Editing Stonewall riots (section)

==Riots==

===Police raid===
[[File:Layout of the Stonewall Inn 1969-en.svg|thumb|alt=A color digital illustration of the layout of the Stonewall Inn in 1969: a rectangular building with the front along Christopher Street; the entrance opens to a lobby where patrons could go to the larger part of the bar to the right that also featured a larger dance floor. From that room was an entrance to a smaller room with a smaller dance floor and smaller bar. The toilets are located near the rear of the building|Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969{{sfn|Carter|2004|loc=photo spread, p. 1}}|270x270px]]

[[File:Stonewall Inn raid sign pride weekend 2016.jpg|thumb|The sign left by police following the raid is now on display just inside the entrance.]]

At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, Detective Charles Smythe, and Deputy Inspector [[Seymour Pine]] arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!"{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=137}} Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen entered the bar early that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once ready, the undercover officers called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom.<ref group=note>According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. Days after the raid, one of the bar owners complained that the tipoff had never come, and that the raid was ordered by the [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]], who objected that there were no [[Revenue stamp|stamps]] on the liquor bottles, indicating the alcohol was [[Rum-running|bootlegged]]. David Carter presents information (p. 96–103) indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked on [[Wall Street]]. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.</ref> The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 200 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. Michael Fader remembered, "Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=137}}

The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification and have female police officers take patrons they perceived to be women to the bathroom to verify their sex. The officers would then arrest any trans women or drag queens. The women refused to go with the officers and the men in line refused to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those suspected of cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. All parties involved recall that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, started by police who assaulted some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=141}}

{{Quote box |width=30em | align=left |quote=When did you ever see a fag fight back?{{nbsp}}... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit{{nbsp}}... Predominantly, the theme [w]as, "this shit has got to stop!"|salign=right|source=—anonymous Stonewall riots participant{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=143}}}}

The police were to transport the bar's alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight cases of beer and nineteen bottles of hard liquor were seized, but the patrol wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons were required to wait in line for about 15 minutes.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=142}} Those who were not arrested were released from the front door, but they did not leave quickly as usual. Instead, they stopped outside and a crowd began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside the Stonewall and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion. The crowd's applause encouraged them further.{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=2}}

When the first patrol wagon arrived, Inspector Pine recalled that the crowd—most of whom were homosexual—had grown to at least ten times the number of people who were arrested and they all became very quiet.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=147}} Confusion over radio communication delayed the arrival of a second wagon. The police began escorting Mafia members into the first wagon, to the cheers of the bystanders. Next, regular employees were loaded into the wagon. A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", someone began singing "[[We Shall Overcome]]" and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with "growing and intensive hostility".{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=147–148}} An officer shoved a person in drag, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse. The cop clubbed her over the head, as the crowd began to boo. Author [[Edmund White]], who had been passing by, recalled, "Everyone's restless, angry, and high-spirited. No one has a slogan, no one even has an attitude, but something's brewing."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=148}} Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten.

A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke–stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a [[baton (law enforcement)|baton]] for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=196}} Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown ([[Stormé DeLarverie]] has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman, but accounts vary<ref name=Chu>{{cite web|last=Chu |first=Grace |url=http://www.afterellen.com/people/77167-an-interview-with-lesbian-stonewall-veteran-storm-delarverie|title=An interview with lesbian Stonewall veteran Stormé DeLarverie |publisher=AfterEllen.com |date=July 26, 2010 |access-date=August 1, 2010}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Accounts of people who witnessed the scene, including letters and news reports of the woman who fought with police, conflicted. Where witnesses claim one woman who fought her treatment at the hands of the police caused the crowd to become angry, some also remembered several "butch lesbians" had begun to fight back while still in the bar. At least one was already bleeding when taken out of the bar.{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=152–153}} Craig Rodwell{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=197}} claims the arrest of the woman was not the primary event that triggered the violence, but one of several simultaneous occurrences: "there was just{{nbsp}}... a flash of group—of mass—anger."}}), sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon,{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=152}} the crowd became a mob and became violent.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=151}}<ref>{{cite web |title=The night they busted Stonewall |author=Lucian K. Truscott IV |website=Salon |url=http://www.salon.com/2017/06/28/the-night-they-busted-stonewall/ |date=June 28, 2017 |access-date=July 1, 2017}}</ref>

