Skip to footer

What Stonewall means to the LGBT community

For many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, New York's Stonewall Inn is much more than a bar.

|
Julie Jacobson/AP Photo/File
A man lights candles on a memorial outside the Stonewall Inn for victims of the Orlando Shooting, in New York, on June 16. President Obama is designating the Stonewall Inn in New York a national monument, the first to honor gay rights.

President Obama announced Friday that 7.7 miles of Manhattan, including the historic Stonewall Inn, will be designated as a national monument, in commemoration of the Stonewall uprising.

New York's Stonewall Inn is best known as the birthplace of the gay rights movement. During the famous Stonewall Riots of 1969, the tavern's patrons fought back during a raid by New York City police. The bar has remained a pivotal cultural center for the movement for decades.

"I believe the national parks should reflect the full story of our country, the richness, diversity and the uniquely american spirit that has always defined us," Mr. Obama said in a video announcing the designation of the Stonewall National Monument, "that we are stronger together. That out of many, we are one."

The monument will include the tavern itself, as well as nearby Christopher Park and the streets in which the Stonewall Riots took place.

David Singleton, an older gay man, wrote about the significance of Stonewall for AARP on the 40th anniversary of the riots, saying that it is hard to imagine a world before the Stonewall riots catalyzed a the gay rights movement.

"It's hard to imagine police handcuffing, harassing, and arresting gay people for simply gathering in public – but that's what happened, routinely," wrote Mr. Singleton, "before Stonewall's spontaneous uprising of gay men and lesbians in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood galvanized the gay-rights movement."

Stonewall's enduring significance was on display in the hours following a deadly attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., as New Yorkers flocked to the bar to commemorate the victims of the Pulse shooting. Several hundred people, guarded by police officers and a plethora of rainbow decorations, convened at the Stonewall Inn to protest hate.

"Stonewall is a place that serves as a point of connection for a lot of people, for feeling vulnerable," Joseph Pierce of Brooklyn told the Associated Press at the time.

Like Stonewall, many say that Orlando's Pulse nightclub played a major role in the LGBT community. It was a community center and sanctuary as well as a nightclub, according to many.

After the Orlando attack, acknowledging the LGBT community and their important role in our modern conception of civil rights has become more important than ever for many. 

This is not the first time Stonewall has been acknowledged, however. It joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 and was already part of the Greenwich Village Historic District.

Most notably, New York City designated the site as an official city landmark last year.

"There are few locations that can be cited as the birthplace of a global movement," New York City Council member Cory Johnson told the Associated Press at the time. "One such location is the Stonewall Inn."

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to What Stonewall means to the LGBT community
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0624/What-Stonewall-means-to-the-LGBT-community
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe