Each week american artifacts takes viewers into Historic Sites across the country. We visit the newseum in washington, d. C. To visit the 1969 stonewall riots and how they served as a catalyst for the modern lgbtq Rights Movement. Welcome to the museum. Im patty rule the Vice President of exhibits and content here and we are here at the prolog, stonewall, rise up and stonewall was an event in 1969 and uprising at a gay bar in new york city that propelled forward that modern day lgbtq Rights Movement and this is how we tell the story that the americans used their First Amendment freedoms and the freedom of speech, the press, to advocate for change and to change society. Now well walk around the corner in this prologged area and look at some artifacts of two of the earliest lgbtq rights that rose up in the 1950s and 60s. Gay americans lived in fear and secrecy, gay people could be arrested for showing affection in public and police parks to reeft gay people who are seeking aing nations. This is the few rise of the lgbtq groups and the daughters, where people are meeting in secret in their homes largely to talk about what its like to be a gay man and to talk about what its like to be a lesbian woman, to socialize, to dance and have fun, but out of these social groups rose movements for social justice where instead of seeking tolerance by the public they decided they wanted more than that, they wanted actual acceptance and here you see artifacts from the matasheen society, a matchbook that would be passed on to people in Public Places of people that they thought were like minded people. A secret way to say are you gay . I am, too. Lets talk about it and here was a legal book that was published for gay people arrested by police who gave them advice about what their rights were when dealing with the police. You see early pioneering publication, the matasheen and the daughters of the lightest won the First Amendment case in the Supreme Court when the post office was refusing to distribute it and they did have the right to publish that magazine. Next, well go down to the main gallery of the exhibit were right before the rise up and we decided that Popular Culture was a good place to start for many people. Popular culture played such an Important Role in shaping attitudes. Early on in 1961, the first images you see of homosexuals which is what they were called then, it was called the rejected and it talked about homosexuality as an issue and as a problem and suddenly you see gradually more lgbtq people being represented in sport, television and movies and you hear Martina Navratilovas tennis racket. Shes an incredible athlete, multiple tennis champion who comes out as being gay. Rock hudson, famous hollywood celebrity who reveals that he is dies of aids, a huge earthquake in Popular Culture and in the lgbtq Rights Movement. Then you saw in philadelphia tom hanks portrays a man, and of course, Ellen Degeneres who comes out on the cover of Time Magazine and the repercussions that resulted from that. Her show was canceled soon after that. She received Death Threats because of it, but nonetheless that moment in time is seen as a very powerful moment, Forward Movement and will and grace qwest , and it did more to invite gay people into their living rooms when people might not know gay people in their lives. We have movies like brokeback mountain, modern family, and of course, Caitlin Jenner coming out on vanity fair magazine. It brought popular understanding to the issues that the lgbtq communities were facing. Next well walk into the gallery and well talk about the Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969. Well go to a hot summer night in 1969 to Greenwich Village in new york city, the Stonewall Inn. It wasnt a particularly nice bar, the drinks were watered down and run by the mafia and gay people could come, dance together and socialize. Back then it was illegal for gay people to socialize together and show affection. The stonewall preyed on the gay wall street workers who socialized there and there was a blackmailing ring. Not the nicest place, but at least it was a place that gay people could call their own. There was a crackdown on such illegal establishments and when police came in and started raiding the bar and tossing people out of it they were a little bit rough with a lesbian and they threw her out on to the streets and the crowd went wild. This was kind of a pentup feeling by the people there, and they were arrested for showing affection in public and at this point in time in 1969 we have the Youth Movement and counter culture, sexual revolution is happening and people just arent going to take it anymore, and theyre done with not being accepted for being gay and theyre just fed up. This starts six nights of on and off uprising, rioting, glass throwing, brick throwing, interactions with police and out of this moment springs forth what we call the modern lgbtq Rights Movement. You see here here is a headline in the main street media and you see how dismissive they are of people. Queen bee stinging mad. The Mainstream Media didnt cover this for a couple of days. Several days of riots are going on until they pay attention. They have the publications of the museums collection of how the gay Rights Movement was covered by other publications. You have the advocate which is an early lgbtq publication based in l. A. You have the latter which is a lesbian publication that reported on uprising at a bar in the california region and then you say what is going on . Time magazine a few days later cover the homosexual in america. Never before have homosexuals been at the forefront of whats going on in the United States today. Out of this moment springs forth the modern lgbtq Rights Movement. We organize this exhibit as themes and the next theme we come to is fighting for the right to work and to serve. We come to the story of frank, he has a ph. D and government employee. Solicitation, often times they wouldnt fight back because of the repercussions for fighting back for such of a crime. You could lose your job for being gay. Your neighbors would distance thepss from you, your family, you can lose your children. To be gay was really to live a life of fear and secrecy in the 1950s and 60s. So