by Kalela Williams
Stonewall Rising: A Pride Month Reflection
Photo: City of Philadelphia
More than 50 years ago, it wasn't change that sparked activism at a New York City gay bar whose name would become synonymous with a movement. Rather, it was years upon years of sameness. For decades, laws around the country criminalized same-sex relationships, which meant gay bars were subject to police raids and brutality. The only protection was often through illegal means. In New York City, many gay bars were mob owned, with bribes cajoling some police officers and departments to look the other way.
But on June 27, 1969, a dam broke. Police raided the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar for the second time within a week, this time singling out cross-dressers and drag queens. The uprising began when a lesbian in masculine attire complained her handcuffs were too tight. Patrons threw pennies, then bottles, then firebombs. The unrest grew so intense that police barricaded themselves inside for hours.
Perhaps it's fitting that it all went down here, at this Greenwich Village bar. Sometimes people hit a wall.
In spite of all the turmoil in the wake of the police-instigated violence, the Stonewall opened its doors the following night. But this time, it wasn't for revelry- the bar's cache of booze had been confiscated days earlier. Instead, activists gathered, with people of color, like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, taking a place at the forefront of the building rebellion. This, make no mistake, was the culmination of a movement that had been in the making for years.
In the years and decades that followed, LGBTQ+ activists built from work of those before them-from the advocacy of Barbara Gittings, for instance, who was active in Philadelphia and was part of the drive to get the American Psychiatric Institution to stop categorizing homosexuality as a mental illness. Activists took a cue from the '60s civil rights movement and began protests, marches and "sip-ins" in earnest.
There has been no time to stop moving forward. Even now, in 2021, anti-LGBTQ+ hatred is rampant, often thinly masking itself in vitriol over transgender girls competing in sports, or hand-wringing over gender non-binary bathrooms. And many in the community cite that Pride Month has been taken over by a corporate-driven machine, with LGBTQ+ issues and needs shoved to the background behind giant Paper Mache logos sailing on Pride parade floats financed by multinational conglomerates.
The fight for full validation equality continues, and as it has with many marginalized communities, activism has spilled into art and literature. A group of Mighty Writers kids will be writing poems inspired by The Tradition by Jericho Brown, and discussing the poetry book's themes of queerness and its challenges to ideas around traditional masculinity. As I plan for my fall workshops, I'm excited to introduce kids to works by LGBTQ+ authors like Roxanne Gay, Carmen Maria Machado, and Gabby Rivera, along with local playwright James Ijames.
And as a history nerd, I can't wait to dig into non-fiction books in my queue: Female Husbands: A Trans History by Jen Manion; as well Channing Gerard Joseph's House of Swann: Where Slaves Became Queens, a chronical of William Dorsey Swann, a formerly enslaved man who is credited as the first performing drag queen (okay, this hasn't even been printed by Crown Publishing yet, but as soon as it's out, it's mine).
On the historical fiction front, I'll be reading Revolutionary by trans author Alex Myers. I've also got some other books on my shelf: the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong and the memoir Heavy by Kiese Laymon.
This Pride Month, there's so much history to reflect on, so much activism to continue, but also, there's so much to celebrate. The world is better when love is love, and when we no longer have to fight to be our beautiful, shining selves.
Kalela Williams (kwilliams@mightywriters.org) is MW's Director of Writing.
Get in TouchMighty Writers is a class 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 2009. One hundred percent of the programs we offer are free. We serve communities in and around Philadelphia, PA, as well as in Camden, Newark and Atlantic City, NJ. We also run writing workshops in Washington Heights, NYC.
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