|
|
Out of
Print
Here is another
in our series of reprints of articles
from earlier issues of the print
version of G&LH.
This article by
Warren
Allen Smith first appeared in the
print version of
G&LH, Summer 2004. |
Stonewall:
The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
Although just published
in June [2004], David Carter’s
Stonewall is sure to join Vern L.
Bullough’s Before Stonewall (Haworth
Press) as being among the most important
books in the gay canon.
Carter’s decade of
research is divided into three sections:
setting the stage for the uprising; what
actually occurred hour by hour in Greenwich
Village during the week of June 1969 riots;
and how the rebellion has led to an ongoing
struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender equality in the States as well
as being a worldwide human rights
inspiration.
Carter, a historian who
has written biographies of Dali and
Santayana and extensively written about
Allen Ginsberg, carefully separates facts
from judgements. In 336 pages he introduces
a large cast of people who were involved;
gives detailed accounts about, and
fortunately by, the deputy inspector of
police who led the raids; includes vivid
details as to what happened inside and
outside the Stonewall Inn bar on each of the
days; and discounts myths that have grown
about what happened and who was involved.
New gay
militancy
For one thing, the full
moon and Judy Garland’s death had nothing to
do with the riots, except that Garland’s
death could be said symbolically to
represent the old order that was being
replaced by a new gay militancy. For
another, no single person or group started
the uprising but, rather, a complex
resistance to accepting an inferior status
had been growing – by some who just silently
ignored police orders; by others who
challenged authority with their pens; by
others using violent methods; and by the key
figures, the poor and homeless kids, some
transgendered men, a never identified
lesbian who gained notoriety by fighting the
police during the first night, and hundreds
who were just tired and no longer willing to
accept the status quo accorded then to
homosexuals.
Behind the police’s
choosing this particular bar was the desire
to shut the popular joint down for good as
well as to challenge the Mafia’s control of
gay bars. Also, evidence appeared that there
was a link between stolen Wall Street bonds
and Mafia extortion of workers at the New
York Stock Exchange (“the world’s biggest
closet”). Pot and acid were known to be sold
publicly in the bar, underage people were
not screened, hepatitis was spread because
the place had no running water, and on and
on. The concern of the authorities was more
that of protecting powerful persons, not in
protecting gay men from paying for
watered-down and overly priced drinks in
order to have a place to dance.
|
%20book%20cover.jpg) |
And was the nation’s
chief law officer, J Edgar Hoover of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI],
involved? No, he claimed organised crime did
not exist. But yes, for former prostitute
John Paul Ranieri provided proof that the
Mafia had photographic evidence implicating
Hoover himself, photos of Hoover in female
attire. They also knew about Hoover’s being
in the closet and knew about his “longtime
companion”, Clyde Tolson, himself an
associate director of the FBI.
Ranieri was warned by the
mob to “keep your zipper open and your mouth
shut”. But he did not. A well-known turncoat
FBI informant, Ed “The
Skull” Murphy, is described as being one of
the baddest of the bad, a Stonewall Inn
insider, one behind the blackmailing of Wall
Street employees, a suspected kidnapper and
murderer, one who wanted the credit for
having made the riots happen. Others whom
Ranieri described as using Mafia-supplied
services were Malcolm Forbes, His Eminence
Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, US
senators, a vice president of the United
States, and “one of the most famous rock
musicians”.
Arthur Evans, one of the
more than fifty individuals interviewed, was
a philosophy student whose Free Thinkers
Society of Brown University got him in
trouble and his scholarship became in
jeopardy because as a militant atheist he
refused to sit through the chaplain’s
prayer. Joseph Lewis, the millionaire head
of the National Free Thinkers Society,
successfully threatened to sue if the
scholarship was invalidated. Evans went on
to join Columbia University’s doctoral
programme in philosophy and became one of
the most productive of the Gay Liberation
Front (GLF) and Gay
Activists Alliance (GAA)
[now the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance
(GLAA)] members.
Carter in a scholarly way
gives a commendably thorough geographical,
social, political and cultural picture. The
three activist organisations that he
describes in detail are the GLF,
the GAA and the
Mattachine Society. By not mentioning any of
the Stonewall veterans’ organisations that
existed mainly to collect money, he finesses
them neatly.
|