===Violence breaks out===
The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, knocking a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended (deliberately, according to some witnesses).{{refn|group=note|Witness Morty Manford stated, "There's no doubt in my mind that those people were deliberately left unguarded. I assume there was some sort of relationship between the bar management and the local police, so they really didn't want to arrest those people. But they had to at least look like they were doing their jobs."{{sfn|Marcus|2002|p= 128}}}}{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=154}} As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. The commotion attracted more people who learned what was happening. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar had been raided because "they didn't pay off the cops", to which someone else yelled, "Let's pay them off!"{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=156}} Coins sailed through the air towards the police as the crowd shouted "Pigs!" and "Faggot cops!" Beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd who found a construction site nearby with stacks of bricks. The police, outnumbered by between 500 and 600 people, grabbed several people, including activist folk singer (and mentor of [[Bob Dylan]]) [[Dave Van Ronk]]—who had been attracted to the revolt from a bar two doors away from the Stonewall. Though Van Ronk was not gay, he had experienced police violence when he participated in antiwar demonstrations: "As far as I was concerned, anybody who'd stand against the cops was all right with me and that's why I stayed in{{nbsp}}... Every time you turned around the cops were pulling some outrage or another."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=156}} Van Ronk was the first of thirteen arrested that night.<ref>{{cite web|title=Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square|author=Lucian Truscott IV|website=The Village Voice |date=July 3, 1969|url=http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/voice_19690703_truscott.html|format=Transcript|access-date=May 24, 2019}} [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresources/exhibitions/sw25/voice1.html page scans]</ref> Ten police officers—including two policewomen—barricaded themselves, Van Ronk, [[Howard Smith (director)|Howard Smith]] (a column writer for ''[[The Village Voice]]''), and several handcuffed detainees inside the Stonewall Inn for their own safety.

Multiple accounts of the riot assert that there was no pre-existing organization or apparent cause for the demonstration; what ensued was spontaneous.{{refn|name="Garland"|group="note"|In the years since the riots occurred, the death of gay icon [[Judy Garland]] earlier in the week on June&nbsp;22, 1969 has been attributed as a significant factor in the riots, but no participants in Saturday morning's demonstrations recall Garland's name being discussed. No print accounts of the riots by reliable sources cite Garland as a reason for the riot. Only one contemporary account suggested it, an account by a heterosexual person ridiculing the riots.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=260}} Bob Kohler used to talk to the homeless youth in Sheridan Square and said, "When people talk about Judy Garland's death having anything much to do with the riot, that makes me crazy. The street kids faced death every day. They had nothing to lose. And they couldn't have cared less about Judy. We're talking about kids who were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Judy Garland was the middle-aged darling of the middle-class gays. I get upset about this because it trivializes the whole thing."{{sfn|Deitcher|1995|p=72}}}} Michael Fader explained:{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=160}}

<blockquote>We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place and it was not an organized demonstration...</blockquote>

[[File:Stonewall riots.jpg|thumb|alt=A black and white photograph showing the backs of three uniformed police officers and a man with short-cropped hair in a suit pushing back a crowd of young men with longer hair dressed in jeans and contemporary clothing for the late 1960s, arguing and defying the police; other people in the background on a stoop are watching|This photograph – the only known photo of the riots – appeared on the front page of ''[[The New York Daily News]]'' on Sunday, June&nbsp;29, 1969. Here the "street kids" who were the first to fight back against the police are seen.]]