frank decided that he was going to fight back against government rules and gay people. Indeed, president eisenhower actually signed a law into effect that homosexuals could not be hired by the federal government. Frank decided there should be no reason for such a law. Homosexuals deserved rights to work in the federal govern amme or anywhere else as much as they did. People who were gay would picket outside the white house and the Civil Service commission going public with signs such as this. America, the land of opportunity for homosexuals too. They protest Civil Service commission policy. It is the organization who controls who gets hired by the federal government. Canony is the father of the lgbtq Rights Movement and his story pops up throughout this exhibit. Well go around the corner and talk about a woman named barbara gidings and she took it upon herself to fight against homosexuality and mental illness. She was a College Student when she was diagnosed as being homosexual and she did research about what that meant. She found homosexual people were frequently institutional ieizedd electroshock treatment and she thought there was something very wrong about that. She took on the psychiatric organization. She appeared in convention in dallas, texas and spoke on a panel with a gay psychiatrist who was so fearful of the repercussions of coming out and speaking publicly as a gay person that he wore this mask. Barbara had an information booth. You see the sign for the information booth that gave positive images of what gay people were all about. A year later the American Psychiatric organization took away the thought that homosexuality was a mental illness. They sent a letter to their friends saying its a miracle. Weve been cured. Then we talk about harvey milk who was elected to office in the United States. Harvey milk was elected to the San Francisco board of supervisors in 1977. Milk proceeded to get various laws passed increasing rights for lgbtq citizens and he served for about a year before she was cut down. He was assassinated by a former policeman and former commissioner himself. In this case you can find a letter in milks jacket and you can see the bullet holes. The person who shot harvey milk received that resulted in the white night riots when people were coming forthwith fury and frustration at the lack of attention toward the death of this pioneering figure in lgbtq history. We have artifacts from Timmy Baldwin in 1998 was the first openly gay woman elected to congress. This is the red suit that she wore when elected to the legislature and here we have a Newsweek Magazine cover of barney frank and he served two terms before he came out as being a gay person. After he left office he married his longtime partner, jim ready and this is a button that they handed out at their wedding. Ill walk around the corner and explore the story of the lgbtq activists fighting for the right to serve in the military. In 1974, Leonard Matlovich was a sergeant in the air force and he served through tours of duty and he had the bronze star. He decided to challenge the military ban on gay people serving and working with the father of the lgbtq Rights Movement he decided to push back against the air force and the air force offered him a settlement instead of deciding to change its policy and you see this persons brave stance going on the cover of Time Magazine in 1975 saying i am a homosexual, the first gay person to appear on the cover of Time Magazine and this started to chip away at attitudes of preventing gay people from serving in the military. Dont ask, dont tell and thats a policy from the Clinton Administration that aloud people to serve in the military as long as they were quiet about their Sexual Orientation is. Above is the gavel from nancy pelosi that denounced dont ask, dont tell. You saw protests called zaps. They were socalled because they were provocative and designed to get press coverage and get attention for what the activists were fighting for. You had the gay raiders out of philadelphia who got themselves on to the cbs oofevening news o Walter Cronkite as americans watched their evening newscast. Cronkite took time after the newscast to talk about what their issues were and he changed how cbs covered groups and nationalities whose stories arent being told by the Mainstream Press and here you see gay activist. You see the lesbian tooitd and many, many other publications rode out of the stonewall era and the incredible flag that is now iconic and the symbol of the lgbtq Rights Movement. He called himself as betsy ross and you notice who more stripes, and two more colors were too hard to reproduce and they got rid of the turquoise and this was the sewing machine on which he created the first flag and that was the template. Next well talk about the aids crisis and how that activated and mobilized lgbtq activists. In every movement you see signs of progress and pushback. You see openness and gay people being public about their Sexual Orientation and protesting in the streets and quickly on the heels of that comes the aids crisis. In the early 1980s stories about aids, this Mysterious Illness that is striking gay men in los angeles and new york come to the forefront in Gay Publications and the early headlines because no one knows what causes aids are really more fearmongering than anything else. At least the Lgbt Community being further ostracized. Here you see journalists being part of the Mainstream Press. It wasnt incredibly welcoming to be a gay man to be on the staff of a paper. Both of these journalists reported about the aids crisis and both succumbed to aids, as well. It wasnt until 1992 that drugs were found that made it a disease that people could live with. Here you saw again, gay activists using zaps, the provocative, flamboyant protests and the dies in that took place in st. Patricks cathedral and protests outside the fda where activists were activating for drugs to come to market quicker and more research by the government and more support for people with aids. The Gay Community was providing meals, support and information about drug trials and organizations like act up and other organizations are really advocating for people with aids and for the community as a whole. More