Published in the University of Rochester Campus Times, Sept. 9, 2011
by Leah Buletti
"In the middle of a summer night in 1969, a group of policemen violently descended on the Stonewall Inn, a gay nightclub in the heart of New York City’s Greenwich Village that had become an enclave of the up-and-coming gay rights movement.
"Bottles, rocks and gunshots rained down upon the crowd of about 200 homosexual bar-goers in a melee that lasted most of the night and decimated the Stonewall Inn — already a burgeoning icon for the city’s gay community. Battling on the streets lasted for days as police and homosexuals swarmed into the street, including beloved Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who may have given the moment its most apt christening: “Gay power! Isn’t that great! It’s about time we did something to assert ourselves.”
"The gay rights movement had begun."