The only known photograph from the first night of the riots, taken by freelance photographer Joseph Ambrosini, shows the homeless gay youth who slept in nearby Christopher Park, scuffling with police. Jackie Hormona and [[Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt]] are on the far left.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=162}}<ref name=Who>{{Cite web |last=PBS |year=2010 |title=Who was at Stonewall? |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-participants/ |access-date=October 1, 2022 |website=American Experience}}</ref>

The Mattachine Society newsletter a month later offered its explanation of why the riots occurred: "It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social gathering{{nbsp}}... The Stonewall became home to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant and broadminded gay place in town, explains why."{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=13}}

Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that "flame queens", hustlers, and gay "street kids"—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a [[parking meter]] used as a [[battering ram]] on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=163–165}}

The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as the police grabbed a fire hose. Because it had no water pressure, the hose was ineffective in dispersing the crowd and seemed only to encourage them.{{sfn|Deitcher|1995|p=67}} [[Marsha P. Johnson]] later said that it was the police that had started the fire in the bar.<ref name=MarshaInterview/>{{refn|group=note|[[Sylvia Rivera]] reported being handed a [[Molotov cocktail]] and throwing it (there were no eyewitness accounts of Molotov cocktails the first night although many fires were set).{{sfn|Deitcher|1995|p=67}} In 2019, David Carter admitted that this account of Rivera's actions was fabricated and that multiple witnesses over the years, including [[Marsha P. Johnson]], had all agreed that Rivera had not been present at the uprising.<ref name="StonewallMyths"/><ref name=Interview>{{cite web|url=http://gaytoday.com/interview/070104in.asp|title=David Carter: Historian of The Stonewall Riots|publisher=Gay Today|author=Paul D. Cain|access-date=August 8, 2015|archive-date=July 6, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706194549/http://gaytoday.com/interview/070104in.asp|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Bob Kohler]] told Carter that although Rivera had not been at the uprising, he hoped that Carter would still portray her as having been there. Another Stonewall veteran, [[Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt]], claimed that he wanted Carter to include Rivera "so that young Puerto Rican transgender people on the street would have a role model."<ref name="StonewallMyths">{{cite web |url=https://www.gaycitynews.com/exploding-the-myths-of-stonewall/ |title=Exploding the Myths of Stonewall |author=Carter, David |date=June 27, 2019 |access-date=June 29, 2019 |archive-date=January 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200125092524/https://www.gaycitynews.com/exploding-the-myths-of-stonewall/ |url-status=live}}</ref> When Kohler and Rivera had a discussion over whether Kohler would back Rivera's claims to Carter for the book, Rivera asked Kohler to say that Rivera threw a Molotov cocktail. Kohler responded, "Sylvia, you didn't throw a Molotov cocktail!" Rivera continued to bargain with him, asking if he'd say she threw the first brick. He replied, "Sylvia, you didn't throw a brick." The first bottle? He still refused. Finally, Kohler agreed to lie and say Rivera had been there and had at some point thrown ''a'' bottle.<ref name="StonewallMyths"/>}} When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by [[plywood]] by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. Howard Smith, in the bar with the police, took a wrench from the bar and stuffed it in his pants, unsure if he might have to use it against the mob or the police. He watched someone squirt [[Charcoal lighter fluid|lighter fluid]] into the bar; as it was lit and the police took aim, [[siren (alarm)|sirens]] were heard and fire trucks arrived. The onslaught had lasted 45 minutes.{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=3}}

When the violence broke out, the women and transmasculine people being held down the street at [[New York Women's House of Detention|The Women's House of Detention]] joined in by chanting, setting fire to their belongings and tossing them into the street below. The historian Hugh Ryan says, "When I would talk to people about Stonewall, they would tell me, that night on Stonewall, we looked to the prison because we saw the women rioting and chanting, 'Gay rights, gay rights, gay rights.'"<ref>{{Cite web |date=May 10, 2022 |title=Before Stonewall: The Women's House of Detention Changed Queer History |url=https://www.advocate.com/books/2022/5/09/hugh-ryan-lgbtq-history-women-house-detention |access-date=May 13, 2022 |website=Advocate |language=en}}</ref>

