We were dancing by the pole and the other side was where the cops came in.

And a friend of ours, a kid we knew named Gypsy, we heard him scream at the top of his lungs,

don't touch me.

They came in nasty, pushing, shoving people, and that was not good.

That was Fred Tree Sequoia, now 86, who was at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, when the riots began.

That kicked off six days of protests that was the defining moment in the struggle for LGBTQ plus rights just over 50 years ago.

Hello and welcome to the excerpt.

I'm Dana Taylor.

How is the struggle for equality evolved since Stonewall?

And what sort of pressure is the queer community facing now at this high-stakes moment

under President Donald Trump's second administration?

For more on that, I'm now joined by USA Today National Correspondent Michael Collins.

Michael, thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. Let's step back and revisit the history of Stonewall

for those of our listeners who were unfamiliar. As we heard at the top, police raided the Stonewall Inn the night of June 28, 1969.

You spoke with several people who were there that night. What did they share with you?

Well, it's interesting. They all talked about how the raid was terrifying. And then, you know,

once the riots started, once people started pushing back against police, it became sort of affirming.

They were tired of police harassment, and they were fighting back.

They were fighting for their riots.

And you have to remember that this was a time when very few gay people were out publicly.

Same-sex relations were illegal.

You could get arrested in New York for just wearing

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