CELEBRATING PRIDE MONTH WITH MOSAIC RAINBOWS
Yo! The month of June we here and you know what that means! The world is about to be swarmed with scantily clad, vibrantly colored, cheerful, happy people. From the LGBTQ community to millions of allies, everyone is about to hit the streets and celebrate sexual liberation and consciousness.
Pride Month is celebrated to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City. Also known as Stonewall Riots, the Stonewall Uprising started in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay club located in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. Police roughly hauled both employees and guests out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and heavy clashes with law enforcement in this part of the city. This event served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement first in the US and subsequently all around the world.
The first US gay rights organization was documented in 1924. It was called The Society for Human Rights (SHR) and it was founded by Henry Gerber, a German immigrant, eager to make a change for the better. The group created and published several issues of their powerful newsletter called “Friendship and Freedom”, making it the country’s first gay newsletter. Police raids forced the organization to disband just one year later.
Thirty years after the SHR was forcefully disbanded, America’s first lesbian rights organization was founded. The Daughters of Billits was formed in progressive San Francisco on September 21, 1955. In 1966, just three years before Stonewall Riots, members of the Mattachine Society, gay rights organization, staged a “sip-In”. They openly declared their sexual preferences at taverns, daring staff members to turn them away and taking legal action against establishments that did. Subsequently, The Commission on Human Rights ruled that gay people had the right to be served in bars and taverns just like everyone else.
Police raids stopped for a while, but came back full force at some point. On the morning of June 28, 1969, armed with a warrant officers entered Th Stonewall Inn. They arrested 13 people, including employees and patrons violating the state’s gender-appropriate clothing statute. This basically means that female police officers took suspected cross-dressers into the bathroom and checked their sex. Imagine the utter humiliation…
Needless to say, fed up with constant social discrimination and police raids, angry patrons and neighbors started peacefully protesting in front of the bar. Once the police started aggressively manhandling them, the riots began. The riots really took off when a policeman hit a lesbian over the head and forced her into the van. She shouted to onlookers, urging them to act, and the crowd started throwing pennies, glass bottles, and cobblestones at the police.
Once a full. blown riot began, the police, several prisoners, and a Village Voice writer took shelter in the bar, building a barricade in front of it. The mob set fire to chase them out, but the riot squad and the fire department were able to douse the flames and disperse the crowd. The protest involving thousands of people from the area lasted for five days, and what we have today is a direct legacy left to us by those brave people who decided it was enough. They were the galvanizing force for LGBTQ activism as we know it.
We here at Mosaics Lab are big on celebrating the message that the LGBTQ activists are conveying to this day. To honor those who fought for their rights during the Stonewall Uprising and all of those who were there before them and those who came after, we dedicate this article to the symbol of LGBTQ activism everywhere — the rainbow.