===Escalation===
The [[Riot control|Tactical Patrol Force]] (TPF) of the New York City Police Department arrived to free the police trapped inside the Stonewall. One officer's eye was cut and a few others were bruised from being struck by flying debris. [[Bob Kohler]], who was walking his dog by the Stonewall that night, saw the TPF arrive:

<blockquote>I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over{{nbsp}}... The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been because everybody else had rioted{{nbsp}}... but the fairies were not supposed to riot{{nbsp}}... no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=175}}</blockquote>

With larger numbers, police detained anyone they could and put them in patrol wagons to go to jail, though Inspector Pine recalled, "Fights erupted with the transvestites, who wouldn't go into the patrol wagon." His recollection was corroborated by another witness across the street who said, "All I could see about who was fighting was that it was transvestites and they were fighting furiously."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=174}}

The TPF formed a [[phalanx]] and attempted to clear the streets by marching slowly and pushing the crowd back. The mob openly mocked the police. The crowd cheered, started impromptu [[kick line]]s and sang to the tune of "[[Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay]]": "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hair."{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=5}}<ref>Sara Warner (2012). ''Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure''. p. 17 {{ISBN|0472118536}}</ref><ref group="note">Some references have the last line as "...{{nbsp}}pubic hairs" instead.</ref> [[Lucian Truscott IV|Lucian Truscott]] reported in ''The Village Voice'': "A stagnant situation there brought on some gay tomfoolery in the form of a [[chorus line]] facing the line of helmeted and club-carrying cops. Just as the line got into a full kick routine, the TPF advanced again and cleared the crowd of screaming gay power[-]ites down Christopher to Seventh Avenue."{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=6}} One participant who had been in the Stonewall during the raid recalled, "The police rushed us and that's when I realized this is not a good thing to do, because they got me in the back with a [[Baton (law enforcement)|nightstick]]." Another account stated, "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing{{nbsp}}... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo{{nbsp}}... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=178}}

[[Marsha P. Johnson]], an African-American [[Drag queen|street queen]],<ref name="feinberg1">[[Leslie Feinberg|Feinberg, Leslie]] (September 24, 2006). [http://www.workers.org/2006/us/lavender-red-73/ "Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries"]. [[Workers World Party]]. "Stonewall combatants Sylvia Rivera and Marsha 'Pay It No Mind' Johnson{{nbsp}}... Both were self-identified drag queens."</ref><ref name=MPJQueen>{{cite video |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjN9W2KstqE |title=Pay It No Mind – The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson |time=14:34|access-date=November 26, 2017|quote=I didn't get into it right away; I was like the ''butch makeup queen'', working Greenwich Village. And then I started doing drag.{{nbsp}}... I started becoming a drag queen}}</ref><ref name=doc1>{{cite news|url=http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/feature-doc-pay-it-no-mind-the-life-times-of-marsha-p-johnson-released-online-watch-it|title=Feature Doc 'Pay It No Mind: The Life & Times of Marsha P. Johnson' Released Online|work=[[Indiewire]]|date=December 26, 2012|access-date=February 17, 2015}}</ref> recalled arriving at the bar around "2:00 [am]", and that at that point the riots were well underway, with the building in flames.<ref name=MarshaInterview>{{cite web |url=http://makinggayhistory.com/podcast/episode-11-johnson-wicker/ |title=Making Gay History: Episode 11 – Johnson & Wicker |year=1987 |access-date=July 6, 2017}}</ref> As the riots went on into the early hours of the morning, Johnson, along with Zazu Nova and Jackie Hormona, were noted as "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the pushback against the police.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=261}}

[[Craig Rodwell]], owner of the [[Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop]], reported watching police chase participants through the crooked streets, only to see them appear around the next corner behind the police. Members of the mob stopped cars, overturning one of them to block Christopher Street. [[Jack Nichols (activist)|Jack Nichols]] and [[Lige Clarke]], in their column printed in ''[[Screw (magazine)|Screw]]'', declared that "massive crowds of angry protesters chased [the police] for blocks screaming, 'Catch them!{{'"}}{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=6}}

