Stonewall 50: Episode 1: Prelude to a Riot

Making Gay History | LGBTQ Oral Histories from the Archive

Making Gay History

Sexuality, Personal Journals, Health & Fitness, History, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Conflict has context. In the first episode of Making Gay History’s Stonewall 50 season, we hear stories from the pre-Stonewall struggle for LGBTQ rights. We travel back in time to hear voices from the turbulent 1960s and take you to the tinderbox that was Greenwich Village on the eve of an uprising. Visit our episode webpage for background information, archival photos, and other resources. For exclusive Making Gay History bonus content, join our ⁠Patreon community⁠. ——— To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	And let's see if I'm picking up, I'm picking up.
0:04.0	Is it working?
0:06.0	Yeah.
0:07.0	All right.
0:08.0	The question was about the movement when it started.
0:10.0	Things got cooking in 51, with the famous meeting in a closed room in Los Angeles which has been
0:18.0	so often described I'm sure it has cropped up.
0:26.0	June 3rd 1989 at the home of Frank Kamene in Washington, D.C.
0:35.0	I'm Eric Marcus, and this is making gay history.
0:40.0	It's almost exactly 30 years since I sat down to interview the proudly radical gay rights pioneer Frank Kameney,
0:46.0	and he tried to answer that not so simple question, when did it all begin?
0:52.0	And there's another anniversary this June that's being a bit more widely celebrated.
0:56.9	The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.
0:59.8	You'll hear some people, not me, other people, say that Stonewall was the place where it all began.
1:07.1	Not true.
1:08.5	Queer resistance wasn't invented in June 1969. But what happened at Stonewall did mark a key turning point in our history, one of those moments that draws a line between before and after.
1:22.0	This first episode of our Stonewall 50 season is about the before.
1:27.0	So we're going to take a quick tour through American LGBTQ history pre-Stonewall.
1:32.0	And if you want more, we did 11 episodes. LGBTQ history pre-Stonewall.
1:32.8	And if you want more, we did 11 episodes on this last season.
1:37.7	The 1950s had seen anti-gay oppression in the U.S. intensify.
1:42.1	Thousands of gay people were fired from their government jobs during the lavender scare.
	...

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