>> now, from the stonewall mark themonument, we 50th anniversary of the stonewall riots, a key turning point in the gay rights movement. our guest is professor mark steyn, editor of "the stonewall riots." withwas a coproduction c-span's "washington journal or come "washington journal." >> you have your first love experience and you can go to your brother or your sister and say, i'm hurting. guilty.rst, i was very

then i realized all these things that are taught you, not only by society, but by psychiatrists fit you in a mold. and when i rejected the mold, i was happier. >> independent organizations all over the country. unified effort on the part of 20, 30 organizations on .he east coast use confrontation tactics. other groups will use a more educational approach. people emphasize different things. some groups -- [indiscernible] effort today is to

change the social institutions -- [indiscernible] ♪ [chanting] the: a portion of documentary. this is what the stonewall inn looks like today. joining us from greenwich n,llage, new york, mark stei the editor of "the stonewall riots: a documentary history." thank you for being on c-span. we appreciate it. prof. stein: thank you.

host: take us back 50 years ago this week. what happened? prof. stein: police in that rated gay bars. there was actually a raid on the stonewall in a few days later. andpolice began a raid, things proceeded in a fairly routine manner. some patrons were able to exit the bar. some words attained. it was very common to detain bar managers, bartenders, people of color, people who transgress gender. in the lingo of the day -- transvestites or drag queens or street queens, and people who sawtek.ack or some people words attained inside the bar. others began exiting the bar. that night, and it was the early

morning hours of june 28, patrons and passersby again gathering on the street outside and does the police tried to bring those they detained into crowd woulds, the erupt. there were protests, demonstrations. at one point the police were trapped inside the bar until reinforcements arrived. the riot control police were called. preceded overg the next several days of the next week. host: why this location? junehe stonewall inn, why 1969? competition if the question. the stonewall inn was mafia-owned and managed, as were

.any gay bars there was a payoff where the bar owners, managers would pay off the police to limit -- although never completely restrict -- police raids on the bars. but police would raid the bars even if there were payoff systems in place. there are different accounts of why the police raided the bar that night. the payoff system may have broken down. there was a mayoral election. that is often when police would raid bars so there would be a crackdown on vice. --re were violations of allegations of violations of a breach in liquor laws. why june 1969? that's a question historians have been debating a long time.

in global terms, 1968 was really witnessedar where we stateions and violent repression. in some sense we can see , butwall as an outgrowth there is also local and national developments. there was the mayoral election. they were just days, weeks before the riots took place, ther john lindsay had lost republican primary to be reelected. lindsay was known to be a friend of the gay community in the 1960's. he ended up winning the election in 1969. the first party ticket.

a series ofso killing of lesbian and gay people around the country. i think that contributed to the rage in the anger in the fury that lgbt people felt that night and in the days and weeks around the stonewall riots. with our conversation professor mark stein, the editor of this book "the stonewall riots." we do have a line set aside for the lgbtq community. mark stein, if you could, for a moment, describe physically where you are situated. directly behind me is the new stonewall national monument created by the obama administration. it's a small park.

behind the park is the stonewall in itself. it's a two-story building with beige stucco, alongside a three-story building that was part of the stonewall in. this is in greenwich village, new york city, lower manhattan. host: what do the monuments represent? prof. stein: well, when obama referenced stonewall on alongside seneca falls and selma in his inaugural address, it really signaled a recognition lgbtlgbt activism, the movement was part of broader aspirational struggles for justice in the night of states and that was a very powerful symbolic statement on the part of obama as president of the united states, the first african-american president of the united states.

in this monument here, another way of signaling the road that has been traveled over the last -- not just 50 years, but even .onger to achieve lgbt equality there is an action on the part of the lgbt. thee is this paradox that federal government has .ecognized this space the best example might be the ban on transgender service members. there is this paradox of recognition.

prof. stein: -- host: you mentioned president obama policy of speech. from the west front of the capital, here is what he said. [video clip] we, the people, declare the most evident of troops. this is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through seneca falls and selma and stonewall, just as a guided men and women who left footprints along this great mall dohear a preacher say "we not walk alone are co-to hear a team to claim our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on earth. host: that was former president barack obama in 2013. the stonewall in itself -- i guess the best way to say it is

.ts a rather cozy bar it's not very big, is it? big, stein: it's not very but at the time it was one of the larger gay bars in new york city and greenwich village. it featured dancing. gogo boys. the stonewall and was known to be relatively spacious. host: why were these locations so important at that time to the gay and lesbian community? in 1960 nine, same-sex sex was illegal in 49 out of 50 states. there were also state and local laws that regulated lgbt speech, lgbt which is a patient in many aspects of public life. difficult to get a government local, state, and

federal level in 1969. the lgbt a place where community could come together, socialize together, enjoy time together, and in that sense, was people argue the bar for the lgbt community what the church was for the african-american community. gathering,pace for becoming active, developing ideas about social justice and equality. host: i want to share with you a documentary that dan rather has recently apologized for -- but mike wallace in 1967, the title of the program is called "the homosexuals." [video clip]

that --e out of 10 say recognize homosexuals -- the majority of americans favor legal punishment for homosexual acts in private between consenting adults. go underground. they frequent their own bars and clubs and coffeehouses were they can act out in whatever fashion they want to, where they can escape the disapproving eye of a society they call straight. you hear that in see that, your reaction? prof. stein: the media was changing in the second half of the 1960's. that was soundly

criticized, but there were other -- the new york storymagazine published a in 1967. the wall street journal featured a major story on the gay-rights movement. this was certainly true in new york city. there was a decline in sexual entrapment practices on the part of police, a decline in arrest for sexual solicitation. some court decisions that allow gay bars a little more freedom to exist. things were changing in the second half of the 1960's. reports were

conflicting and ever-changing. theyn that first week, covered the civil rights. it was not prominent, front-page news. they have reporters trapped inside the bar during the riots and those were much more significant. it was really the alternative that, and the lgbt press cover the riots more sympathetically and those are the stories that historians rely on for rounding out the picture of what happened that week. host: our guest is mark steyn. he is the author of -- mark stein.

he is the author of "rethinking the gay and lesbian movement your code theark the anniversary of stonewall riots. tom is on the phone from flint, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning to you gentlemen and all of the viewers per this will be brief. a little context. i am a navy veteran, a gate navy veteran and grew up in it a catholic high school -- a high -- catholic household. this issue is per many different ways by different folks in corners of society, but what it really is, it's about love. sex.not about you are fighting quite a force

from ahere and coming background, the lgbtq issues are often, by the religious right issued in the same breath as abortion and a isture of death, but there so much in the bible that is taken way out of context. it's it here to selectively. so, it's about love, period. have a wonderful weekend. host: have you personally felt discrimination, and openly gay american? caller: well, i am glad you asked back. since i value the other viewer'' as well as you gentlemen, i served in the amy -- i served

20 years -- sorry my voice is kind of croaky this morning -- about 50% of it was under so-called "don't ask, don't tell." my first 10 years in the military was under a republican preferred do ask and, you know, we will ask and do and that was particularly repressive and to coney and and it could land you on the street out of a job extremely easily. takes a lot clinton of grief for don't ask, don't tell but it was a huge step forward from what was in place before that. , the last half of my

sentence here, repression, growing up in a religious household, you better believe it. host: thank you. prof. stein: it's interesting to about love. the priest on him -- stonewall -- the pre-stonewall movement is homophile movement. but this began the months before the riots, i would place on sex -- they one of the legalization of sex, things like that. they wanted their sexual identities to be recognized and

validated. for a few years, it was quite after themediately stonewall riots. host: here is a look at highlights. the american psychiatric association declaring homosexuality longer a mental --ness and then in 1982 of marriagedefense act, present obama revoking don't ask, don't appear the supreme court legalizing same-sex marriage. the pentagon one years later in sleep ban on transgender people military.enly in the but then president trump rescinding that van. let's get to tonya. good morning.

