ofnewall riot and the rights the gay right movement. we recorded this 18 minute therview in chicago at american historical association meeting. steve: claire potter is someone who studies and teaches history at the new school and writes about it. let's talk about the stonewall riots. the 50th anniversary is coming up this june. what happened? claire: one night, when the patrons of stonewall inn, who were on the margins of the gay community, not the people we think of now as being at the center of gay, lesbian and transgender politics, but rather prostitutes, transgender people, drag queens, they were hanging

out at stonewall inn, thinking everything was going to be fine, thinking the payoffs had been made to the people who had picked up a money every week. but the people of stonewall had not made their payoff to the police, and the police busted the patrons of stonewall and began to put them in a police car to take them to the station. it was the kind of thing that happened to lgbtq people all the time in new york and every over city in the united states. >> what was motivating the police? the police hadn't gotten their payoff and they were trying to teach a lesson to the owners. something else, judy garland had died that night. everybody was very upset. and something snapped area and the patrons of the stonewall inn decided they were mad as hell and they weren't going to leave. they began throwing things at the cops.

they barricaded themselves inside. the cops rushed the stonewall inn they got inside, the , patrons, many of them ran out. all of a sudden it was a riot. steve: was judy garland viewed as an icon by the community? claire: judy garland was a total icon to the community, particularly the drag community. it was only a guess that this was the thing that really flipped the switch that night. it could have been the fact that it was hot, that it was summer, could have been the fact that it was the late 1960's and all kinds of other groups were trying to get their civil rights. the black movement had become radicalized, the antiwar movement had become radicalized. violent resistance against police oppression was actually becoming a common thing. whatever it was the patrons decided they weren't going to allow themselves to be pushed around anymore just for being lesbian, gay and transgender.

steve: this was a civil rights marker for the gay and transgender community. and one of the things that happened was people who weren't actually patrons of stonewall inn, by that point west village became a gay place. students and activists and all kinds of countercultural people. -- people were living in the west village, and they began to gather around to find out what was going on. if you look at memoirs of the period, there are so many people that we think of as important figures in lesbian and gay history. somehow, they were all in the area that night, going to another bar or sitting in a restaurant, and they saw something going on. gather andd began to they began to support the young people at stonewall inn. steve how hard was it for these : people to come out?

it was 50 years ago, it was a very different time than where we are at today. to say you were gay or lesbian to your friends or family, your place of employment, what were the challenges? claire: there were a number of challenges. it was illegal to bk in many be gay in a -- to many places. it wasn't written into the law, but if sexual acts were illegal. sodomy is still a crime in states peter there were other kinds of things. there were laws against wearing the clothing of the other gender. men who cross-dressed or butch lesbians, they could be arrested for not wearing the clothes of the proper gender. they would be taken down to the --tion, shaken down, find

fined. it was difficult for gay and lesbian people to get served. if two men walked into a normal bar together and set down, if they were suspected of being homosexuals, the bartender was prohibited by law from serving them. similarly, women going into bars often until the midst -- the midnight and 60's, there were bars that could legally prohibit a woman accompanied by a man from coming into a bar. gay and lesbian bars played a particular role in the community. just as a place you could relax and go and be with your friends and not be harassed by anybody. , byalso as we found out 1969, they became a place where people acquired solidarity.

proto-t we may call a political affiliation. steve: give us a sense geographically of where it was located, what the community was like back in the summer of 1969 and what you see today. claire: so, stonewall inn is still on christopher street. there was actually a very short period in the 1990's when it became a bagel store. -- youre saying, it's were saying, it's a national landmark. it is right across the street from a tiny park that has a monument to gay and lesbian activists. use forark many venues meeting each other. now it's a pretty park with flowers in it. christopher street is a long street that extends all the way to the husband river. -- the hudson river.

back in the 60's, 70's and 80's that entire street was lined with bars and stores and other kinds of establishments that only catered to gay people. it was really the heart of the gay community, and the stonewall inn was the heart of the heart of the gay community. steve the night after the riots, : what happened? claire: another riot. police were unable to make people stop rioting. one thing that is very interesting about this moment is that it's really the first time in the history of the city of new york that gay and lesbian people did not accept the authority of police. it was generally accepted that if you simply cemented to an submitted tosimply an arrest -- simply submitted to an arrest, it was humiliating, you hope your name didn't get in the paper. you could pay a police officer to let you go or to not let you

-- or to not let them put your name in the paper. steve: whether people involved in this? this is simply organic and word-of-mouth. people who really rose to the occasion and became leaders in this time period. claire: there are two people in particular who deserve mention. , a is marcia p johnson transgender woman and sex worker. she became very famous as an organizer and political radical, actually ran for office once. another individual is sophia rivera, also a transgender woman, who became famous not for -- not only for her political activities but for organizing homeless youth in the area. she developed an organization called star, which helps homeless youth get access to certain kinds of services. get them back in school.