[[Image:ChristopherPark3358.jpg|thumb|alt=A color photograph of Christopher Park in winter, showing the wrought iron entrance arch in the foreground and the brick pavement surrounded by five and six-story brick buildings; in the center background are four white statue figures: two males standing, one with his hand on the other's shoulder and two females seated on a park bench, one woman with her hand touching the other's thigh. All are dressed in jeans and loose clothing|[[Christopher Park]], where many of the demonstrators met after the first night of rioting to talk about what had happened. It is now the site of the [[Gay Liberation Monument]], featuring a sculpture of four figures by [[George Segal (artist)|George Segal]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/christopher-park/monuments/575|title=Christopher Park Monuments – Gay Liberation|publisher=New York City Parks |access-date=June 24, 2016}}</ref>]]
By 4:00&nbsp;am, the streets had nearly been cleared. Many people sat on stoops or gathered nearby in Christopher Park throughout the morning, dazed in disbelief at what had transpired. Many witnesses remembered the surreal and eerie quiet that descended upon Christopher Street, though there continued to be "electricity in the air".{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=180}} One commented: "There was a certain beauty in the aftermath of the riot{{nbsp}}... It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay and, you know, this was our street."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=181}} Thirteen people had been arrested. Some in the crowd were hospitalized,{{refn|group=note|One protester needed stitches to repair a knee broken by a nightstick; another lost two fingers in a car door. Witnesses recollect that some of the most "feminine boys" were beaten badly.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|pp=201–202.}}}} and four police officers were injured. Almost everything in the Stonewall Inn was broken. Inspector Pine had intended to close and dismantle the Stonewall Inn that night. Pay phones, toilets, mirrors, [[jukebox]]es, and cigarette machines were all smashed, possibly in the riot and possibly by the police.{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=3}}{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=202}}

===Second night of rioting===
During the siege of the Stonewall, Craig Rodwell called ''[[The New York Times]]'', the ''New York Post'', and the ''[[Daily News (New York)|Daily News]]'' to tell them what was happening. All three papers covered the riots; the ''Daily News'' placed coverage on the front page. News of the riot spread quickly throughout Greenwich Village, fueled by rumors that it had been organized by the [[Students for a Democratic Society]], the [[Black Panthers]], or triggered by "a homosexual police officer whose roommate went dancing at the Stonewall against the officer's wishes".{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=4}} All day Saturday, June 28, people came to stare at the burned and blackened Stonewall Inn. [[Graffiti]] appeared on the walls of the bar, declaring "Drag power", "They invaded our rights", "Support gay power" and "Legalize gay bars", along with accusations of police looting and—regarding the status of the bar—"We are open."{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=4}}<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B04EFDB1E3AEE34BC4850DFB0668382679EDE |title=Police Again Rout Village Youths: Outbreak by 400 Follows a Near-Riot Over Raid |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 30, 1969 |page=22}} {{subscription required}}</ref>

The next night, rioting again surrounded Christopher Street; participants remember differently which night was more frantic or violent. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening—hustlers, street youths, and "queens"—but they were joined by "police provocateurs", curious bystanders, and even tourists.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=184}} Remarkable to many was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness: "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=185}}

Thousands of people had gathered in front of the Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street until the crowd spilled into adjoining blocks. The throng surrounded buses and cars, harassing the occupants unless they either admitted they were gay or indicated their support for the demonstrators.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=186}} Marsha P. Johnson was seen climbing a lamppost and dropping a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|pp=204–205}}

As on the previous evening, fires were started in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood. More than a hundred police were present from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth [[Organization of the New York City Police Department#Police precincts|Precinct]]s, but after 2:00&nbsp;a.m. the TPF arrived again. Kick lines and police chases waxed and waned; when police captured demonstrators, whom the majority of witnesses described as "sissies" or "swishes", the crowd surged to recapture them.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=191}} Again, street battling ensued until 4:00&nbsp;am.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|pp=204–205}}