caller: good morning. i'm tonya walker. i'm an activist in new york city. i am kind of high up in the lgbtq mandy -- lgbt community here. johnson and i know the gay community did not like the drag queens because they were trying to be a straight community back then. marcia johnson was a marginalized sex worker who was fighting with the cops and i know most of the -- am i talking? host: yes, you are on the air. caller: thanks. host: did you have another question or comment? caller: i wonder what he does not mention the black drag queens fighting that night?

host: thank you for the call. mark stein. the caller is absolutely right. as far as we can determine some of the leading roles were played by african-americans, drag queens. uncertain as to when the majority per dissipated the riots, but many are -- participated in the riots, but seen as displaying real courage. some individuals are credited as leaving the riots -- marcia p. johnson. there's conflicting accounts about whether they were there, when they were there. johnson herself likes

when she was not there when it started, but came there later. she may not have been there right when the riots started. prof. stein: -- host: let's go to dave in new york city. caller: hi. i was 20 years old. i grew up on an island of states. julius was the other bar. they were all mafia run. it was strange to me being a macho college student, lacostefter wearing we went way boy, down towards the river toward a

new bar -- danny's -- which i had not mentioned. stonewall and it seemed all rights. it seemed normal. , and i had notk -- but i would say the queens, they were the bravest. they were lighting garbage -- i saw this -- garbage pails on fire from the outside and throwing them through the big window. standing onmember the bumpers of two cabs there

were parked right there in front of it. this was the first night. i think i was there for the second night. so, that is what i will never police were the trapped inside and they were lighting the garbage cans on fire. it got a little better after that. but it took years to get to where we are now. that's a decade. i am 70 now. thank you for waiting in ensuring the regulations -- your recollections from 50 years ago this week. mark stein? book reprints 30 media accounts from the stonewall riots in 1969. it's very interesting to see the

referred to the rioters as homosexuals or young homosexuals, but in a week, the tot press were referring drag queens or street queens and extensivemost --erage is in the interestingly, the trans-periodicals of the day, the ericsson educational a, didtter and transvesti not cover the riots, but the gay press imprecise the prominent role of street queens and drag queens in the riots. to police the

boundaries between gay and trans, but in 1969, many individuals were comfortable referring to themselves as both gay and transvestite. they did not see those things as mutually exclusive. to our viewers, we are looking back 50 years to the stonewall riots. our guest is mark stein. he's the author of a new book that is a look back at what happened 50 years ago. we've been talking about new york police officers. police commissioner james o'neill on twitter with this apology for the way officers handled the situation. [video clip] >> i think it would be irresponsible for me as we go through world pride was not to speak of the events at stonewall inn. i will not pretend to be next

word on what happened at stonewall. i do know what happened should not of happened. the actions taken by the nypd were wrong, plain and simple. the actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive, and for that, i apologize. [applause] to the lgbtq community, this in 2019.er happen host: your reaction to that apology from the new york city police commissioner? prof. stein: in general terms, apology is a good first step. it would be good to see apologies from cities were lgbt people were killed -- places

like berkeley, california, oakland, california. but in addition, are we seeing leadership from city mayors, state governors? we still have only a few states education is mandatory in schools. funding for lgbt history and education. way ins an effort under new york city. we could see more of those projects funded by city, state, and local government. more research into the history , includingrassment by government authorities -- those of the steps that would build on what is a symbolic apology at this point.

caller: good morning. i wanted to discuss the beginning of my coming out and going in to new york. i used to go to the gay pride parades but only at night because i didn't want to go near tv cameras. and my very best friend a school teacher said he couldn't go until the evening time because he with was afraid that he would definitely lose his job as a school teacher. he was a spanish and italian teacher in new jersey and absolutely loved his job as a foreign language teacher. i do remember enjoying halloween on christopher street and then i think a big change was during the gay men's health

crisis. i was with a friend, tony, in a storefront when they first started the health crisis and etting up the telephone lines. and these men much older than me, tony said -- because everybody was putting their name down on a piece of paper. and tony leaned over and said he's extremely young, he's pet fid that his name will be on anything. so in that storefront with the gay men's health crisis i didn't put my name on that piece of paper because the first thing i thought it was nazi brain and the gay concentration camps and that i would be put in a camp and possibly killed for being gay. host: thanks for call. we should point out christopher street is directly behind you. and that's become an iconic place for gays and lesbians, also where the stone wal inn is situated. as you hear his story what's your reaction?

