Images from the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and Equality Archive.
Happy #Pride Month, bbs! Never forget that Pride was started by TWOC and we owe the modern queer civil rights movement to them.
Take a look at Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera repping S.T.A.R. at the Christopher St Liberation Day, Gay Pride Parade in 1973. pic.twitter.com/o6U9korZ5j
— History is Gay (@HistoryisGayPod) June 1, 2018
Our liberation and safety as trans and queer people are not dependent on the police nor the state that refuses to protect us.
We are love. We are our liberation. We are the revolution.
— Sylvia Rivera Book Club 🌈 (@SylviaRiveraBC) May 18, 2018
The Stonewall Riots - Quick Facts
When?
June 28, 1969
Where?
The Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village, NYC
What happened?
Early in the morning, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn. Police brutality and violence led to six days of protests and physical clashes on the street outside the bar and in nearby Christopher Park.
Why did it happen?
The hostile social climate of the Cold War-period United States led people to associate queerness with communism (i.e. treason against the U.S. government), and queer people became liable for arrest for "engaging in gay behavior in public." Raids on gay bars were legal and common.
Why is it important?
The Stonewall Riots served as the catalyst for the Gay Rights movement of the 1970's, which followed the less-studied Chicano Movement of the 1960's. The Stonewall Riots were spearheaded by trans womyn of color, including the Latina Sylvia Rivera, which ensured that intersectionality be acknowledged in the fight for queer rights (hence the above caption – "No liberation for some of us without liberation for all of us").
Fast facts courtesy of History.
Watch: "How the Stonewall Riots Sparked a Movement - Riots"
Watch: "Sylvia Rivera: Trans Movement Founder"