Parade

On June 29, 1969, city police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well-known gay bar on Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village. A gay bar is a bar frequented by homosexuals. The Stonewall was raided for alleged violations of the liquor laws, and, as is the custom, the place was cleared and many of the customers as well as the employees of the bar were arrested. For the first time in a raid on such a bar, however, the patrons did not go quietly but fought back—and fought back against both the police and the bar itself. Homosexuals in New York have for a long time been harassed by policemen and exploited by bar owners. The Sunday before last, in commemoration of the events of a year ago, ten thousand homosexuals paraded from the Village, up Sixth Avenue, to the Sheep Meadow, in Central Park.