guest: there had actually been earlier annual commemorations of hiladelphia in front independence hall. but the decision was made by movement activists in the fall of 1969 to switch the annual recognition of the lgbt struggle from philadelphia and independence hall to stone wal and new york city. and that became the -- what we now know today as the gay pride pa rates. that spread around the united states and around the world. but those early pride ma raids -- parades it was quite brave

to participate and uncertain with whether there would be violence from harassers who ight come and confront the participants. it was unclear if police would grant permits. it was only shortly before christopher street west that the parade organizers received official police permits to conduct the march and they only did so under a judge's order. so those first recognitions and commemorations of the stone wall rebelion required a lot of courage on the part of the organizers and participants but many believe that's when the riots acquired the significance that they have today. there had been other lgbt protests and demonstrations before stonewall but stonewall became central to the way that we narrate lgbt history because

of the annual commemorations every sum thear have now gone on for 49 years. >> i want to put one point in perspective. walter jenkins who at the time with was one of the closest aides to president johnson, worked with him for 25 years, he was married the father of six children and this is a photograph of walter jenkins who was forced out of the white house after he had a sexual liaison with another man here in washington, d.c. he was charged with a crime on more or less charges. i mentioned that in 1964 to where we are today with the mayor of indiana openly gay and among the top tier candidates running for the democratic nomination. so you look at that arc of history what does that tell you? candidates nly lgbt began running for office before stonewall.

weren't generally successful but there began to be successes in the early 1970s. the first actually were in ann arbor, michigan, and city council members came out as gay and lesbian then ran and won election. then there was a state senator lected in massachusetts, and harvey milk winning in the late 70s for the board of supervisors. we began to see successes in congress. then a few governors by now. there still though has been a kind of limit to that kind of success in elect ral and appointive offices. so we have yet to have an openly lgbt cabinet member, vice president, or president. host: do you think the country would elect an openly gay man as president in 2020?

guest: it's an interesting question. and with the judges telling it is imaginable, it is possible. but i would also remind everyone that we have yet to have a woman president of the united states. so there are many groups in american society who have yet to be represented at the highest levels of government and i think it's certainly possible and maybe even likely that in our lifetime there will member of the bt supreme court, vice president, or president. host: there are ten openly gay or lesbian members of the house and senate. we'll show you that list as we hear from dan in california. good morning. caller: hello. it's ontario, canada. but i was wondering, here in canada it's basically become a nonissue. and i notice in the united

states there's a lot of attention paid to even the terminology that's use ds. like lgbt q. and it's just unfamiliar here. i'm sort of wondering if i could just get your opinion on the difference between how it's dealt with and then the language that's used and how that's evolved as well. host: thank you, dan. guest: well, i actually lived in toronto for 16 years so i know something about what you're talking about with respect to canada. back to the stonewall moment it was at that moment that a number of countries began to partially decriminalize . nsensual i know there's a controversy that's been going on in canada very recently about the formal federal government apology for

the criminalization of lgbt people and the unfinished nature of those reforms that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. but i understand that there's been action even this month on removing from the canadian criminal code some of the other criminal statutes that have been used to target lgbt people. so it's important to remember it's not just sod my that was criminalized, same sex sex. lgbt people were harassed and used under crimes like disorderly conduct, lewd conduct, obscenity law. in canada body house legislation and a variety of other criminal statutes. host: you're doing a great job. i know the trucks behind you sometimes drown out the noise. we appreciate it. you are at the park that is now

part of the national park service on christopher street directly across from the stonewall inn. it's op to the public. our guest, mark stine, earned his doctorate from the university of pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. quick comment. i'm an avid supporter of c-span. i would like to say a quick story. i knew about stonewall and how much of a remarkable movement it started, the catalyst, and i was walking alone by myself one day in manhattan, and i just happened to come across the stonewall memorial park. it's very -- a very good feeling knowing that i was

