The history of the gay rights movement can be traced to the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village, which is considered by many to be the launch of the modern gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights movement. June of 2009 marked the 40th anniversary of the protests at Stonewall Inn. This brief history of the Stonewall Riots explores the angst by LGBT young adults and police entrapment that led up to the riots and the early activism and marches that ensued throughout the country:
LGBT Angst and Police Entrapment
The Stonewall Rebellion of 1969 is widely considered the beginning of the modern LGBT rights movement. The six-day riot, which began inside of the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, was the breaking point of years of tensions between police and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender street youth and pedestrians.
The 1960's were a heightened time for human and civil rights issues in the United States. Tensions boiled as the population tired of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam. Race dynamics were compounded by continued disenfranchisement of African-Americans, bubbling the rise of the Black Panthers and calls by Louis Farrakhan and Dr. King to stand against discrimination and disempowerment were being heard. And lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people grew increasingly intolerant of continued harassment and arrests by police.
