Speaker 2: and she could see her foot and her sequined high
Speaker 2: heel come out and kick him on the shoulder and
Speaker 2: send him flying. She just sent him flying six feet.
Speaker 2: But he got up, he looked at us, He dusted
Speaker 2: himself off, and he went back into that wagon, and
Speaker 2: you heard flesh and bone against metal and dripping, ugly
Speaker 2: dripping and moaning, and he came out of the back
Speaker 2: of the car triumphant, and everybody went silent, and he
Speaker 2: closed the door. He turned around and said, all right,
Speaker 2: your faggots, your soldier saw get the fuck out of here.
Speaker 2: Well we always listened, but not this time. And then
Speaker 2: we started moving towards him. Step by step, I saw
Speaker 2: the hairs on his neckro up. He gulped, and he
Speaker 2: ran into the Stonemall barn. They all ran into the barn.
Speaker 2: The cops well, all of a sudden, everybody started throwing
Speaker 2: things in their pockets, pennies at first, because there was copper,
Speaker 2: and we started throwing that and throwing it against the door.
Speaker 2: It's one queen, she went. She got all these orange
Speaker 2: peels from orange shop, and we threw those, and they
Speaker 2: brought bottles. We started throwing those a garbage can a beer,
Speaker 2: and we kept doing.
Speaker 1: That because the cops are inside, right.
Speaker 2: And because the adrenaline it had to be released, It
Speaker 2: could no longer be contained. Something I look a made
Speaker 2: us all warriors, and they knew it, and they knew
Speaker 2: they were in danger. Their guns there were times, meant nothing.
Speaker 1: Right now they were outnumbered.
Speaker 2: They had not expected such fierce resistance.
Speaker 1: And this was different from other raids that.
Speaker 2: You had been to, completely different. We always listen to them.
Speaker 2: We dis first when it tell us dispersed. We shook
Speaker 2: our heads, we locked our wounds. We took our losses
Speaker 2: again and again and again, but not that night. Her
Speaker 2: kicking him was the first sign that this night would
Speaker 2: be like no other.
Speaker 1: It sounds so different from the Martin that was compliant
Speaker 1: with the cops and running away from the guys with
Speaker 1: the bats. What had changed for you?
Speaker 2: All of us were angry. No one we're oppressed, No
Speaker 2: one had been mistreated. And why we contributed to society.
Speaker 2: We did their hair, we did their nails, we made
Speaker 2: their art.
Speaker 1: Martin, What was going through your minds at that point?
Speaker 2: You didn't think of anything. I can't even think now
Speaker 2: what I thought. It didn't matter anymore, and we could
Speaker 2: think anymore. You didn't think, You just thought. And then
Speaker 2: this queen she went and she got light of fluid
Speaker 2: from the optimo on seventh AVENU, my god, and then
Speaker 2: she just threw a matchine and lit the whole place up.
Speaker 2: The riot started. And a riot is not what you think.
Speaker 2: It's not like you stand there and you think you're
Speaker 2: in a twirl in a swirl in a kaleidoscope, and
Speaker 2: you're smelling burning garbage and sweat, and nothing's clear. It's
Speaker 2: all swirled. And then it stopped. And there I was
Speaker 2: looking at the window of stormwall, and there was Miss
Speaker 2: New Orleans just on the window. Sill. She's a very
Speaker 2: unfortunate queen. She was ugly, she had very bad skin,
Speaker 2: Miss New Orleans, Miss Doorians. But I have never seen
Speaker 2: such fire in anybody's eyes. This queen meant to avenge
Speaker 2: all the indignities that she suffered. And she jumped down
Speaker 2: and she grabbed the parking meter and almost single handedly
Speaker 2: broke it out of the contrecrete. They helped her when
Speaker 2: they realized what she was trying to do, and they
Speaker 2: started ramming the door.
Speaker 1: The parking meter that's in the concrete ground. She took
Speaker 1: that out of the ground.