standing in verntly in the movement of the catalyst for such a remarkable social justice movement. i was really taken back. so i want to thank c-span and professor steen for shedding such a positive and transformative light on the subject and how remarkable this movement has been. thank you all again for your time. i appreciate it. host: thank you for the call. let me take his point and u move it one step further. how do you teach stonewall? how should teachers educate this generation in terms of what happened and its significance 50 years later? guest: i think many have been trying to improve lgbt history education in colleges, universities, and high schools for some years. it's really important i think for it to be integrated into our general narrative of american history. it's one thing for there to be

courses on lgbt history in colleges and ufertsd but it's another thing entirely when the history of the civil rights and lgbt history gets incorporated into the general american history courses. so a number are working on that. many try to teach that stonewall followed 20 years of political organizing by lgbt people. so there was a pre-stonewall movement. many of us tried to teach the much broader history of sexual and gender difference and variety in american history. so stretching that century. and then of course it's important to follow the story after the stonewall riots, how did the gay liberation movement develop in the 1970s, the lesbian feminist movement, the transgender movement. how did people of color organize movements growing particularly strong in the late 19670s. how did all of that change in the 1980s with with the aids

crisis? and then what were the changes in more recent decades with with legalization but also the scliications of what it means to be recognized by local state and federal governments and the possibilities that liberation might be limited, might be compromised, might be unfinished in a variety of ways? so i think that's what a lot of us try to teach when we emphasize history host: u you have spent probably more time than most looking back at teevepbts. what has surprised you the most? guest: well, i think this 50-year commemoration. i think many of us anticipated that there would be an explosion of public interest but i think even as i was working on my new book i think maybe i underestimated the extent of the public interests.

so that's gralt if iing. it's an opportunity for us to teach about stonewall specifically but also teach about broader lgbt history and broader history of social justice movements and connect the past to the present. so i think that's an important aspect. i guess it's also frustrating. we still do see many of the myths that circulate about stonewall claims that the stonewall rights started the lgbt movement when we know there was a preexisting movement. we see a lot of photographs being circulated on the internet that purport to be from the stonewall riots that are not from the stonewall riots. we actually have quite limited photographic evidence 06 whaffs going on and really only one image that captures the confrontation between the police and the rioters. so the internet creates the problem. of course with we have many opportunities but it also creates the problems of once a

problematic representation is presented on the internet and then it can go viral and spread, and then we end up with lots of misinformation and misinterpretation. host: next caller from new york. welcome back to the conversation. good morning. yes.r: thank you first of all for everyone behind the scenes who put us all on every day. it's pastor michael vincent crea and my ministry one world life systems. stonewall needs not just an historical site, it needs to be an insight into our history.

i think you would concur that not only the commemoration of these events and i didn't come out until i left the seminary in 83, and then i went into the peace corps and i won the most comprehensive case in peace corps when i was wrongly fired. one was being zpway. -- gay. then also, i wrote the -- i have my plafert's of divinity. but my last paper at latsdzric university was same gender marriages. what we do not realize is that what we need is a vehicle of veracity with the capacity to uphold those self-evident truths. so what we would like i would think we need with all the talk and everything is good about

the reparations, about voting rights, about equal access. i got fired by trinity church standing up for a south african transgender woman to use the woman's bathroom, that we need human rights courts. host: i'm going to stop you there and give our guest a chance to respond. one of the things the caller mentioned was religion. before the riots, religious leaders were important allies of the lgbt movement along with i would say the american civil liberties union which was perhaps the most important ally. in san francisco there was a very influential council on religious and the homosexuals which features a number of ministers who allied with the lgbt activists on that day and really made important ground-breaking efforts in

california. and those efforts continued after stonewall so i think there's often a tendency to think of the religious community as hostile to or at odds with lgbt aspirations but in fact religious communities re divided and we've now had for decades those in the , efront and other whose are for and against. even those denominations hostile, there are divisions within. even the catholic and mormon church to promote rights. so communities have been an important site of struggle along with the other sites of struggle that we think about our schools the media popular culture law colleges. host: 50 years after the riots

