KOOP asks each of us within our listening audience and listening community members to “Take a Stance!”, because there is no such thing as a lesser human being.
The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. When the police raided Stonewall Inn, it came as a surprise – the bar wasn’t tipped off this time. Armed with a warrant, the police officers entered the club, roughed up patrons, and, finding bootlegged alcohol, arrested 13 people, including employees and people violating the state’s gender-appropriate clothing statute. Female officers would take suspected cross-dressing patrons into the bathroom to check their sex.
Fed up with constant police harassment and social discrimination, angry patrons and neighborhood residents hung around outside of the bar rather than disperse, becoming increasingly agitated as the events unfolded and people were aggressively manhandled. At one point, an officer hit a lesbian over the head as he forced her into the police van – she shouted to onlookers to act, inciting the crowd to begin throwing pennies, bottles, cobble stones and other objects at the police. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar on Christopher Street, in neighboring streets and in nearby Christopher Park. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Please join KOOP Radio in acknowledging that despite advances in promoting gay rights this significant portion of our culture continues to suffer explicit and implicit biases that make this world and the quality of life more unsafe and uncomfortable than for those that are hetereosexual.
KOOP Radio stands by this diverse subpopulations and demands each of us take an anti homophobic approach and speak out when we hear homophobic comments from those we consider friends.
Wording and photo from 1969 Stonewall Riots – Origins, Timeline & Leaders