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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 8, 1984)
by Jay Brow n It was a hot night in Greenwich Village June 29. 1969. The Stonewall Inn was raided. This is what happened. "Well. I was the manager of the Stonewall. As you know the Mew York Police Department was paid off. They were getting 1200 dollars a month bribe money to leave us alone. They got paid that night, that was on a Sunday, the last Sunday of the month and then they raided us. This time when they raided us they started assaulting people, pushing people around. It's just that the gay community took enough shit and we weren't going to take no more. And they fought back. That was the whole thing. They started throwing beer cans at the cops, throwing chairs at the cops, the cops firing their guns off at us. They got the riot squad down here that broke into the windows and it just spilled off into the streets, that's all." Ed Murphy. (Rosa von Praunheim. Arm y o f Lovers.) Within two years of the Stonewall Riot, the Gay Movement blossom ed. People all over the nation had just been waiting for something to happen. Gay political groups sprang up. such as the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay Liberation Front. And people began march ing. first in Mew York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, then in cities all over the country. And each year, more and more gays and lesbians are joining together in celebration of that hot June night in '69. Portland’s first Stonewall celebration was in 1975. Organized by members of Portland Town Council, Gay Pride Week 1975. was a revelation to many in the com m unity at the time. Just O ut, June 8- June 2?