What Was Stonewall?

June 26, 2015-Greenwich Village, New York City
It was a Friday, and folks at the Stonewall Inn were celebrating. The world-famous gay bar was packed. People hugged and cheered inside the bar and outside on Christopher Street.
Everyone had come to celebrate a ruling from the Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States. Now it was legal, in all fifty states, for same-sex couples to marry. “They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. “The Constitution grants them that right.”
The Supreme Court’s decision now gave the right to marry to all Americans.
Many LGBTQ+ people had been waiting for this moment for a long time.
To see the Stonewall Inn, one might wonder what makes it so special. From the outside, it is not a particularly pretty establishment. Inside, the ceilings are low and the bar is dark. Why did so many New Yorkers celebrate there?
Because almost fifty years earlier, something happened at Stonewall. Something that would change the course of history for LGBTQ+ Americans.
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn and began arresting people. This had happened many times before, at Stonewall and at other gay-friendly bars in the city. But on that hot summer night, to the cops’ surprise, the people at Stonewall fought back.
And they fought back hard.