which moved into early july, what does the rainbow flag behind you represent to you as an historian? guest: well, the flag emerged as one of several symbols and icons of the lgbt movement. the many colors was meant to celebrate the diversity of the lgbt movement and community. so to eam if a size that it's not an all white community, not an all middle class community, it's not all men but rather encompasses people from all backgrounds, all social groups in american society in the global community. and there have been calls to expand the colors on the rainbow flag to even further emphasize the diversity. host: tony in denver. caller: a brilliant

presentation on stonewall. i only had a cursory understanding before the show today and i find it highly informative. two questions. how large is the lgbt q community? how large is the demographic? i'm sure the statistics are probably hard to get because they're closetted people but i would like to know that. then, as an historian are you concerned -- i'm concerned as a white male about injustice for anybody whose not white over the last couple of years and i'm wondering if you have a view on -- are we going backwards as a society? and not just for lgbt q but just in general in terms of social justice movements? so answers would be helpful. thank you. host: thanks for call.

guest: well, we have lots of surveys back to the 40's and 50s. if the question is asked narrowly we tend to get reports of one to three to five to 10% of the population. but if the question is asked broadly we start to have much, much larger numbers. so when we think of queer that term has been invoked to use ch broader array of people and it represents everybody who has ever had a moment of same sex desire, everybody who has ever transgressed gender in any aspect of their life. we tend to get much, much larger percentages. we might say that 100% of the population is potentially queer though not everybody living that life and clamentse that identity. so it depends on how we ask the question how we define each of

the letters of the alphabet. with respect to the current moment and whether we're making progress, taking a step back, i think in many respects these things tend to happen in cycles. there were important reforms during the obama administration and as we've seen in many areas of social justice a retrenchment and reaction during the trump administration. there of course have been limits to that because we have three branches of the federal government. we have state and local governments some of which are continuing to make important strides. so it's complicated. and sometimes we have two steps forward, one step back. some we have one step forward two steps back. again, it really depends on the question we're asking. so in certain aspects of law there's been progress. but in other aspects there's been a retrenchment and we go back to your first question the notion that we have to claim

strict identities and avoid dealing with the complexities of gender and sexual fluidity. maybe we're not at such a great moment right now because i've seen more and more insistence that people claim strict identities and don't embrace possible transformation, possible fluidity of gender and sexuality across our own life courses and then across history. host: this headline from the new york daily news. and it reads as follows. homo nest raided. queen bees are stinging mad. guest: well, it was characteristic of some of the mainstream press coverage of the stonewall riots. because my book offers basically 30 accounts of the stonewall riots from that summer we get to see -- we get to compare how mainstream

newspapers and magazines covered the riots to alternative papers like the village voice in new york, the east village other. then west post periodcals like berkeley. and then we get to see lgbt press coverage. so you would not have seen a headline like that in lgbt newspapers and news letters of the day. but this was the way for mainstream newspapers to get readers, to get interest. and it can be then complicated to use those sources but they are important sources and they help us understand how it is that people learned about stonewall. the national magazines of the day, time and newsweek, didn't cover stonewall until the fall, until october. so it took several months before at least the magazines of the united states to see stonewall as something significant and worthy of coverage.

host: you spoke earlier of the importance of the bars and taverns for the gay and lesbian community. from the library, looking back at the role they played for the lgbt q community. >> gays and lesbians who came of age in the 40's, 50, and 60s speak over and over again how they risked their reputation, marriages, families, livelihoods by going to gay bars. because the gay bars saved their lives. they kept them from desparing that they were the only ones. kept them from believing that society was right, that they were sick and criminal and would be better off dead. in the bars and night clubs they found hookups and one night stands. but they also found partners and lovers and friends and people who accepted them as they were. they didn't have to carry out