Speaker 2: She broke the ground.
Speaker 1: That's the level of rage.
Speaker 2: Oh, she was determined. They used as a battering ram.
Speaker 2: They started smashing down the door, and we're going to
Speaker 2: break in, and all of a sudden, the crowd parted
Speaker 2: and there they came. They called in the Tactico Police Force.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, the swat team.
Speaker 2: Headshields, body shiels, gas masks, every kind of equipment. And
Speaker 2: they were really, you could tell, curious that they were
Speaker 2: called in to fight a bunch of fagots. They couldn't
Speaker 2: believe it. They were trained for something else al together,
Speaker 2: and here was a bunch of fagots that they thought
Speaker 2: they could see in their eyes they were going to
Speaker 2: put this out in two minutes. He's going to take
Speaker 2: them two minister and the entire thing. So like this
Speaker 2: is an incredible thing. They did this kick line. All
Speaker 2: the queens got together, held each other's arms and did
Speaker 2: a rock cat kick and say, we are the village. Girls,
Speaker 2: we wear our hair, and girls, we wear our dungarees
Speaker 2: above our nelly knees.
Speaker 1: Oh it sounds like you guys weren't even afraid.
Speaker 2: No, there was nothing to lose, and they charged and
Speaker 2: we ran.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that perhaps as many as two thousand protesters
Speaker 1: were there with Martin that night. They were throwing empty
Speaker 1: beer bottles at the cops and battling the tactical patrol force.
Speaker 1: But Martin and his friends had an advantage. They knew
Speaker 1: the neighborhood of Greenwich Village better than anyone else. The
Speaker 1: village isn't like the rest of New York. It doesn't
Speaker 1: follow the grid system. It's old and has unusual diagonal
Speaker 1: street patterns that curve and twist at random points. The
Speaker 1: cops couldn't keep up.
Speaker 2: We knew the village, and that's a military advantage that
Speaker 2: we had all these men who did not know these things.
Speaker 1: You knew. You and the rest of the queens. You
Speaker 1: guys knew exactly every nook and cranny and turned of
Speaker 1: the West village.
Speaker 2: We singled doorway, every place to go pee. We knew
Speaker 2: everything about the village, everything, And they chased us. They
Speaker 2: thought they were going to end it. It didn't worry.
Speaker 2: We controlled the street. They didn't wipe the street out.
Speaker 2: They didn't get us in patty wagons. We were still
Speaker 2: holding the ground. Oh my god. And then do one
Speaker 2: was coming, Oh my god. And I was on a stoop.
Speaker 2: I was really exhausted, and of course he was this queen.
Speaker 2: She was blotting her head bleeding.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then six feet away from her was this cop
Speaker 2: who was so tired, leaning against the fence. Didn't arrest
Speaker 2: her because over it was just over.
Speaker 1: Oh shit. So this this image is the sun is
Speaker 1: coming up, and you have a queen who was running
Speaker 1: away from the cop, and the cop and the queen
Speaker 1: and are standing next to each other. Both over.
Speaker 2: The street was smoking, garbage, kins were smoking. There was
Speaker 2: a trail of glass, beautiful when some picked it up,
Speaker 2: like of diamonds.
Speaker 1: There's tears coming down your face? How come?
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't talked about this in a while, just
Speaker 2: remembering it. It was a great event. Sometimes I think
Speaker 2: it's just an event, and I don't realize what a
Speaker 2: great event it was. And it was.
Speaker 1: Martin Boyce had just taken part in the Stonewall Riots,
Speaker 1: a rebellion that would change the way gay people were
Speaker 1: treated in America. But that wasn't yet clear to Martin.
Speaker 1: In fact, as he was going home from stone Wall
Speaker 1: that morning, he was anxious that there was going to
Speaker 1: be backlash and a lot of it. What do you do?
Speaker 1: Did you go home? Oh?
Speaker 2: I went home.
