LGBT Rights: 1960s-1970s

Now that the Stonewall Inn is the United States' first national monument to LGBT rights, we look at how the community fought against raids, harassment, and discriminatory laws.

Three years before Stonewall, the crowd who hung out at Compton’s—drag queens, transgender women, gay hustlers—finally got sick of the constant harassment and the way the cops would throw them in jail for any reason: wearing lipstick or mascara, or even a blouse that buttoned on the “wrong” side.

It was after the bars had closed and well into the pre-dawn hours of an August morning in 1966 when San Francisco cops were in Gene Compton's cafeteria again. They were arresting drag queens, trans women and gay hustlers who had been sitting for hours, eating and gossiping and coming down from their highs with the help of 60-cent cups of coffee.

An older trans person and a mother figure to countless LGBTQ young people, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is an elder of the queer rights movement ― and someone whose legacy almost demands your respect.

Stonewall riots, also called Stonewall uprising, series of violent confrontations that began in the early hours of June 28, 1969, between police and gay rights activists outside the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. As the riots progressed, an international gay rights movement was born.

Overview and primary source collection from the Digital Public Library of America.

Online exhibit from the New York Public Library, covering Stonewall, the Gay Liberation Front, the Christopher Street Liberation Day, and more.

New York City was the site of the nation's first gay pride parade on June 28, 1970. A few other cities also held marches that year. [Photos]

The first group to be organized after Stonewall, the Gay Liberation Front sparked a radical and confrontational movement that soon spread around the city and across the nation.

The uprisings of the 1960s and 70s ignited a new atmosphere of gay liberation.

A remarkably frank examination of LGBT issues during the transformative decade between Stonewall and AIDS.

On June 28, 1970 -- one year after the Stonewall Riots -- activists marched 51 blocks from west of Sixth Avenue at Waverly Place, in Greenwich Village, all the way to Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park, where activists held a “Gay-in.”

Thousands of young men and women homosexuals from all over the Northeast marched from Greenwich Village to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park yesterday proclaiming “the new strength and pride of the gay people.”

African American poet, essayist, and autobiographer known for her passionate writings on lesbian feminism and racial issues.

Gay American civil rights activist who was an adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr., and who was the main organizer of the March on Washington in 1963.

American gay rights activist known for founding the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in 1967, the first bookstore devoted to gay and lesbian authors and as the prime mover for the creation of the New York City pride demonstration.

American politician and gay-rights activist who became one of the first openly-gay elected officials in U.S. history.

A transgender pioneer and activist who was a fixture of Greenwich Village street life.

From Stonewall to present day, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy has spent more than 40 years advocating for the marginalized — and she's got tips for young activists.

“I didn’t know I was going to be part of history,” Jonathan Ned Katz Interviews Raymond Castro.

Rivera helped lead the charge on the night of the Stonewall riots in New York City, considered the beginning of the LGBT rights movement.

At Stonewall and beyond, Stormé DeLarverie walked in lockstep with queer history.