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Sounds. Hello and thank you for downloading the podcast of Witness History from the BBC World Service

with me Simon Watts.

June is Pride Month in many countries and this week we're running a series of programs about the

recent history of LGBT-plus people around the world. We begin with a program from

our archives about the so-called

stone wall riots which inspired the creation of the modern gay rights movement.

I spoke to John O'Brien who took part in the protests outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969.

On the night of June 28th, 1969, after years of mounting tension, the gay community in New York turn on the police.

People wanted to show their anger and resentment at the police for all their years of brutality and intolerance.

Here was a chance for me to finally express my feelings about what had been done to me as a young gay kid growing up in an anti-gay society and I wasn't alone.

The spark was a raid on the popular Stonewall Bar. Hundreds of gay men, drag queens and lesbians fought with

the NYPD for several nights.

It empowered us. I think there was not anybody there who really cared about either being

arrested or being hurt because we had had miserable lives and we were just tired of it.

John O'Brien grew up in Harlem in the 1950s and 60s.

At the time, homosexual acts were illegal in New York and almost every state in America.

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