Speaker 1: What time is it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Must be five thirty. Now, wow, my father got
Speaker 2: phone calls. I got into the house and he goes.
Speaker 2: He put his paper down. He said to me, it's
Speaker 2: about time you guys did something.
Speaker 1: It was about time.
Speaker 2: I was so stunned that he said. I just went
Speaker 2: to bed. I had it. I was just like too
Speaker 2: much of me. And then about three or four days later,
Speaker 2: I knew the backlace was coming. And I was walking
Speaker 2: up eighty seventh Street. Everybody was walking dogs and things like.
Speaker 2: It was just the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this very very butched black man a sensation worker
Speaker 2: throwing cobbage bags into the back of the truck. And
Speaker 2: he saw me, and he glared at me, and he
Speaker 2: moved towards me and lived his hand in the black salute.
Speaker 1: Wow, it was his.
Speaker 2: Fist up and power in that power bout his head.
Speaker 2: He blinked. Nobody was walking dogs anymore, Nobody was calling
Speaker 2: for cabs to do that. In front of a fag.
Speaker 2: The entire block was like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: There's like solidarity there.
Speaker 2: It was a real moment, and I realized, there's hope.
Speaker 1: So what was the first thing that you thought really changed?
Speaker 2: The psychiatric people? The medical association, there's the chitaes voting
Speaker 2: us not.
Speaker 1: Sick, mentally ill?
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty two, the American Psychiatric Association had classified
Speaker 1: homosexuality as a mental illness. During this time, queer people
Speaker 1: could be subjected to brain surgeries called lobotomies. These surgeries
Speaker 1: severed entire parts of the brain with the goal of
Speaker 1: decreasing same sex attraction. Performed on young, healthy people, it
Speaker 1: could lead to epilepsy, dementia, and sometimes death. But after stonewall,
Speaker 1: gay activists were empowered to organize and push back, and
Speaker 1: after intense protesting. The American Psychiatric Association voted in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three to remove that classification. Gays were no longer
Speaker 1: considered mentally ill. A lot of people attribute that change
Speaker 1: to Stonewall.
Speaker 2: That was the first change. You couldn't have anymore. They
Speaker 2: couldn't force you have abod anymore because you weren't sick anymore.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal.
Speaker 2: It's a very big deal. It's a very big deal.
Speaker 2: I knew people that were sent away, like everybody remembered
Speaker 2: somebody gone, the great queens that were gone, homeless, mental institutions, lobotomies.
Speaker 1: You know, Martin. People always associate Stonewall with liberation. When
Speaker 1: did you actually feel liberated the first gay march, Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well, there was going to be a march a year later,
Speaker 2: and there was trouble in the city and everybody knew
Speaker 2: something was going to happen and watch. So it was
Speaker 2: not the best idea to have a gay march.
Speaker 1: You thought you might get beat up or something.
Speaker 2: We were sure were gonna get beat up.
Speaker 1: One year to the day of Stonewall, in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: the very first Pride marches were held all over the
Speaker 1: country to commemorate the first anniversary of the riots. That's
Speaker 1: why Pride Isn't. The march in New York was called
Speaker 1: the Christopher Street Liberation Day. Christopher Street is in the
Speaker 1: heart of Greenwich Village. For Martin, it felt like the
Speaker 1: first time that queer people from all walks of life
Speaker 1: had come together. Usually folks just stayed in their clicks.
Speaker 1: Martin and his best friend Bertie decided they were going
Speaker 1: to go, but they were really anxious. Queer people at
Speaker 1: the time didn't really gather together in broad daylight. It
Speaker 1: was dangerous and they thought they might be some of
Speaker 1: the only ones to show up. So before heading to
Speaker 1: the demonstration, Martin and Bertie took a valuum to calm
Speaker 1: their nerves. They marched fifty blocks till they got to
Speaker 1: Central Park, where they realized that there were thousands of
Speaker 1: people with them.
