The Genovese mafia family of Manhattan owned many establishments during the 1960’s, amongst them, restaurants, green markets, and NY hotels.  One of the hotels in ownership was the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street.  This mafia family invested a large sum of money to convert the establishment into a gay bar.  Police would stop by once a week to collect their envelopes of pay off cash.  This was the only spot in New York at that time, wherein people could go and dance with each other without fear of imprisonment or bodily harm.  This was a hangout which could conceivably be a hangout today, during modern times of walls painted black, multiple dance floors with flickering lights.  Should the police stop by, the white lights would come on which were a signal to all, to stop dancing.

History recounted states that in the early morning of 28 June, 1969, undercover police entered the Inn.  Evidence for the raid was gathered earlier that evening by other members of the police force.  Just about two hundred people were dancing in the lounge that night.  Many of the patrons had never before been involved in a raid, those that had ran for the exits.  Confusion ensued among the patrons and the officers alike.  Those not able to leave where lined up and were requested to produce identification.

During this time, transvestites were arrested on charges of falsifying information incongruent with their forms of identification.  There was evidence of sexual misconduct on the part of the police department when detaining lesbians.  What became the beginning of the movement, was the fact that many of those released and not arrested, did not leave.  With, what one writer has stated, …with wrists limp and hair in a primp, the people in the Stonewall Inn that night stood up for their rights.  What resulted, was the result of an unjustified raid, and became the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement in Manhattan, and throughout the rest of the world.  The Gay Pride celebrations ended this past weekend, marking the fortieth anniversary of the raid on the Stonewall Inn.  And in cities throughout the world, people celebrated, and considered, how far society has come, and how far it still needs to progress.