“My first day in New York was the day of the Stonewall riots. I was 17-years-old.”
Michael-Antony Nozzi had just graduated high school and arrived in the city to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. That same night, in the early hours of June 28 1969, police raided a gay bar called Stonewall in Greenwich Village. Their visit ignited demonstrations that would change the fight for LGBTQ+ rights forever.
Some half a century later, the LGBTQ+ liberation movement has taken hold and celebratory parades now happen across the globe. This year, Pride in London’s theme is Jubilee, paying tribute to the 50th anniversary of the protests, while events go on throughout Pride Month to mark the impact of that night in New York, as well as the outcry that followed.
One of these tributes is Riot Act, a play by actor and writer Alexis Gregory, which runs at the Arcola Theatre this month. Gregory interviewed Nozzi and relays to the audience his accounts of the riots and life afterwards word-for-word, hoping to keep the conversation about what happened alive.
“If the cops were bored that night, they could go raid the Stonewall,” Nozzi told Gregory, “punch a few people, take the cash out the register and that was just something ‘fun’ to do.”
Raids on gay bars were common in the 60s, but the management would usually get tip-offs beforehand. This particular night, Judy Garland had just been laid to rest and the place was packed with more people than usual, all paying tribute, or mourning.
“It was the perfect storm,” said Nozzi. “A hot summer night. A bar that normally holds 20 to 30 people, now all of a sudden with 300. The cops stupidly deciding, ‘that’s the bar we’re going to raid’ and Judy [Garland] dying the week before. Our attitude was: ‘No you’re not going to do that to us. Not tonight.’”
This raid didn’t go according to plan. Tired of being lined up, frisked and arrested, patrons refused to show identification and resisted being taken away. A delay in the arrival of police wagons to transport the arrested meant that those who had been released began to congregate with passerby outside in the street. The crowd grew as more LGBTQ+ people joined.
Violence broke out when one woman was beaten after complaining about her tight handcuffs. Activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, two trans women of colour well-known for campaigning for LGBTQ+ rights, were among the first to throw bottles at the police.
Unable to get the crowd under control, police barricaded themselves in the bar and called in the Tactical Police Force unit, who attempted to stop the rioters. Things continued the following evening, with more joining the fray.
“It was a mess,” said Nozzi, “You could see people holding their bleeding heads. There was blood all over the sidewalk, all over the walls. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
A year later, marchers gathered in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago to honour the Stonewall riots, creating the first ever Gay Pride marches. The next year, many more cities – including London – followed suit.
Alison Camps, co-chair of Pride in London, which organises the annual parade and festival, says that this year is a chance to take stock of where things have come over the past half-century: “We’re seeing that Pride matters more than ever."
Laura Russell, director of campaigns, policy and research at UK LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, agrees: “Already this month we’ve seen a UK politician suggest that science should find an ‘answer’ to LGBT identities, as well as a horrific homophobic, misogynist attack on a lesbian couple in London.
“Now, more than ever, we need everyone who cares about equality to show their support and work together to build a world where all LGBT people are accepted without exception. It’s important to acknowledge that many of the people who led that uprising were part of groups who continue to exist at the margins of our community and in society, and for whom Pride isn’t yet a celebration but an act of defiance.”
That night in 1969 changed everything for LGBTQ+ people, and is too important to be left as a historical footnote, says Gregory: “Queer history and queer lives are too precious to be reshaped or erased.
“We must never forget what happened that night.”
Riot Act is at the Arcola Theatre on June 30, arcolatheatre.com
