What is Stonewall?

In 1969, a series of riots over police action at The Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village that changed the landscape of the homosexual in society, literally overnight. These riots are widely acknowledged as the 'first shot' that ushered in a previously unimagined era of openness, political action, and massive social change. Coming during a time when lesbians and gays were routinely closeted and in fear of losing their jobs, their apartments, their families and even their freedom, these riots - barely covered in the media at the time - were the spark that led to a new militancy and openness in the gay political movement.