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Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176277815991 gay legend Manuscript Allen Young Autobiography 2017 activist SCARCE. First Draft Manuscript of Allen Young's Autobiography March 2017 [with hand corrections and extra materials including signed letter] Young, Allen Royalston, MA: Self-published by the author, 2017 & 2020. 203p. printed recto-only, 8.5x11 inch computer printed sheets with hand-corrections and margin notes in ink by the author, bound in red plastic three-ring binder with handwritten cover sheet in red marker and explanatory note signed and dated by the author laid-in. This is a rst drat of Young's autobiography "Let, Gay & Green: a writer's life" published in March, 2018 via Create Space self-publishing house at Amazon. Does not include the preface and aterword which were added to the published book. Young was and is a major force of the Let and the Gay Liberation Movement. He was a member of Liberation News Service, the SDS, the Gay Liberation Front and was involved with the Venceremos Brigade and wrote Gays Under the Cuban Revolution. Besides numerous books (several with Karla Jay) he wrote for The Advocate, Fag Rag, & Gay Sunshine (where he interviewed famously Allen Ginsberg). Allen Young is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist. EBAY SEEMS TO THINK THIS IS AN 

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Allen Young (born June 30, 1941) is an American journalist, author, editor and publisher who is also a social, political and environmental activist. Early life Allen Young, born in Liberty, New York, on June 30, 1941, to Rae (Goldfarb) Young and Louis Young. His parents, both secular Jews, spent their youth in New York City, then relocated to the hamlet of Glen Wild (estimated pop. 100) in Fallsburg in the foothills of the Catskills, and started a poultry farm, also providing accommodations for summer tourists in this region known as the Borscht Belt. He was a red diaper baby.[1][2] He graduated from Fallsburg Central High School and received his undergraduate degree in 1962 from Columbia College, Columbia University. Following an M.A. in 1963 from Stanford University in Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies, he earned an M.S. in 1964 from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. After receiving a Fulbright Award in 1964, Young spent three years in Brazil, Chile and other Latin American countries, contributing numerous articles to The New York Times,[3] The Christian Science Monitor and other periodicals. Activism Liberation News Service and protest Young returned to the United States in June 1967 and worked briefly for The Washington Post before resigning in the fall of that year to become a full-time anti-Vietnam War movement activist and staff member of the Liberation News Service.[4][5][6][7] Young, Marshall Bloom, Ray Mungo and others worked in the office at 3 Thomas Circle producing the news packets that were sent to the hundreds of underground newspapers bi-weekly or tri-weekly.[8] A member of the Students for a Democratic Society[9][10] he was part of the Columbia University protests of 1968[11] and was among more than 700 arrested.[12] When the Liberation News Service split in two in August 1968 Young became a recognized leader of the New York office.[1][9][13] Venceremos Brigade In February and March 1969 Young went to Cuba, where he was instrumental in the organization of the Venceremos Brigade.[10][14] Young became disillusioned with the Castro regime after observing the lack of civil liberties and other freedoms, and especially the government's anti-gay policies.[12][15] After the Mariel Boatlift he wrote Gays Under the Cuban Revolution,[16] breaking with those New Leftists who continued to defend the Cuban Revolution. Gay Liberation movement After the Stonewall riots in New York City, Young became involved in the Gay Liberation Front.[17] During the second half of 1970 he lived in the Seventeenth Street collective with Carl Miller, Jim Fouratt, and Giles Kotcher[12][18][19] where he was involved in producing Gay flames.[14] Young wrote frequently for the gay press, including The Advocate, Come Out!,[20] Fag Rag, and Gay Community News among others. His 1972 interview with Allen Ginsberg, which first appeared in Gay Sunshine[21][22] is often reprinted and translated. Young has edited four books with Karla Jay including the ground breaking anthology Out of the Closets.[23][24] Continuing activism Young moved to rural Massachusetts in 1973 to an 'intentional community'. Carrying a sign which read Royalston, Mass. population 973 he attended the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.[25] He was a reporter and assistant editor for the Athol Daily News from 1979 to 1989, and Director of Community Relations for the Athol, Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, 1989 to 1999. He joined the Montague Nuclear Power Plant protests shortly after Sam Lovejoy's toppling of the weather tower in 1974. He has served on the board of directors of the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, and in 2004 received the Writing and Society Award from the University of Massachusetts Amherst English Department "honoring a distinguished career of commitment to the work of writing in the world." Since 2009, he has been writing a weekly column, entitled Inside/Outside, for the Athol Daily News.[26] Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social movement over the ensuing several years. This movement informed and helped shape the vigorous and polarizing debate, primarily in the United States, during the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s on how to end the Vietnam War. Many in the peace movement within the United States were children, mothers, or anti-establishment youth. Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights, second-wave feminist movements, Chicano Movements, and sectors of organized labor. Additional involvement came from many other groups, including educators, clergy, academics, journalists, lawyers, physicians such as Benjamin Spock, and military veterans. Their actions consisted mainly of peaceful, nonviolent events; few events were deliberately provocative and violent. In some cases, police used violent tactics against peaceful demonstrators. By 1967, according to Gallup polls, an increasing majority of Americans considered military involvement in Vietnam to be a mistake, echoed decades later by the then-head of American war planning, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.[1] Background Causes of opposition See also: United States news media and the Vietnam War Vietnam War protesters in Wichita, Kansas, 1967 The draft, a system of conscription that mainly drew from minorities and lower and middle class whites, drove much of the protest after 1965. Conscientious objectors played an active role despite their small numbers. The prevailing sentiment that the draft was unfairly administered fueled student and blue-collar American opposition to the military draft. Opposition to the war arose during a time of unprecedented student activism, which followed the free speech movement and the civil rights movement. The military draft mobilized the baby boomers, who were most at risk, but it grew to include a varied cross-section of Americans. The growing opposition to the Vietnam War was partly attributed to greater access to uncensored information through extensive television coverage on the ground in Vietnam. Beyond opposition to the draft, anti-war protesters also made moral arguments against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In May 1954, preceding the later Quaker protests but "just after the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, the Service Committee bought a page in The New York Times to protest what seemed to be the tendency of the USA to step into Indo-China as France stepped out. We expressed our fear that in so doing, America would back into a war."[2] The moral imperative argument against the war was especially popular among American college students, who were more likely than the general public to accuse the United States of having imperialistic goals in Vietnam and to criticize the war as "immoral."[3] Civilian deaths, which were downplayed or omitted entirely by the Western media, became a subject of protest when photographic evidence of casualties emerged. An infamous photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan shooting an alleged terrorist in handcuffs during the Tet Offensive also provoked public outcry.[4] Another element of the American opposition to the war was the perception that U.S. intervention in Vietnam, which had been argued as acceptable because of the domino theory and the threat of communism, was not legally justifiable. Some Americans believed that the communist threat was used as a scapegoat to hide imperialistic intentions, and others argued that the American intervention in South Vietnam interfered with the self-determination of the country and felt that the war in Vietnam was a civil war that ought to have determined the fate of the country and that America was wrong to intervene.[4] Media coverage of the war also shook the faith of citizens at home as new television brought images of wartime conflict to viewers at home. Newsmen like NBC's Frank McGee stated that the war was all but lost as a "conclusion to be drawn inescapably from the facts."[4] For the first time in American history, the media had the means to broadcast battlefield images. Graphic footage of casualties on the nightly news eliminated any myth of the glory of war. With no clear sign of victory in Vietnam, American military casualties helped stimulate opposition to the war by Americans. In their book Manufacturing Consent, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky reject the mainstream view of how the media influenced the war and propose that the media instead censored the more brutal images of the fighting and the death of millions of innocent people. Polarization U.S. Marshals dragging away a Vietnam War protester in Washington, D.C. 1967 If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read "Vietnam." — Martin Luther King Jr., 1967[5] The U.S. became polarized over the war. Many supporters of U.S. involvement argued for what was known as the domino theory, a theory that believed if one country fell to communism, then the bordering countries would be sure to fall as well, much like falling dominoes. This theory was largely held due to the fall of eastern Europe to communism and the Soviet sphere of influence following World War II. However, military critics of the war pointed out that the Vietnam War was political and that the military mission lacked any clear idea of how to achieve its objectives. Civilian critics of the war argued that the government of South Vietnam lacked political legitimacy, or that support for the war was completely immoral. The media also played a substantial role in the polarization of American opinion regarding the Vietnam War. For example, in 1965 a majority of the media attention focused on military tactics with very little discussion about the necessity for a full scale intervention in Southeast Asia.[6] After 1965, the media covered the dissent and domestic controversy that existed within the United States, but mostly excluded the actual view of dissidents and resisters.