try to get them rehomed. and trying to get them off the streets and out of sex work. steve: are there oral histories, are there people who were alive today who remember what happened? claire: there certainly are. you can find them all over the place. there's a great book by martin, which is an oral history he did with five participants. one of whom was a guy named craig rodman, whose now dead, but he started the first game -- day and lesbian bookstore in new york -- gay and lesbian bookstore in new york, the oscar wilde bookstore. there's a gentleman who's a big activist at the time. he's still very politically active in new york, particularly on the behalf of elderly gay and lesbian people who are

having housing issues. steve: your work is available online. claire: it was started by another great person to talk to about the stonewall riots, who is a historian who trained himself. he wrote a book called gay american history, published in 1974 that was first history of lgbt people in the united states. he did it during research at the new york public library. at a certain point he wanted to create a history spike that made lgbt history available to everybody. he started out history.org, it started as a wiki and was moved to a regular website. it has stories, research, documents, biographies we have a -- biographies of lgbt people, it has birthday segments, so you can see what they miss lgbt

person was born on that day -- what famous lgbt person was born on that day. the site is going through a big renewal now. steve: from the stonewall riots to don't ask don't tell during the clinton white house years to where we are today, let's talk about the art of the gay and -- the ark of the gay and ofbian movement -- the arc the gay and lesbian movement. claire: it is astonishing how much has happened in my lifetime. at the time of the stonewall riot, a gay man or lesbian would not be allowed to have custody of their own child. today gay men and lesbians are having their own children and interacting with other parents. they are safe from the law. 1969, gay and lesbian people would sometimes have private weddings for places like the stonewall inn. they refer to them as weddings, regular weddings. now lesbians and gay men can go

down to city hall or have a wedding in a church. which is extremely important, if you look at the long arc, one of the things we saw is because lgbt people could not protect themselves through marriage, when somebody became sick often -- sick, often person was helpless to protect the person they love. often when someone died they would take all the belongings of the apartment, regardless of the fact that another person lives there. that long arc of history that began with stonewall has ended in full citizenship for lgbt people. steve: when you look at people today who embraced their sexuality, i think of people like ellen degeneres, how important are they in terms of your movement?

claire: we think they are extraordinarily important. you don't have to be a political radical to be important to the lgbt community. for example, what's important about ellen degeneres, many people who were in the closets themselves, watching her towards coming out. whether they were out of the closet or not, all of a sudden there was somebody else speaking for them on the national stage. i would say the internet is really important to the liberation of lesbian and gay people, because the internet created virtual spaces where you could find a community. you didn't have to go into a bar if you weren't the kind of person who hung out in bars. you could go online, you could look for other people like you. you could have conversations for -- conversations about what it meant to come out, what are the

strategies for coming out. i think the communication between lgbt people has added to our visibility and the more visibility we had the more heterosexual people understand we are just like them. steve: in the political world, colorado has the first openly gay governor elected. would that have been possible 14 years ago? claire: no, that would have not been possible. i have to say i'm 60 years old. every time a day or lesbian person gets elected to office -- a gay or lesbian person gets elected to office i'm just , thrilled. i'm thrilled they had the nerve to do it. i think the young woman who is native american and a lesbian who was elected to congress, that just blows me away. i think the more lesbian or gay

people we get in congress or governor's office, or as mayors and so on, the more we are going to see there are a range of views in the community about what social justice means and how it intersects with the form of socialher forms justice. steve: what are the challenges ahead? claire: one, it was a very easy in 1969 to talk about a lesbian and gay community. people of different races and classes and professions. nevertheless, the visible gay community, the activists had an agenda that was pretty solid and clear to them. i think now, lesbian and gay americans have the freedom to make all kinds of choices for themselves. so for lesbians and gays who are democrats -- it's incomprehensible to them you would be gay and republican.

on the other hand, i went to cpac. i met a lot of republicans. why are they republicans? they are fiscal conservatives and christians. within the sort of place in the republican party that they've carved out for themselves, they can be all those things. i think that's great, i think our identities contradict each other. in the age of identity, for people to have more complex identities to say i'm gay and republican, or i'm lesbian and a fiscal conservative, i think that's hard to explain to people. it's a real challenge to explain why a liberationist identity from the past may not be liberationist now. steve: finally come as you walk through the stonewall in, do you kind of harken back and wonder what was happening in june of

1969? claire: absolutely. in a certain level, i don't have to wonder so much area -- so much. by the mid-1970's i was hanging out in lesbian and gay bars in west village. i remember them vividly. they were dirty, they were exciting, they were full of smoke, full of all kinds of people to have adventures with. i can easily see how a group of people who were together and taking care of each other and loving each other, when all of a sudden they were challenged they spontaneously decided they weren't going to take it anymore. steve: the process of making this a historical site has been what to? -- what? claire: i think it's taken a long time because when something site, youhistorical have to go through a whole lot of paperwork to make a case for it. when it actually happened in the

secretary of the interior came to actually do the designation herself, it was the end of a long process of historians making that case to the federal government. it's also true the obama administration was committed to creating more lesbian and gay historic sites. steve claire potter, we thank : you for your time. claire: thanks for having me. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. >> the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. , ask not what your country can do for you. ask what you can do for your country. the people who knocked

these buildings down will hear all of us soon. [applause] announcer: c-span's newest book, the presidents. did historians rank america's best and worst chief executive. provides insight into the lives of the 44 american presidents. explore the life events that shaped our leaders, challenges they faced, and the legacies they have left behind. affairs, by public c-span's "the presidents" will be on shelves april 23. you can preorder a copy today on c-span.org/thepresidents. on march 24,go 1980 nine, the exxon valdez oil tanker struck a 1989, on oil tar struck a reef off the coast of alaska and spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil into prince william sound.

riki ott talks about her book "not one drop, betrayal and courage in the wake of the exxon valdez oil spill," which tells the perspective of the town most affected by the accident and the author's home. we recorded this in 2008. it is about 50 minutes. riki: thank you all for coming tonight and thank you village books and the two cosponsors for putting this evening together. we are going to dive right in here. former alaska senator ted stevens promised that -- [applause] he promised not one drop of oil would be spilled into prince william sound. not one drop is the title of my and, and is about betrayal courage in the wake of the exxon valdez oil spill. this story