the exhausting work of pretending to be straight. they could be themselves. and being true to yourself is very precious and it's worth a lot of risk. lesbians during this period suffered double discrimination. even most gay men saw women as infearier. in the days before widespread feminism the lesbian bar was the truly rare place where women were not pressured to cater to men. a lesbian in the 19 40's said, we could throw off our girdles, our dresses and high heels, which that was the uniform virtually required of all women. lesbians could wear pants and be free from straight men's unwanted sexual attention. host: from the c-span video library. i want to move beyond the riots in june and early july and ask you what happened next after

the stonewall inn's demonstrations? guest: initially, the existing gay rights organization in new york city the madison society tried to harness the energies unleashed by the riots. and there were followup protests and demonstrations in greenwich village and actually in queen's new york where a public park had been the site of harassment by vigilantes of lgbt people. but very quickly it became clear that the older, the homo file movement organizations were not going to be the main vehicles for the future. so there emerged new organizations. the first major one in new york city was called the gay liberation front. there was also the queen's liberation front. a little while later radical lesbian's formed representing lesbian fam nist politics. third world gay revolution formed representing people of

color. and then the gay activists alliance in new york. which was a little less radical than the initial gay liberation front. the gay liberation front and other organizations were very committed to alliances with the black panthers, the anti-war movement, with women's liberation. they participated in marches and demonstrations of those other groups. and they really were calling for radical restructuring of american society. a sexual restructuring, social restructuring, political restructuring. the gay activist alliance in contrast decided to focus on gay rights. and that really then set the trend for what followed for the next several years. very influential, very powerful, very active organizations in new york city and similar organizations around the country. host: two more recent moments in the role of edie windser in her role in challenging domea.

why was her participation, why was her case so significant? guest: well, over time the issues and priorities of the lgbt movement changed. so the more mainstream aspects began prioritizing inclusion in the military, inclusion in marriage, inclusion in family life, inclusion in religion. and that was contested within the lgbt movement. many people thought that the radical revolutionaries of the gay liberation movement were anti-war. they didn't want inclusion in the military. were opposed to monogomy and conventional family life. and so there's that tension. nevertheless, for many people the goal of the lgbt movement was broad acceptance, equality in all aspects of american life and edie in the struggle for

same sex marriage was an aspect of that part of the movement. so her role, the role of others were absolutely central then in establishing or achieving this major longstanding goal of the lgbt movement which was for those people who want to marry, that they have the legal right to do so. host: in 2016, during one of the gay pride marches, rangers, those from the national park service joining in the gay pride movement. what does that tell you about where police and authorities were in 69 and where we are today? guest: well again i think today there's conflicting feelings about the participation of the police, the military, eye elected officials representatives of local state and federal government. on the one hand it represents acceptance and inclusion and it's a far cry from the

situation 50 years ago. on the other hand, have those levels of government local state and federal fully acknowledged the longstanding acts of harassment of use of violence committed in the name of local states and federal government. are they fully addressing today's cutting-edge issues. and so there's that double-edged aspect of participation of local state and federal officials including representatives of the national park service. are they doing everything that they could be to make up for past wrongs and to address ongoing struggles? host: in half a minute the cover of your book represents what in your mind? why did you select it? guest: well, it's a photograph from the week of the stonewall riots. it's actually a staged photograph.

we really only have one image of the confrontation between protesters and the police and we don't even have the original so most versions people will see is a grainy image of a newspaper photograph. but the fred fratches were staged mostly taken on the evening of june 28, so the second night of rioting. these were a group of participants who he gathered, staged on a staircase on this very street, and they represent i think the diversity of the participation. so we see people who have looked to us to be african american puerto rican, we see trans people. we see the youthful energy of the participants. we see same sex affection and intimacy in the series of photographs. so in some respects at least it captures some of what was going

during the week of the rioting. host: author, historian, and history professor. mark stein joining us in new york. thank you very much for being with us. guest: thank you very much for having me. >> the riots began on june 28, 1969 after police raid it had tonewall inn, a gay bar in greenwich village. the raise sparked six days of protest considered to be the catalyst for the modern movement. up next on american history tv, panelists including an eye witness to the protests, discuss the legacy of the riots and how the treatment of the lgbt q community has changed over the past 50 years.