[6] The media established a sphere of public discourse surrounding the Hawk versus Dove debate. The Dove was a liberal and a critic of the war. Doves claimed that the war was well–intentioned but a disastrously wrong mistake in an otherwise benign foreign policy. It is important to note the Doves did not question the U.S. intentions in intervening in Vietnam, nor did they question the morality or legality of the U.S. intervention. Rather, they made pragmatic claims that the war was a mistake. Contrarily, the Hawks argued that the war was legitimate and winnable and a part of the benign U.S. foreign policy. The Hawks claimed that the one-sided criticism of the media contributed to the decline of public support for the war and ultimately helped the U.S. lose the war. Author William F. Buckley repeatedly wrote about his approval for the war and suggested that "The United States has been timid, if not cowardly, in refusing to seek 'victory' in Vietnam."[4] The hawks claimed that the liberal media was responsible for the growing popular disenchantment with the war and blamed the western media for losing the war in Southeast Asia as communism was no longer a threat for them. History Students demonstrate in Saigon, July 1964, observing the tenth anniversary of the July 1954 Geneva Agreements. Early protests Early organized opposition was led by American Quakers in the 1950s, and by November 1960 eleven hundred Quakers undertook a silent protest vigil – the group "ringed the Pentagon for parts of two days".[2] Protests bringing attention to "the draft" began on May 5, 1965. Student activists at the University of California Berkeley marched on the Berkeley Draft board and forty students staged the first public burning of a draft card in the United States. Another nineteen cards were burnt on May 22 at a demonstration following the Berkeley teach-in.[7] Draft card protests were not aimed so much at the draft as at the immoral conduct of the war.[8] At that time, only a fraction of all men of draft age were actually conscripted, but the Selective Service System office ("Draft Board") in each locality had broad discretion on whom to draft and whom to exempt where there was no clear guideline for exemption. In late July 1965, Johnson doubled the number of young men to be drafted per month from 17,000 to 35,000, and on August 31, signed a law making it a crime to burn a draft card. On October 15, 1965, the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam in New York staged the first draft card burning to result in an arrest under the new law. Gruesome images of two anti-war activists who set themselves on fire in November 1965 provided iconic images of how strongly some people felt that the war was immoral. On November 2, 32-year-old Quaker Norman Morrison set himself on fire in front of The Pentagon. On November 9, 22-year-old Catholic Worker Movement member Roger Allen LaPorte did the same in front of United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Both protests were conscious imitations of earlier (and ongoing) Buddhist protests in South Vietnam. Government reactions The growing anti-war movement alarmed many in the U.S. government. On August 16, 1966, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began investigations of Americans who were suspected of aiding the NLF, with the intent to introduce legislation making these activities illegal. Anti-war demonstrators disrupted the meeting and 50 were arrested. Shifting opinion Protest against the Vietnam War in Helsinki, December 1967 Protest against the Vietnam War in Amsterdam, April 1968 In February 1967, The New York Review of Books published "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", an essay by Noam Chomsky, one of the leading intellectual opponents of the war. In the essay Chomsky argued that much responsibility for the war lay with liberal intellectuals and technical experts who were providing what he saw as pseudoscientific justification for the policies of the U.S. government. The Time Inc magazines Time and Life maintained a very pro-war editorial stance until October 1967, when in a volte-face, the editor-in-chief, Hedley Donovan, came out against the war.[9] Donovan wrote in an editorial in Life that the United States had gone into Vietnam for "honorable and sensible purposes", but the war had turned out to be "harder, longer, more complicated" than expected.[10] Donovan ended his editorial by writing the war was "not worth winning", as South Vietnam was "not absolutely imperative" to maintain American interests in Asia, which made it impossible "to ask young Americans to die for".[10] Draft protests In 1967, the continued operation of a seemingly unfair draft system then calling as many as 40,000 men for induction each month fueled a burgeoning draft resistance movement. The draft favored white, middle-class men, which allowed an economically and racially discriminating draft to force young African American men to serve in rates that were disproportionately higher than the general population. Although in 1967 there was a smaller field of draft-eligible black men, 29 percent, versus 63 percent of white men, 64 percent of eligible black men were chosen to serve in the war through conscription, compared to only 31 percent of eligible white men.[11] On October 16, 1967, draft card turn-ins were held across the country, yielding more than 1,000 draft cards, later returned to the Justice Department as an act of civil disobedience. Resisters expected to be prosecuted immediately, but Attorney General Ramsey Clark instead prosecuted a group of ringleaders including Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr. in Boston in 1968. By the late 1960s, one quarter of all court cases dealt with the draft, including men accused of draft-dodging and men petitioning for the status of conscientious objector.