than 362,000, and to illustrate that story we have a section of the aids quill. The aids project in 1987 laid patches of a quilt across the National Mall in washington, d. C. This is evidence that while aids is now a treatable diseased aids crisis is really not over. This is a piece of the quilt that tells the story of a transgender woman in atlanta who died in 2016. Her name was Cheryl Courtney evans. Next, well go to a section that talks about the battle for samesex marriage and the role that faith and religion played in that. Some faith communities welcomed some, but not all. Dade county, florida, joined about a dozen other communities aimed at passing legislation aimed at preventing discrimination with housing and other areas. Arc ni anita bryant was a spokeswoman for the juice industry. She thought that this law would end up having children corrupted by the Gay Community so she fought back against it with the Save Community campaign. They fought back against anita bryant and you see a record put out by anita records, a lesbian label and there are a variety of songs that are pushing back with anita bryant and orange juice. Bartender stopped selling screwdrivers that were with orange juice and vodka. They started selling the anita bryant, and apple juice and vodka. You see the Lgbtq Community pushing back against those that were trying to take their rights. Powerful evangelical leaders who were blaming gay people for the aids crisis. A setback because of these powerful spokesmen of faith are pushing back against their community and their essential rights. Next, well come to the section about the historic ruling that led to samesex marriage being made legal across the country. It gives every american the power to petition government for change. Thats evidenced throughout this exhibit. Jim obergafell had been planning to marry his longtime partner john arthur and in their home state of ohio it was illegal for two men to marry. So they flew to an airport tarmac in maryland and he was dying of a neurological disease at the time. Mr. Arthur died a few months later and he wanted to be listed as a surviving spouse on john arthurs death certificate and he joined 14 couples and other widowers in the Supreme Court case and it made samesex legal across the country. You can see the jacket that he wore on his wedding day and the bow tie he wore on announcement day and the wedding rings and the fused wedding rings of john arthurs. These artifacts were the few that we got on loan for this exhibit and its a powerful statement because at its essence, this whole exhibit is about who do you love and twho do you have the right to love. Theyre powerful exhibits about how Everyday Americans petitioned the government for change using their First Amendment freedoms. The struggle for samesex marriage was a decades long process. Here in this case you see in 1953, the pioneering lgbt publication put on its cover, homosexual marriage, question mark . It wasnt until decades later when 2016 makes samesex marriage legal across country and they were chipping away at attitudes that prevented samesex marriage. She was with her longtime partner thea speier for many years. When thea died edith was stuck with a rather large inheritance tax bill and she decided that she would challenge the irs saying that she was being denied the same rights that heterosexual couples had, more than a thousand of them. Years later the Supreme Court decided in her favor and this is a copy of the check that she got for the irs for back payment of the inheritance and back pay around tax time here. Here you see posters that were used by protesters who were heralding the decision that Edith Windsor took part in. You see some iconic figures who 50 years ago would never have been open about their Sexual Orientation and their sexuality. We call this wall once rejected and now embraced and you see how attitudes have changed toward lgbtq, and theyre actors and journalists. These are people who are much admired for who they are and what they do. Here at the museum, our mission is to promote understanding of the importance of the free press and the First Amendment. And we hope more people will come and visit this exhibit because stonewall and the rise up and the lgbtq rights, really tell the story how ordinary americans use the First Amendment, freedom of petition, and freedom of speech to rise up, active, push back and advocate for change and thats what were all about here at the museum, explaining to people the story of the First Amendment. This movement, the story of the lgbtq Rights Movement embodies everything about the First Amendment and we hope people will experience it as well as movies and the interactives and many more of the stories that we tell here in this exhibit. You can watch this and other programs by visiting our website, cspan. Org slash history. Every saturday night American History tv takes you to College Classrooms around the country for lectures in history. Why do you all know who lizzy borden is and raise your hand if youve ever heard of the gene harris murder trial before this class. The deepest cause where you will find the true meaning of the revolution was in this transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. So we will talk about both of these sides of the story here, right . The tools, the techniques of slave owner power and well also talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. Watch history professors lead discussions with students on topics ranging from the American Revolution to september 11th. Lectures in history on cspan3 every saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv and lectures in history is available as a podcast. Find it where you listen to podcasts. The president s, from public affairs. Available now in paperback and ebook presents biographies of every president by noted historians from best to worst and features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s to learn more about even president and historian featured and order your copy today, wherever books and ebooks are sold. Now on america tvs look at the history of gay rights and the pioneering gay films of lilly vincenz. A Gay Rights Group founded in 1950
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