KPFA-FM, LETTERS AND POLITICS (BERKELEY) -- On June 28, 1969, in Greenwich Village, the New York City Police Department fueled by bigoted liquor licensing practices and an omnipresent backdrop of homophobia and transphobia, raided the Stonewall Inn, a neighborhood gay bar, in the middle of the night. The raid was met with a series of responses that would go down as the most important moment in LGBTQ history in this country’s fight for sexual and gender liberation: a riotous reaction from the bar’s patrons and surrounding community, followed by six days of protests.
Marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, we are in conversation with Mark Stein, professor of history at San Francisco State University and editor of the book The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History.