and the rise of the gay-rights movement. she describes the uprising and reflects on the legacy of stonewall inn now a national monument in new york city. we recorded this 18 minute interview in chicago at the 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. in the 50th anniversary is 1969. coming up this june. what happened? prof. potter: stonewall riots. well, 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 owners had not make their payoffs 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 a routine best, really. it was the kind of thing that happened to lgbtq people all the york and the united states. steve: why then? what was motivating the police? prof. potter: the police hadn't gotten their payoff and they were trying to teach a lesson to the owners. something else had happened too. judy garland had died that night. everybody was very upset. and something snapped. and the patrons of the stonewall inn decided they were mad as hell and they weren't going to take it anymore and they would not leave. they would not allow themselves to be arrested and throwing things at the caps.

they barricaded themselves inside. the cops rushed the stonewall inn, they got inside. the patrons, many of them ran out. some of them set fires. all of a sudden, it was a ride. steve: was judy garland viewed as an icon by the community? prof. potter: judy garland was an icon to the community, particularly to the drag community. it is only a guess by historians that this was the thing that switch thated the night at 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 have become radel at -- radicalized. violent resistance against police repression 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.

prof. potter: it was. one of the things that happened is people who were not actually patrons of the stonewall inn, by that point west village became a gay place. a lot of artists and students and activists and all kinds of countercultural people were living in the west village. they began to gather around. if you look at memoirs of the period, there are so many people who we now think of as really important figures in lesbian and gay history. somehow they were all in the area that might going to another -- that night going to another bar or sitting at a restaurant. they saw something going on, a huge crowd gathered, and they began to support the young people at stonewall inn. steve: how hard was it for these people to come out? because 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? prof. potter: there were a number of challenges to coming out. one was it was illegal to be gay in many places. it wasn't written into the law, but to various sexual acts were illegal. sodomy is still a crime in many states in the union. that would be does find as any kind of sexual activity that is not heteronormative. there were other kinds of things. there were laws against wearing the clothing of the other gender. or butchross-dressed lesbians who wore men's clothes meant they could be arrested for not wearing the clothes of the proper gender and take into this -- to the station, shaken down, fined.

there was -- they would have to bail themselves out and come to court the next day. there were routine police harassments. it was also very difficult for gay and lesbian people to get served. if two men walked into a normal down, ifher and sat they were suspected of being homosexuals, the bartender would -- was prohibited by law from serving them. similarly, women going into bars often until the mid-1960's, late 1960's, there were bars i could legally prohibit women and accompanied by a man from coming into a bar. gay and lesbian bars played a particularly special role in the community. both as a place where you could go to just relax and be with your friends, and not be harassed by anybody, but they also come as we found out by 1969, became a place where people acquired a solidarity. and what we might call a

proto-political affiliation with each other. steve: the stonewall inn is a historic location. 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? prof. potter: the stonewall inn today is still on christopher street. there was a short period in the 1990's when it became a bagel store. and now it is a bar again. it's a national landmark. it is right across the street from a tiny park that has a monument to gay and lesbian activists. it's a park that a lot of menus to use for cruising and 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 hudson river. the 1960's, 1970's, and

1980's, that entire street was lined with bars and stores and other kinds of establishments that only catered to gay people. really it was 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? prof. potter: another riot. the riot went on for several days and nights. 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 submitted to an arrest, it was humiliating coming you hoped your name did not get in the paper. you could pay a police officer to let you go or to not let you -- not to put your name in the paper. it was something you had to endure and it was actually part

of being a gay or lesbian person in new york. steve: where their people involved in the riots? there is no social media, this was organic and word-of-mouth. but people who really rose to the occasion and became leaders in this time period? prof. potter: oh, yes. there are two people in particular who deserve mention. one is marcia p johnson, a transgender woman and also a sex worker. marcia p johnson became very famous as an organizer and political radical, actually ran for office once. another individual is sophia -- sylvia rivera, also a transgender woman, who became not only famous for her political activities, but for organizing homeless youth in the area. sylvia rivera in later decades developed an organization called star, which helps homeless youth get access to certain kinds of services. get them back into school. try to get them rehome.

and try to get them off the streets and out of sex work. steve: as you research the topic, are there oral histories, other people who were alive today who remember what happened? prof. potter: there certainly are. you can find them all over the place. esther newton, who just wrote a wonderful great -- a great book. 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 rotman who is now dead, but he started the first lesbian and gay bookstore in new york. the oscar wilde bookstore. which was next door to the stonewall in. -- stonewall inn. there's a gentleman who's a big activist at the time. he is still alive and he is still very politically active in new york, particularly on behalf of elderly gay and lesbian people who are having housing issues. steve: your work is available online. outhistory.org.

