50 Years Since Stonewall

In the 1950s and 1960s, police regularly raided bars in New York City looking for members of the LGBTQ community and those who served them. The ostracized community, along with those on the fringes of society, sought refuge in local bars and establishments where they could express themselves freely without fear of retaliation or arrests. The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, a large and inexpensive bar that welcomed everyone from drag queens to homeless, gay youth, was an institution in the city whose owners embraced LGBTQ patrons.

On June 28, 1969, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn. The policy raid resulted in 13 arrests including bar employees and patrons. Agitation with constant police harassment and social discrimination had reached a breaking point; angry bar patrons and residents gathered outside the bar where a riot ensued.

The Stonewall Riots were a critical catalyst for the equal rights movement for the LGBTQ community in the United States. 

To commemorate this event last night, the Lincoln Financial building in downtown Greensboro was alight with rainbow colors against the night sky. 

Daughter Randie downtown Greensboro with the Lincoln building lit up for Pride month

It is amazing how far we've come. There's a gay man married to his husband running for President. The top rated woman on daytime television is a lesbian who is married to her wife. These are people being true to who they are. 50 years ago, that truth would get them arrested.

But as far as we've come, the struggles for acceptance by the LGBTQ community are far from over. There are still too many forces at work in this country, in this world, that would relegate LGBTQ people to second class citizens, to less than human.

As the father of a gay child, I'm glad to see the growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community and hope this bodes well for her to live her life in peace and being true to who she is.

But I still worry for their are too many threats to her peace, to her truth. 

50 years since Stonewall, we have come far.

50 years since Stonewall, there is still far to go.