[12] Over 210,000 men were accused of draft-related offenses, 25,000 of whom were indicted.[13] The charges of unfairness led to the institution of a draft lottery for the year 1970 in which a young man's birthday determined his relative risk of being drafted (September 14 was the birthday at the top of the draft list for 1970; the following year July 9 held this distinction). However, popular anti-war speculation that most American soldiers, as well as most of American soldiers killed, during the Vietnam War were draftees was discredited in later years, as the large majority of these soldiers were in fact confirmed to be volunteers.[14] Developments in the war Further information: News media and the Vietnam War § Tet Offensive, 1968; Tet Offensive § United States; and Battle of Huế § Impact on American public opinion On February 1, 1968, Nguyễn Văn Lém, a Viet Cong officer suspected of participating in murder of South Vietnamese government officials during the Tet Offensive, was summarily executed by General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, the South Vietnamese National Police Chief. Loan shot Lém in the head on a public street in Saigon, despite being in front of journalists. South Vietnamese reports provided as justification after the fact claimed that Lém was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend. The execution provided an iconic image that helped sway public opinion in the United States against the war. The events of Tet in early 1968 as a whole were also remarkable in shifting public opinion regarding the war. U.S. military officials had previously reported that counter-insurgency in South Vietnam was being prosecuted successfully. While the Tet Offensive provided the U.S. and allied militaries with a great victory in that the Viet Cong was finally brought into open battle and destroyed as a fighting force, the American media, including respected figures such as Walter Cronkite, interpreted such events as the attack on the American embassy in Saigon as an indicator of U.S. military weakness.[15] The military victories on the battlefields of Tet were obscured by shocking images of violence on television screens, long casualty lists, and a new perception among the American people that the military had been untruthful to them about the success of earlier military operations, and ultimately, the ability to achieve a meaningful military solution in Vietnam. 1968 presidential election See also: 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson began his re-election campaign. Eugene McCarthy ran against him for the nomination on an anti-war platform. McCarthy did not win the first primary election in New Hampshire, but he did surprisingly well against an incumbent. The resulting blow to the Johnson campaign, taken together with other factors, led the President to make a surprise announcement in a March 31 televised speech that he was pulling out of the race. He also announced the initiation of the Paris Peace Negotiations with Vietnam in that speech. Then, on August 4, 1969, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy began secret peace negotiations at the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris. After breaking with Johnson's pro-war stance, Robert F. Kennedy entered the race on March 16 and ran for the nomination on an anti-war platform. Johnson's vice president, Hubert Humphrey, also ran for the nomination, promising to continue to support the South Vietnamese government. Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam Main article: Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam In May 1969, Life magazine published in a single issue photographs of the faces of the roughly 250 or so American servicemen who had been killed in Vietnam during a "routine week" of war in the spring of 1969.[10] Contrary to expectations, the issue sold out with many being haunted by the photographs of the ordinary young Americans killed.[10] On October 15, 1969, hundreds of thousands of people took part in National Moratorium anti-war demonstrations across the United States; the demonstrations prompted many workers to call in sick from their jobs and adolescents nationwide engaged in truancy from school. About 15 million Americans took part in the demonstration of October 15, making it the largest protests in a single day up to that point.[16] A second round of "Moratorium" demonstrations was held on November 15 and attracted more people than the first.[17] Hearts and Minds campaign Main article: Hearts and Minds (Vietnam War) The My Lai massacre was used as an example of bad military conduct during the Vietnam War. The U.S. realized that the South Vietnamese government needed a solid base of popular support if it were to survive the insurgency. To pursue this goal of winning the "Hearts and Minds" of the Vietnamese people, units of the United States Army, referred to as "Civil Affairs" units, were used extensively for the first time since World War II. Civil Affairs units, while remaining armed and under direct military control, engaged in what came to be known as "nation-building": constructing (or reconstructing) schools, public buildings, roads and other infrastructure; conducting medical programs for civilians who had no access to medical facilities; facilitating cooperation among local civilian leaders; conducting hygiene and other training for civilians; and similar activities. This policy of attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, however, often was at odds with other aspects of the war which sometimes served to antagonize many Vietnamese civilians and provided ammunition to the anti-war movement. These included the emphasis on "body count" as a way of measuring military success