New York's Stonewall Inn could be first national gay rights monument

Reports suggest that the president will soon add the historic Stonewall site as a national monument.

|
Richard Drew/AP/File
The Stonewall Inn, in New York's Greenwich Village, is still in operation today.

The United States may soon have its first official national monument recognizing the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

A report by The Washington Post suggests that President Obama is set to designate Stonewall, the area surrounding the New York City inn that was the site of violent riots linked to the gay rights movement, as a national monument as soon as next month.

The National Park Service also recently announced the additions of two gay rights landmarks to its National Register of Historic Places: the Washington, D.C., home of Furies Collective, a lesbian commune established in the early 1970s responsible for The Furies newspaper, and the Edificio Comunidad de Orgullo Gay de Puerto Rico in San Juan, the first meeting place for gays in the island territory.

The National Park Service’s additions bring the total of LGBT sites recognized in its registry to around a dozen, while Mr. Obama’s potential Stonewall monument designation would be a first official national monument.

The Stonewall riots involved a 1969 raid by the New York Police Department on the Stonewall Inn, a gathering place for gays in the city. Violence broke out and continued for days, resulting in the establishment of more meeting places for the gay community and cementing the incident as a turning point for the gay rights movement.

“What happened at Stonewall and at Christopher Park is a key chapter in American history,” New York City councilman Corey Johnson, who is gay and represents the Stonewall area, told the Associated Press.

Obama’s move would add to the long list of monuments he has designated during his time in office, including large portions of land in the Western US, that some view as federal overreach.

Obama and the White House have yet to officially announce their intentions regarding the site, but the president has previously referenced the New York bar as an important landmark to equality alongside places like Seneca Falls, N.Y., and Selma, Ala.

“We must ensure that we never forget the legacy of Stonewall, the history of discrimination against the LGBT community, or the impassioned individuals who have fought to overcome it,” US Representative Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the Stonewall site, said in a statement. Rep. Nadler is set to hold a public forum on the likely designation Monday night.

“We now have an opportunity to ensure that the contributions of all of the brave individuals who helped launch the fight for civil rights are recognized, including those who have not always been acknowledged, such as transgender women of color,” he added.

National LGBT Pride Month is commemorated in June, when more information on Stonewall’s monument status could be released.

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.

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.

QR Code to New York's Stonewall Inn could be first national gay rights monument
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2016/0504/New-York-s-Stonewall-Inn-could-be-first-national-gay-rights-monument
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe