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The police commissioner, Howard Leary, instructed the police force not to lure gays into breaking the law and also required that any plainclothesmen must have a civilian witness when a gay arrest is made. In early 1966, administration policies had changed because of complaints made by Mattachine that the police were on the streets entrapping gay men and charging them with indecency. Leitsch was considered relatively militant compared to his predecessors and believed in direct action techniques commonly used by other civil rights groups in the 1960s. Dick Leitsch became president of the Mattachine Society in New York at around the same time. John Lindsay, a liberal Republican, was elected mayor of New York City on a reform platform. In 1965, two important figures came into prominence. It is important to look back to before 1969 and examine the changing attitudes in New York towards gay bars and gay rights. At the time, the police used any number of reasons they could think of to justify an arrest on indecency charges including: kissing, holding hands, wearing clothing traditionally of the opposite gender, or even being in the bar during the raid. Sometimes they would even load up their police van with as many patrons as the van could hold. Prior to 1965, the police would record the identities of all those present at the raids, which on some occasions was published in the newspaper.
#CHICAGO GAY BAR ATTACK POLICE SERIES#
Most conclude that the decline in raids can be attributed to a series of court challenges and increased resistance from the Homophile Movement. Police raids on gay bars and nightclubs were a regular part of gay life in cities across the United States, until the 1960s, when sudden raids on bars in many major cities became markedly less frequent. “Stonewall,” as the raids are often referred to, is generally considered a turning point for the modern gay rights movement worldwide, as it is one of the first times in history a significant body of homosexual people resisted arrest. The first night of rioting began on Friday, Jnot long after 1:20 a.m., when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. As the country marks the Stonewall anniversary, Johnson recalled key moments over the last 50 years when Chicago’s gay bars have been at the center of the LGBTQ community’s fight for equal rights.The Stonewall riots, which as a whole is often called the Stonewall Rebellion, were a series of violent conflicts between members of the LGBT community and police officers in New York City. Still, like the Stonewall Inn, Johnston said Chicago’s gay activism took place in the bars - including Sidetrack, which he opened 37 years ago in the historic Boystown neighborhood.Īs co-founder of the civil rights organization Equality Illinois, Johnston has been an outspoken leader of Chicago’s anti-discrimination movement. The Stonewall riots helped galvanize the gay rights movement nationwide.īut in Chicago, even after the riots, activist Art Johnston said police raids of gay bars would continue to make headlines for another decade. Rioters barricaded cops inside the bar and for several days took to the streets in an effort to put an end to years of harassment. It’s been 50 years since violent protests broke out on June 28, 1969, following a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York.