on the battlefield, civilian casualties during the bombing of villages (symbolized by journalist Peter Arnett's famous quote, "it was necessary to destroy the village to save it"), and the killing of civilians in such incidents as the My Lai massacre. In 1974 the documentary Hearts and Minds sought to portray the devastation the war was causing to the South Vietnamese people, and won an Academy Award for best documentary amid considerable controversy. The South Vietnamese government also antagonized many of its citizens with its suppression of political opposition, through such measures as holding large numbers of political prisoners, torturing political opponents, and holding a one-man election for President in 1971. Covert counter-terror programs and semi-covert ones such as the Phoenix Program attempted, with the help of anthropologists, to isolate rural South Vietnamese villages and affect the loyalty of the residents. Increasing polarization This man wears a Purple Heart medal as he watches a San Francisco peace march, April 1967. Despite the increasingly depressing news of the war, many Americans continued to support President Johnson's endeavors. Aside from the domino theory mentioned above, there was a feeling that the goal of preventing a communist takeover of a pro-Western government in South Vietnam was a noble objective. Many Americans were also concerned about saving face in the event of disengaging from the war or, as President Richard M. Nixon later put it, "achieving Peace with Honor." In addition, instances of Viet Cong atrocities were widely reported, most notably in an article that appeared in Reader's Digest in 1968 entitled The Blood-Red Hands of Ho Chi Minh. Opposition to the war from Vietnam veterans However, anti-war feelings also began to rise. Many Americans opposed the war on moral grounds, appalled by the devastation and violence of the war. Others claimed the conflict was a war against Vietnamese independence, or an intervention in a foreign civil war; others opposed it because they felt it lacked clear objectives and appeared to be unwinnable. Many anti-war activists themselves were Vietnam veterans, as evidenced by the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Later protests In April 1971, thousands of these veterans converged on the White House in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of them threw their medals and decorations on the steps of the United States Capitol. By this time, it had also become commonplace for the most radical anti-war demonstrators to prominently display the flag of the Viet Cong "enemy", an act which alienated many who were otherwise morally opposed to the war. Characteristics As the Vietnam War continued to escalate, public disenchantment grew and a variety of different groups were formed or became involved in the movement. African Americans See also: Civil rights movement and Black Power movement Martin Luther King Jr. speaking to an anti-Vietnam War rally at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul on April 27, 1967 African-American leaders of earlier decades like W. E. B. Du Bois were often anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. Paul Robeson weighed in on the Vietnamese struggle in 1954, calling Ho Chi Minh "the modern day Toussaint L'Overture, leading his people to freedom." These figures were driven from public life by McCarthyism, however, and black leaders were more cautious about criticizing US foreign policy as the 1960s began.[18] By the middle of the decade, open condemnation of the war became more common, with figures like Malcolm X and Bob Moses speaking out.[19] Champion boxer Muhammad Ali risked his career and a prison sentence to resist the draft in 1966. Soon Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King and James Bevel of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) became prominent opponents of the Vietnam War, and Bevel became the director of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. The Black Panther Party vehemently opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.[20] In the beginning of the war, some African Americans did not want to join the war opposition movement because of loyalty to President Johnson for pushing Civil Rights legislation, but soon the escalating violence of the war and the perceived social injustice of the draft propelled involvement in antiwar groups.[20] In March 1965, King first criticized the war during the Selma march when he told a journalist that "millions of dollars can be spent every day to hold troops in South Vietnam and our country cannot protect the rights of Negroes in Selma".[21] In 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) became the first major civil rights group to issue a formal statement against the war. When SNCC-backed Georgia Representative Julian Bond acknowledged his agreement with the anti-war statement, he was refused his seat by the State of Georgia, an injustice which he successfully appealed up to the Supreme Court.[22] SNCC had special significance as a nexus between the student movement and the black movement. At an SDS-organized conference at UC Berkeley in October 1966, SNCC Chair Stokely Carmichael challenged the white left to escalate their resistance to the military draft in a manner similar to the black movement. Some participants in ghetto rebellions of the era had already associated their actions with opposition to the Vietnam War, and SNCC first disrupted an Atlanta draft board in August 1966. According to historians Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, SDS's first Stop the Draft Week of October 1967 was "inspired by Black Power [and] emboldened by the ghetto rebellions." SNCC appear to have originated the popular anti-draft slogan: "Hell no! We won't go!"