>>> Welcome to “Stonewall @ 50,” a CUNY TV
Digital Series celebrating Pride 2019.
♪ [Upbeat Music] ♪
Hi, this is Merlin. Welcome to the fourth and final episode
of “Stonewall @ 50.” During Pride Month this year,
we have explored the changes in “American Theater
After Stonewall” with Patrick Pacheco and Donna Hanover
at Chez Josephine.
>>> So, what has happened to the gay play in the
last fifty years?
>>> The short answer Donna is that it's grown up.
>>> From “Before Stonewall” with Andrea Weiss and
Greta Schiller, co-founders of Jezebel Productions,
we learned how the riot started fifty years ago
this weekend.
>>> These young people just said, “Screw you!
We're not taking it anymore.” And they just went out
into the streets and said, “We're fighting back!”
>>> We discovered that “Intergenerational Storytellin”"
is a good way to learn about LGBTQ History with Wes Enos,
founder of The Generations Project.
>>> Go easy on each other. A lot, a lot, of young people
don't know LGBT History and it's not their fault.
>>> And now for the fourth episode, let's salute the
Pride Parade. Judy Garland dies just a week before Stonewall.
Some say it was a factor along with everything else.
Two weeks after Stonewall, people knocked down the
fences at Woodstock making it a free concert.
Three weeks after Stonewall, Neil Armstrong walked on
the Moon. It wasn't an easy time for many of us.
There wasn't a lot of money to go around and no one
was organized. You could be beaten up for no reason
except they thought someone was a
“Commie Pinko Fag!”
Well, at least that was my story.
1969, was also a romantic time for me.
Studying theater and art in college. Working as an
actor and touring the country that fall.
And getting to meet America. That summer I was working
in Ensemble Theater with the Everyman Players,
at the beautiful Laurel Cove Amphitheatre in Pineville,
Kentucky. Performing “The Book of Job” for
vacationing audiences traveling from the Midwest
to Florida for their summer vacations.
So, to hear that some kids in New York City were rioting
and accused of really tearing up the place, I took two ways:
One: “What was that all about?” And two:
“Does this threaten my open and yet guarded life?”
I was surrounded by friends and what we would call
“Allies” today. I had no fear in the circle of
friends or working in the theater company. It was
when I was alone I always looked over my shoulder
for possible trouble. People were generally kind
to be around. There wasn't the same sense of knowing
what being Gay or Lesbian meant, to the average
person you would meet. This was before
“Designing Women” and the big shoulders look.
People just seem to think, you were like them. They were
straight and thought everyone else was too.
From my research on the timeline of LGBT History
in New York City from Wikipedia, the proposal
for the parade commemorating Stonewall,
was made that November at the Eastern Regional
Conference for Homophile Organizations in Philadelphia.
In January 1970, a small group began organizing and
planning the first march. Creating the Christopher Street
Liberation Day Umbrella Committee.
The Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop let the Committee
use their customer mailing list.
Moving to New York in the spring of 1973, my first parade
was from Central Park South to Washington Square.
I remember coming Uptown to Central Park
from my East 4th Street and Avenue D Village
apartment and watching paraders getting ready.
Then standing on the corner of Central Park
South watching everyone march out of the Park for
the venue in Washington Square. It turned out
several of my future best friends and my first
boyfriend in New York were at the same parade.
The parade in those days was mostly just people having
fun in groups with signs. I waited and watched till
nearly the end. Nothing bad had happened while I
was standing there. And there were so many of us
that I felt safe and I joined with the stragglers
at the back of the parade marching Downtown.
It was exhilarating to be in a Liberation Parade.
It was something to be out and in public and proud.
There we were marching to the Village. When we got to
Washington Square the site was amazingly organized
and the crowd filled the Park. “Bathhouse Betty,”
Bette Midler, sang that day at the Washington
Square gathering. She sang, “You Gotta Have Friends,”
to a roaring appreciative crowd who were viewing one
of the first celebrity sightings at a large gay event, ever!
Besides the Continental Baths where Miss Midler and
Barry Manilow became famous for doing what they do best.
That was also the same parade event in 1973 that
Sylvia Rivera gave her now famous Gay Power Speech.
Looking up at Miss Rivera
on that tall stage, she was overpowering.
I felt her desperation. I felt her honesty. I heard her
screaming at me and everyone else about issues that
were as important then as they are today.
Even today, there are Transwomen in prison and Trans People
are being murdered in this Country!
I don't know when they first started the parade, but,
nothing beats the roar of Dykes on Bikes to start the parade.
[Sounds of motorcycles] [People cheering]
Here are two pics from the 1979 Parade.
And there is Sybil Bruncheon riding in the 1985 Parade
muscles and all. After becoming the Empress of the Imperial
Court of New York, Empress Sybil Bruncheon walked the
parade in her coronation gown with some help from
the crowd, it would appear. 1994 was the
summer everyone came back to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of Stonewall and the city was packed.
I never seen so many friendly Gay faces in my life.
