A Police Raid on the Stonewall Inn Sparks an Uprising

In the early morning of June 28, 1969, plainclothes detectives and uniformed officers entered the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. The establishment, run by the Genovese crime family, lacked a liquor license, running water behind the bar, and a fire exit, yet it served as a rare social haven for young, impoverished, and marginalized patrons, including drag performers, transgender individuals, and homeless youth. While law enforcement routinely visited gay bars to execute controlled arrests and collect payoffs, this operation diverged from typical practice. Instead of arriving early on a weekday when crowds were sparse, police raided the venue late on a weekend night without customary advance warnings.

The raid quickly derailed when patrons resisted standard police routines. Officers attempted to examine identification cards and separate cross-dressing patrons to verify biological sex, but customers refused to cooperate. Police decided to take everyone present to the station, and the roughly two hundred people in the bar were made to wait while the patrol wagons were delayed. When released patrons were turned out into Christopher Street, they chose to linger rather than disperse. The gathered crowd grew to well over one hundred onlookers, jeering at the police and applauding patrons who playfully posed for the audience.