[23] On April 4, 1967, King gave a much publicized speech entitled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at the Riverside Church in New York, attacking President Johnson for "deadly Western arrogance", declaring that "we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor".[21] King's speech attracted much controversy at the time with many feeling that it was ungrateful for him to attack the president who done the most for civil rights for African Americans since Abraham Lincoln had abolished slavery a century before. Liberal newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times condemned King for his "Beyond Vietnam" speech while the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People disallowed him.[24] The "Beyond Vietnam" speech involved King in a debate with the diplomat Ralph Bunche who argued that it was folly to associate the civil rights movement with the anti-Vietnam war movement, maintaining that this would set back civil rights for African Americans.[24] This speech also showed how bold King could be when he condemned U.S. "aggression" in Vietnam; and this is considered a milestone in King's critiques against imperialism and militarism.[25] King, during the year of 1966, spoke out that it was hypocritical for Black Americans to be fighting the war in Vietnam, since they were being treated as second-class citizens back home.[25] One of his arguments was that many white middle-class men avoided the draft by college deferments, but his greatest defense was that the arms race and the Vietnam War were taking much needed resources away from the civil rights movement and the War on Poverty.[26] To combat these issues, King selected a strategy of rallying the poor working-class in hopes that the Federal Government would redirect resources toward fighting the War on Poverty.[27] King used the statistic that for the 1967 war budget, the U.S. government underestimated the cost by $10 billion, which was five times the poverty budget.[28] Black antiwar groups opposed the war for similar reasons as white groups, but often protested in separate events and sometimes did not cooperate with the ideas of white antiwar leadership.[20] They harshly criticized the draft because poor and minority men were usually most affected by conscription.[29] In 1965 and 1966, African Americans accounted for 25 percent of combat deaths, more than twice their proportion of the population. As a result, black enlisted men themselves protested and began the resistance movement among veterans. After taking measures to reduce the fatalities, apparently in response to widespread protest, the military brought the proportion of blacks down to 12.6 percent of casualties.[30] African Americans involved in the antiwar movement often formed their own groups, such as Black Women Enraged, National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union, and National Black Draft Counselors. Some of the differences were how Black Americans rallied behind the banner of "Self-determination for Black America and Vietnam", while whites marched under banners that said, "Support Our GIs, Bring Them Home Now!".[31] Within these groups, however, many African American women were seen as subordinate members by black male leaders.[32] Many African American women viewed the war in Vietnam as racially motivated and sympathized strongly with Vietnamese women.[33] Such concerns often propelled their participation in the antiwar movement and their creation of new opposition groups. Artists Many artists during the 1960s and 1970s opposed the war and used their creativity and careers to visibly oppose the war. Writers and poets opposed to involvement in the war included Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan, and Robert Bly. Their pieces often incorporated imagery based on the tragic events of the war as well as the disparity between life in Vietnam and life in the United States. Visual artists Ronald Haeberle, Peter Saul, and Nancy Spero, among others, used war equipment, like guns and helicopters, in their works while incorporating important political and war figures, portraying to the nation exactly who was responsible for the violence. Filmmakers such as Lenny Lipton, Jerry Abrams, Peter Gessner, and David Ringo created documentary-style movies featuring actual footage from the antiwar marches to raise awareness about the war and the diverse opposition movement. Playwrights like Frank O'Hara, Sam Shepard, Robert Lowell, Megan Terry, Grant Duay, and Kenneth Bernard used theater as a vehicle for portraying their thoughts about the Vietnam War, often satirizing the role of America in the world and juxtaposing the horrific effects of war with normal scenes of life. Regardless of medium, antiwar artists ranged from pacifists to violent radicals and caused Americans to think more critically about the war. Art as war opposition was quite popular in the early years of the war, but soon faded as political activism became the more common and most visible way of opposing the war.[34] Asian-Americans See also: Asian American movement Many Asian-Americans were strongly opposed to the Vietnam War. They saw the war as being a bigger action of U.S. imperialism and "connected the oppression of the Asians in the United States to the prosecution of the war in Vietnam."[35] Unlike many Americans in the anti-war movement, they viewed the war "not just as imperialist but specifically as anti-Asian."[36] Groups like the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), the Bay Area Coalition Against the War (BAACAW), and the Asian Americans for Action (AAA) made opposition to the war their main focus. Of these organizations, the Bay Area Coalition Against the War was the biggest and most significant. One of the major reasons leading to their significance was that the BAACAW was "highly organized, holding biweekly ninety-minute meetings of the Coordinating Committee at which each regional would submit detailed reports and action plans."