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The 1969 Stonewall Uprising: watershed event for the LGBQT movement...



Item # 700539

July 03, 1969

VILLAGE VOICE, Greenwich Village, New York City, July 3, 1969  

* Stonewall riots - uprising - rebellion
* LGBT - gay community protests
* Birth of the gay pride civil rights movement
* The best issue to be had (very rare)


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.
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. The Stonewall Riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
July 2 was the final night of the Stonewall uprising. The N.Y. Times noted that few photographs exist of the six-day disturbance, so it was significant to find images all these years later that captured some of the action on the uprising’s final night.
The initial police raid on the Stonewall that started the riots happened five days earlier, on June 28. But on Wednesday, July 2, there was a new wave of anger and rioting. The cause: the Village Voice.
That day two articles appeared on the Voice‘s front page describing the struggle happening both inside and outside the Stonewall Inn. Voice reporter Howard Smith’s piece described how he found himself trapped inside the Stonewall with police officers as they came under violent attack by the crowd — at one point, Smith wishes he had a gun to defend himself, just like the cops.
Writer Lucian Truscott IV reported on the agitated street scene outside the building. “Limp wrists were forgotten,” Truscott writes, but his use of words like “faggot” and “faggotry” enraged gay activists. Anger at the pieces ran so high, rioters marched on the Voice office itself.
Being offered here is that very newspaper. As history would prove, this July 3, 1969 issue would signify the epicenter of the riots that became the watershed event in the LGBTQ movement in the United States. In 2016 President Obama declared the location as the Stonewall National Monument, now part of the National Park Service.
This is the complete 64 page issue, tabloid-size, a small archival mend on page 2 near the spine of the central fold, "For Xerox Only" red stamp within the masthead, otherwise very nice.

Provenance note: This issue comes from The Village Voice's own archives, part of their in-house collection used to create their digital archive. Rare as such.
 

Category: The 20th Century