The good half of the story, from there, is that the 1960-61 bar closures marked some of the most important pre-Stonewall gay rights protests and publicly broadcast activism. In New York, only one bar managed to survive an initial 1960s shakedown and mass closure.
This resulted in the effective closure of SF's 50 or so gay bars-but had ramifications across the country, too. Out in California, a group of San Francisco gay bar owners had banded together to go public about the massive bribes they were paying police in order to remain open, the effect being, they exposed significant police corruption. Things might have reached a breaking point around 1960. The favored tactic of the New York SLA, of course, was to raid and shutter bars declared "disorderly," such an excellent weasel word. Los Angeles undercover cops would count the seconds they saw people kiss (in greeting, on New Years' Eve, whatever) and arrest or brutalize whatever they considered to transcend the line from celebration to queer. In San Francisco, Sal Stoueman's Black Cat Cafe (made particularly famous by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) handed out "I'm A Boy" nametags to patrons, so undercover cops could not arrest its drag performers, "gay screaming queens" (TM Ginsberg), or even "gray flannel suit types" for female impersonation with intent to defraud or deceive someone into sex. The repeal of Prohibition may have restored Americans' right to drink alcohol, but municipalities and states found various ways to curtail gay people's ability to drink together in public. And it wasn't just $3500 startup-it was $1200 a month after that, to ensure that the police and State Liquor Authority would allow Stonewall to reopen after each very frequent raid. In the 1960s, the Mafia (and specifically the Genovese mob family) was behind pretty much every bar in Manhattan that courted a gay clientele. Previous AMAs | Previous Roundtables Featuresįeature posts are posted weekly. May 25th | Panel AMA with /r/AskBibleScholars Please Subscribe to our Google Calendar for Upcoming AMAs and Events To nominate someone else as a Quality Contributor, message the mods. Our flaired users have detailed knowledge of their historical specialty and a proven record of excellent contributions to /r/AskHistorians. Please Read and Understand the Rules Before Contributing. Report Comments That Break Reddiquette or the Subreddit Rules. Serious On-Topic Comments Only: No Jokes, Anecdotes, Clutter, or other Digressions. Provide Primary and Secondary Sources If Asked. Write Original, In-Depth and Comprehensive Answers, Using Good Historical Practices. Questions should be clear and specific in what they ask, and should be able to get detailed answers from historians whose expertise is likely to be in particular times and places. Nothing Less Than 20 Years Old, and Don't Soapbox. Be Nice: No Racism, Bigotry, or Offensive Behavior.
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