Now I can't prove this. I have no video clips or pics.
I was in the entourage of, you may say tagging along,
Mr. Deaf Leather for 1994. In 2005, Hillary joined the
Parade with high hopes and has shown her support for
our community ever since.
CUNY TV dove into the 2009 Parade.
>>> We have just seen in order; Gay Cops, followed
by the Stonewall Veterans, and now passing us is the
Gay Firemen's League. Daniel, how did we come so far
from the quiet protest of 1979 to this extravaganza?
[Crowd Cheering]
>>> It's incredible, right?
>>> So, everybody, in unison, what they were chanting
that night. “Out of the Closets and into the Streets!”
>>> Out of the Closets and into the Streets!
[Chanting Continues]
>>> Daniel Horowitz and Lisa Kovetz actually
plunged into the parade and found to prescient
politicians marching. Daniel O'Donnell, New York
State Assemblyman.
>>> What do you think? It's the 40th anniversary
of Stonewall. What do you think New York signifies
for Gay Americans?
>>> Well it's the birthplace of our Gay Rights Movement.
It's where everything changes. And change is supposed to
happen here first. We're a little behind the
8-ball on Marriage Equality.
>>> We're behind this year.
>>> I'm pushing as hard as I can to fix that.
>>> And what do you think? Are we going to catch up?
>>> I'm getting married by the end of the year,
here in New York. >>> You are?
>>> Yes, I am.
>>> All right. Well good luck with that.
>>> Thank you. >>> Happy Pride.
>>> Happy Pride to you!
>>> And Scott Stringer, who is now the New York
City Comptroller.
>>> I think that elected officials, who are not
making this a priority, who think they can dodge this,
I think are making a big political error.
And I think you can see it and sense it at this point more
than any other time in the history of the movement.
>>> In 2016, after the Pulse Nightclub Massacre,
Sarah Foudy, Wilson Reyes-moreno, and I came
Downtown and joined the Latin Club celebration and
met paraders who had been affected by the Pulse Attack.
♪ [Upbeat Music] ♪
>>> I can remember in Shreveport, climbing out
of a trap door at the back of a Gay Bar in the 1960s,
not wanting to deal with the police raid.
I can remember the way we were treated when I was a
kid by almost everyone. So today, I really want to
thank the Police Commissioner, James O'Neill, for his
acknowledgment of the police actions at the time
of Stonewall. It is good to see someone beginning to get it.
>>> Well, I'm certainly not going to stand up here and
pretend to be an expert on what happened at Stonewall.
I do know what happened should not have happened.
The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong, plain and simple.
The actions and the laws were discriminatory and
oppressive and for that, I apologize.
[Applause]
>>> This isn't a “Nah, nah moment.” Too many people
have suffered from the authority figures for too long.
Please remember, the “Wrath of Homophobia”
didn't happen at Stonewall here in New York City.
These assaults on human rights have been going on for
many years before 1969. Hell, Oscar Wilde was imprisoned
in 1895. I've walked in the parade several times since 1973.
It is very different now. You can't imagine how it feels
to sashay down Fifth Avenue through the years.
And feel the difference in the crowds.
Not only are the crowds bigger. You don't see the
“God Hates Fags” signs as you used to.
And then to arrive in the Village and see people
pouring out of their windows and doors. Standing on steps
and screaming in joy at the top of their lungs at you!
Because you're in the parade.
>>> I have been getting a lot of compliments today.
I came all the way out from Poughkeepsie-
>>> Oh, my!
>>> New York. And, I'm a “Carefree Black Girl.”
>>> Very good.
>>> And it's my First Pride, and the first year
since I came out.
>>> Wow! I've been out for a while.
>>> I'm a late in life “Outed” person.
>>> No, you're not. You're just in time.
>>> Just in time.
>>> We waited for you.
>>> You waited for me.
>>> Exactly! Exactly. Did you enjoy today?
>>> I loved it.
>>> You marched in the parade?
>>> Yah, I marched in the parade. So, for my first Pride,
it was great!
>>> Isn't it? Amazing the way people scream at you?
>>> It was so great. I felt like I was famous.
>>> Yeah, really! You look beautiful.
>>> Thank you so much.
>>> Have a good one. >>> You too, Sir.
>>> Thank you. >>> You as well.
>>> Bye! >>> Bye!
>>> The Pride Parade is the last Sunday in June every year.
Get on down and join in! My old crowd, long since gone,
would meet at the corner of 10th Street and 5th Avenue.
Start a new tradition. Find a new group of friends to
celebrate with or a cause to walk in for the parade.
Join in and salute those that came before.
Who have struggled like Marcia P. Johnson,
who legend tells us, threw the first rock. And Sylvia Rivera,
who made us understand. This is our History.
Let's learn and build on it for everyone.
We can enrich all our lives just by being ourselves.
This has been “Stonewalled @ 50,”
a CUNY TV Digital Series celebrating Pride 2019.
Thank you for joining us. Happy Pride.
♪ [Singing] God Bless America, my home sweet home. ♪