[37] The driving force behind their formation was their anger at "the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of Haiphong Harbor." Another aspect of the group's prevalence was the support of the Japanese Community Youth Center, members of the Asian Community Center, student leaders of Asian American student unions, etc. who stood behind it.[38] The BAACAW members consisted of many Asian-Americans and they were involved in antiwar efforts like marches, study groups, fundraisers, teach-ins and demonstrations. During marches, Asian American activists carried banners that read "Stop the Bombing of Asian People and Stop Killing Our Asian Brothers and Sisters."[39] Its newsletter stated, "our goal is to build a solid, broad-based anti-imperialist movement of Asian people against the war in Vietnam."[40] The anti-war sentiment by Asian Americans was fueled by the racial inequality that they faced in the United States. As historian Daryl Maeda notes, "the antiwar movement articulated Asian Americans' racial commonality with Vietnamese people in two distinctly gendered ways: identification based on the experiences of male soldiers and identification by women."[41] Asian American soldiers in the U.S. military were many times classified as being like the enemy. They were referred to as gooks and had a racialized identity in comparison to their non-Asian counterparts. There was also the hypersexualization of Vietnamese women which in turn affected how Asian American women in the military were treated. "In a Gidra article, [a prominent influential newspaper of the Asian American movement], Evelyn Yoshimura noted that the U.S. military systematically portrayed Vietnamese women as prostitutes as a way of dehumanizing them."[42] Asian American groups realized in order to extinguish racism, they also had to address sexism as well. This in turn led to women's leadership in the Asian American antiwar movement. Patsy Chan, a "Third World" activist, said at an antiwar rally in San Francisco, "We, as Third World women [express] our militant solidarity with our brothers and sisters from Indochina. We, as Third World people know of the struggle the Indochinese are waging against imperialism, because we share that common enemy in the United States."[43] Some other notable figures were Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama. Both Boggs and Kochiyama were inspired by the civil rights movement of the 1960s and "a growing number of Asian Americans began to push forward a new era in radical Asian American politics."[44] Much Asian-Americans spoke against the war because of the way that the Vietnamese were referred within the U.S. military by the disparaging term "gook", and more generally because they encountered bigotry because they looked like "the enemy".[45] One Japanese-American veteran, Norman Nakamura, wrote in an article in the June/July issue of Gidra, that during his tour of duty in Vietnam of 1969-70 that there was an atmosphere of systematic racism towards all Vietnamese people, who were seen as less than human, being merely "gooks".[45] Because most white Americans did not make much effort to distinguish between Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, and Filipino-Americans, the anti-Asian racism generated by the war led to the emergence of a pan-Asian American identity.[45] Another Japanese-American veteran, Mike Nakayama, reported to Gidra in 1971 that he was wounded in Vietnam, he was initially refused medical treatment because he was seen as a "gook" with the doctors thinking that he was a South Vietnamese soldier (who were clothed in American uniforms), and only when he established that he spoke English as his first language that he was recognized as an American.[45] In May 1972, Gidra ran on its cover a cartoon of a female Viet Cong guerrilla being faced with an Asian-American soldier who is commanded by his white officer to "Kill that gook, you gook!".[45] There were also Asian American musicians who traveled around the United States to oppose the imperialist actions of the American government, specifically their involvement in Vietnam. "The folk trio 'A Grain of Sand' ... [ consisting of the members] JoAnne 'Nobuko' Miyamoto, Chris Iijima, and William 'Charlie' Chin, performed across the nation as traveling troubadours who set the antiracist politics of the Asian American movement to music."[43] This band was so against the imperialistic actions of the United States, that they supported the Vietnamese people vocally through their song 'War of the Flea'.[43] Asian American poets and playwrights also joined in unity with the movement's antiwar sentiments. Melvyn Escueta created the play 'Honey Bucket' and was an Asian American veteran of the war. Through this play, "Escueta establishes equivalencies between his protagonist, a Filipino American soldier named Andy, and the Vietnamese people."[43] "The Asian American antiwar movement emerged from a belief that the mainstream peace movement was racist in its disregard to Asians ... Steve Louie remembers that while the white antiwar movement had 'this moral thing about no killing,' Asian Americans sought to bring attention to 'a bigger issue ... genocide.' ... the broader movement had a hard time with the Asian movement ... because it broadened the issues out beyond where they wanted to go ... the whole question of U.S. imperialism as a system, at home and abroad."