The Associated Press reports that the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of America’s most fabulous protest, will become the first national monument to LGBT rights in the U.S.
The gritty tavern, known colloquially as the Stonewall, became a catalyst for the gay rights movement after police raided it on June 28, 1969. Bar-goers fought back, and many more joined in street protests over the following days in an uprising widely credited as the start of large-scale gay activism in New York and around the word. Annual pride parades in hundreds of cities commemorate the rebellion.
The White House declined to comment. Yet Obama has paid tribute to the site before, most notably in his second inaugural address in 2013. In what’s believed to be the first reference to gay rights in an inaugural address, Obama said the principle of equality still guides the U.S. “just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.”
Tweet tip! Things that Stonewall was not:
• The birthplace of gay rights.
• A “gay” riot.
• Cornfed straight-acting country boys fixing the city.