Speaker 2: We heard that the gay group had gotten a license,
Speaker 2: couldn't bleat it to march up sixth Avenue, and you know,
Speaker 2: there was a call to us to join, all right.
Speaker 2: Me and Bertie said, you know, well we're gonna do it.
Speaker 2: We get down there and we started. I remember him
Speaker 2: grabbing my arm. I grabbed his arm and was mashing it.
Speaker 2: But on the way up it was this black woman.
Speaker 2: She was cutting windows up in this building and she
Speaker 2: waved her claw to us. And then there were people
Speaker 2: that were shouting encouragement, tourists and people that were just
Speaker 2: like my dad, like go ahead, keep going.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: They knew you were gay, but oh my god, they
Speaker 2: knew that you have to be blind. I see that,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden Bertie turned around to me
Speaker 2: and said, we're in the middle. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable,
Speaker 2: and we begetting to fifty seventh Street. They stopped us.
Speaker 2: Then the track stopped and a couple was near me.
Speaker 2: I said, I knew you did this. I knew you
Speaker 2: stop us. I knew it. Said I didn't stop you.
Speaker 2: There's too many of you. You can't get into the
Speaker 2: park right away. I said, really, He said, yeah, you
Speaker 2: gotta wait. And true enough, in the south part of
Speaker 2: the park we're all getting in. The hells were covered
Speaker 2: with gay people, covered with gay people. Now, we never
Speaker 2: saw each other before in the daytime.
Speaker 1: Really where when wow? Because you guys only met each
Speaker 1: other at night in the dark, in the dark, we knew.
Speaker 2: About each other. We imagined each other. We knew all that,
Speaker 2: but we never really looked at each other. And multitudes
Speaker 2: are gay people covering the hills was incredible and nothing
Speaker 2: was happening because all these gay people were feeling a
Speaker 2: sense of wonder seeing other gay people. And Bertie looked
Speaker 2: at me and said, you know what I think?
Speaker 1: Where people? What do you mean when you say when
Speaker 1: Bertie said we are people, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: We weren't before. We're just a bunch of gay groups.
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, Bertie noticed that all these
Speaker 2: gays were like together.
Speaker 1: So for the first time you felt like you were
Speaker 1: a part of something.
Speaker 2: Right, that this really was gay depression.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's crazy for me to be sitting across from
Speaker 1: you because we're two different generations. And I can't help
Speaker 1: but think about the fact that I'm able to go
Speaker 1: to gay bars and it's because of you, know what
Speaker 1: you did all those years ago, And I just wonder,
Speaker 1: from your perspective, what do you think the impact of
Speaker 1: stonewall has been on the generations after you?
Speaker 2: Every older gay person wants to pass the torch to
Speaker 2: a younger gay person. It's true, I'm amazed at young
Speaker 2: people all all the the gay world. I've never seen
Speaker 2: so many eager hands ready to grab that. George. I'm
Speaker 2: married today because of what your generation did. So the
Speaker 2: depth is inter there's an exchange, yes, because SOA is
Speaker 2: not a story of liberation.
Speaker 1: For us.
Speaker 2: It was a story of frustration and desperation. The next
Speaker 2: generation made a story of liberation.
Speaker 1: So, in other words, what you're saying is that each
Speaker 1: generation adds something to the conversation about liberation, absol And
Speaker 1: for as much as we are grateful to you, you're
Speaker 1: grateful to absolutely. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Absolutely, But.
Speaker 1: We Loved is hosted by me Jordan Gonsolvis. New episodes
Speaker 1: drop every Wednesday. If you want to write in to
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Speaker 1: Loved was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshino Zaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey patt Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Me, Maya Howard and Katrina Norble. Fact checking by
Speaker 1: Marisa Brown, Original music by Steve Bone special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jay Bronson and rockel Willis. If you loved this episode,
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Speaker 1: and Spotify, and thank you for listening. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.