Beat poet and longtime Greenwich Village resident [[Allen Ginsberg]] lived on Christopher Street and happened upon the jubilant chaos. After he learned of the riot that had occurred the previous evening, he stated, "Gay power! Isn't that great!{{nbsp}}... It's about time we did something to assert ourselves" and visited the open Stonewall Inn for the first time. While walking home, he declared to Lucian Truscott, "You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago."{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=7}}

Activist [[Mark Segal]] recounts that [[Martha Shelley]] and [[Marty Robinson (gay activist)|Marty Robinson]] stood and made speeches from the front door of the Stonewall on June 29, 1969, the second night of the riot.<ref>{{Cite web|date=February 10, 2021|title=The Secret to Stonewall Veteran Mark Segal's Activism: Humor|url=https://www.advocate.com/news/2021/2/10/secret-stonewall-veteran-mark-segals-activism-humor|access-date=February 27, 2021|website=Advocate |language=en}}</ref>

===Leaflets, press coverage, and more violence===
[[File:New York Mattachine Society Newsletter - Front Cover August 1969.jpg|thumb|August 1969 Mattachine Society newsletter, covering the events]]
Activity in Greenwich Village was sporadic on Monday, June 30, and Tuesday, July 1, partly due to rain. Police and Village residents had a few altercations, as both groups antagonized each other. Craig Rodwell and his partner [[Fred Sargeant]] took the opportunity the morning after the first riot to print and distribute 5,000 leaflets, one of them reading: "Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars." The leaflets called for gay people to own their own establishments, for a boycott of the Stonewall and other Mafia-owned bars, and for public pressure on the mayor's office to investigate the "intolerable situation".{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=205}}{{sfn|Teal|1971|pp=8–9}}

Not everyone in the gay community considered the revolt a positive development. To many older homosexuals and many members of the Mattachine Society who had worked throughout the 1960s to promote homosexuals as no different from heterosexuals, the display of violence and effeminate behavior was embarrassing. [[Randy Wicker]], who had marched in the first gay picket lines before the White House in 1965, said the "screaming queens forming chorus lines and kicking went against everything that I wanted people to think about homosexuals{{nbsp}}... that we were a bunch of drag queens in the Village acting disorderly and tacky and cheap."{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=207}} Others found the closing of the Stonewall Inn, termed a "sleaze joint", as advantageous to the Village.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=206}}

On Wednesday, however, ''The Village Voice'' ran reports of the riots, written by Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott, that included unflattering descriptions of the events and its participants: "forces of faggotry", "limp wrists" and "Sunday fag follies".<ref name="Truscott">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=uuwjAAAAIBAJ&pg=6710,4693&dq=stonewall+inn&hl=en|title=Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square|last=Truscott|first=Lucian|date=July 3, 1969|work=The Village Voice|page=1|access-date=June 20, 2010}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Carter (p. 201) attributes the anger at ''The Village Voice'' reports to its focus on the effeminate behavior of the participants, with the exclusion of any kind of bravery. Author Edmund White insists that Smith and Truscott were trying to assert their own heterosexuality by referring to the events and people in derogatory terms.}} A mob descended upon Christopher Street once again and threatened to burn down the offices of ''The Village Voice,'' which at the time was headquartered several buildings west of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street; that proximity gave Truscott and other writers for the newspaper first hand observations of the uprising. Also in the mob of between 500 and 1,000 were other groups that had had unsuccessful confrontations with the police and were curious how the police were defeated in this situation. Another explosive street battle took place, with injuries to demonstrators and police alike, local shops getting looted, and arrests of five people.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|pp=208–209}}{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=203–205}} The incidents on Wednesday night lasted about an hour and were summarized by one witness: "The word is out. Christopher Street shall be liberated. The fags have had it with oppression."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=205}}