explain the site. prof. potter: 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. and he did it during research at the new york public library. continued writing history books, but at a certain point he wanted to create a history spike that -- history site that made lgbt history available to everybody. so he started out history.org. it started as a wiki and was moved to a regular website. it -- website. it it has stories, research, documents, biographies of lgbt people. we have a birthday segment, so every day you can see what famous lgbt person was born on that day.

the site is going through a big renewal now. we are looking to relaunch it next year. steve: from the stonewall riots of the 1960's to don't ask don't tell during the clinton white house years to where we are today, let's talk about the art -- the ark of the gay and lesbian movement. prof. potter: it is astonishing to me how much has happened in my lifetime. at the time of the stonewall example, a game and 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, a place like the stonewall inn was a place where people would have commitment ceremonies but 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 obvious during the aids crisis, often a person was helpless to protect a person they loved. often when someone died, their family would come and take all the belongings in the apartment, regardless of the fact that another person lived there and owned those things. that's a long arc of history that began with stonewall has ended in full citizenship for lgbt people. steve: when you look at people today who really embrace their sexuality, and people like alan to generous, how important are they in terms of your movement? prof. potter: i think they are extraordinarily important.

you do not have to be a political radical to be important to the lgbt community. i think, for example, what is important about alan to generous degeneres, people who, many of whom were in the closets, watching her towards edging -- towards coming out. whether they were out of the closet or not. all of a sudden there was some there was somebody else speaking for them on a national stage. i would say the internet is really important. the liberation of lesbian and gay people, because the internet created virtual spaces. where you didn't have to come out to find a community. you did not have to go into a bar if you are not the kind of person who hung out in bars. bars were not always very nice places you could go online. you can look for other people like you. you could have conversations about what it meant to come out, what are strategies for coming out.

i think the increase in communication between lgbt people has added to our visibility and the more visibility we have, the more heterosexual people understand we are just like them. steve: in the political world, look at colorado, its first openly gay governor elected. could that have been possible 10, 12, 14 years ago? prof. potter: no, it would not have been possible. i have to say i'm 60 years old. every time a gay person gets elected to office, i'm just thrilled. i don't even care about what their politics are. i'm just thrilled they have the nerve to do it. but people came out and saw who they were and voted for them. i think the young woman who is native american and lesbian elected to congress, that just blows me away. that she had the courage to do that and expose herself to people like that. and i think the more lesbian and gay people we get in congress

and in governor's office and in -- as mayors and so on, the more we are going to see that there are a range of views in the community about what social justice means and how it intersects with the forms of social justice that are important to other americans. steve: based on the history you research and study, what are the challenges moving ahead? prof. potter: i think there are a number of challenges. one, it was a very easy in 1969 to talk about a lesbian and gay community. even though it was very diverse, people of different races, classes, and professions and so on, nevertheless, the visible gay community, the activist 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. for lesbians and gays who are democrats, it is incomprehensible to them you would be gay and republican. on the other hand, i went to

cpac last year and i met a bunch of cabinet republicans, why are they republicans? they are fiscal conservatives because -- because they are fiscal conservatives and christians. within the sort of place in the republican party, 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 liberation now. steve: as you walk through the stonewall inn, do you hearken back and wonder what was happening in june of 1969? prof. potter: oh, yes.

absolutely. on a certain level, i don't have to wonder so much. by the mid-1970's i was hanging out in lesbian and gay bars in the west village. i remember them vividly. they were dirty, they were exciting, they were full of smoke and 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. process of making this a historical site has been what? prof. potter: it has been very exciting but i think it has taken a long time because when something becomes a historical system -- historical site, you have to go through through a whole lot of paperwork to make a case for it. when it actually happened in the -- and the secretary of the

interior came to actually do the designation herself, it was the end of a long process of a committee of historians making that case to the federal government. it's also true the obama administration was emitted to creating more lesbian and gay historic sites. the stonewall inn was one of several on a list for that. steve: claire potter, we thank you very much for your time. prof. potter: thank you for having me. announcer: you are watching american history tv, 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span on our for information schedule and to keep up with the latest extremist. -- latest history news. c-span cities tour is in cedar rapids, iowa exploring the american story. up next, we visit the mother mosque of america to learn about the origins of the qur'an.