JEREMIAH NEWTON <jjn1@is4.nyu.edu>
Yes, the events of 1969 are confusing to many. Unfortunately the Rebellion was never photographed or videoed. Fred McDarrah took photos two weeks later and appear in his book of gay photographs.
The Riots began on the morning of June 28th after midnight, although in the hour or so prior to that (on Friday, June 27th) people were gathering outside the Stonewall Inn in anticipation of trouble. The rioting went on for three late nights, and I was at the first and last, the final one and the largest with hundreds of people running about with a great fury and passion that I had never seen before. Rest assured, the first night several hundred people were there, and over 1,000 were there on the third night.
The young man who jumped out of a police station house did so a year later, in 1970. He was an illegal immigrant and was frightened that he would be deported. I have newspaper clippings of the event. He survived miraculously and disappeared from the pages of history. I'll never forget the photos of jeering cops and firemen laughing and acting like real jerks while he was being removed from the sharp iron spikes of the police station on Charles Street. This is what galvanized me politically, and the next night there was a great confrontation between the cops--who closed off the street with barricades--and members of the newly formed Gay Liberation Front. I was there. This young man's horrible accident was in no way connected with the events of the Stonewall, a year before.
I understand from others that the Rebellion stretched on to five nights, but the remaining nights had sporadic actions of looting and setting fire to trash cans and baiting the cops. The third night was a real riot.
I am just happy that I lived long enough to have someone such as yourself want to celebrate this amazing event. Even though it was nearly 30 years ago, it still feels real and fresh to me. My only wish is that it had been documented in a professional way. (September 1998)
The Villager (20 June 2001) wrote the following:
"Newton, raised in Queens, came out at 16 and went to Stonewall's opening night in 1966. 'I spent my 18th birthday there. It was a big place with two very large rooms. I had been to the beach on June 27; Judy Garland died, it was the day of her funeral, and there weren't many people at Riis Park. I came home and was walking down Greenwich Ave.; the women in the House of Detention were very noisy, throwing down flaming pieces of newspaper.' "
"A guy told me they were raiding Stonewall," Newton continued. "Police always raided gay bars. All gay bars were owned by the Mafia and we had to deal with those people. But I went to see what was happening anyway. People were freeing their friends from the paddy wagons and cop cars. People fought with a lot of passion. I don't call it a riot. I call it a rebellion. It was the beginning of the largest civil rights movement in the world."