Stonewall Uprising

Part of the Series: American Experience

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. Such raids were not unusual in the late 1960s, an era when homosexual sex was illegal in every state but Illinois. That night, however, the street erupted into violent protests and demonstrations that lasted for the next six days.

The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world.