[46] Clergy The clergy, often a forgotten group during the opposition to the Vietnam War, played a large role as well. The clergy covered any of the religious leaders and members including individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr. In his speech "Beyond Vietnam" King stated, "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."[47] King was not looking for racial equality through this speech, but tried to voice for an end to the war instead. The involvement of the clergy did not stop at King though. The analysis entitled "Social Movement Participation: Clergy and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement" expands upon the anti-war movement by taking King, a single religious figurehead, and explaining the movement from the entire clergy's perspective. The clergy were often forgotten though throughout this opposition. The analysis refers to that fact by saying, "The research concerning clergy anti-war participation is even more barren than the literature on student activism."[48] There is a relationship and correlation between theology and political opinions and during the Vietnam War, the same relationship occurred between feelings about the war and theology.[48] This article basically was a social experiment finding results on how the pastors and clergy members reacted to the war. Based on the results found, they most certainly did not believe in the war and wished to help end it. Another source, Lift Up Your Voice Like A Trumpet: White Clergy And The Civil Rights And Antiwar Movements, 1954–1973 explains the story of the entire spectrum of the clergy and their involvement. Michael Freidland is able to completely tell the story in his chapter entitled, "A Voice of Moderation: Clergy and the Anti-War Movement: 1966–1967". In basic summary, each specific clergy from each religion had their own view of the war and how they dealt with it, but as a whole, the clergy was completely against the war.[49] Draft evasion Main article: Draft evasion in the Vietnam War See also: Draft-card burning, Vietnam War resisters in Canada, and Vietnam War resisters in Sweden Demonstration against conscription in Martin Place & Garden Island Dock, Sydney in 1966. The first draft lottery since World War II in the United States was held on December 1, 1969, and was met with large protests and a great deal of controversy; statistical analysis indicated that the methodology of the lotteries unintentionally disadvantaged men with late year birthdays.[50] This issue was treated at length in a January 4, 1970 New York Times article titled "Statisticians Charge Draft Lottery Was Not Random" Archived November 4, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Various antiwar groups, such as Another Mother for Peace, WILPF, and WSP, had free draft counseling centers, where they gave young American men advice for legally and illegally evading the draft. Over 30,000 people left the country and went to Canada, Sweden, and Mexico to avoid the draft.[13] The Japanese anti-war group Beheiren helped some American soldiers to desert and hide from the military in Japan.[51] To gain an exemption or deferment, many men attended college, though they had to remain in college until their 26th birthday to be certain of avoiding the draft. Some men were rejected by the military as 4-F unfit for service failing to meet physical, mental, or moral standards. Still others joined the National Guard or entered the Peace Corps as a way of avoiding Vietnam. All of these issues raised concerns about the fairness of who got selected for involuntary service, since it was often the poor or those without connections who were drafted. Ironically, in light of modern political issues, a certain exemption was a convincing claim of homosexuality, but very few men attempted this because of the stigma involved. Also, conviction for certain crimes earned an exclusion, the topic of the anti-war song "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie. Even many of those who never received a deferment or exemption never served, simply because the pool of eligible men was so huge compared to the number required for service, that the draft boards never got around to drafting them when a new crop of men became available (until 1969) or because they had high lottery numbers (1970 and later). Of those soldiers who served during the war, there was increasing opposition to the conflict amongst GIs,[52] which resulted in fragging and many other activities which hampered the US's ability to wage war effectively. Most of those subjected to the draft were too young to vote or drink in most states, and the image of young people being forced to risk their lives in the military without the privileges of enfranchisement or the ability to drink alcohol legally also successfully pressured legislators to lower the voting age nationally and the drinking age in many states. Student opposition groups on many college and university campuses seized campus administration offices, and in several instances forced the expulsion of ROTC programs from the campus. Some Americans who were not subject to the draft protested the conscription of their tax dollars for the war effort. War tax resistance, once mostly isolated to solitary anarchists like Henry David Thoreau and religious pacifists like the Quakers, became a more mainstream protest tactic. As of 1972, an estimated 200,000–500,000 people were refusing to pay the excise taxes on their telephone bills, and another 20,000 were resisting part or all of their income tax bills. Among the tax resisters were Joan Baez and Noam Chomsky.[53] Environmentalists Momentum from the protest organizations and the war's impact on the environment became focal point of issues to an overwhelmingly main force for the growth of an environmental movement in the United States.[citation needed] Many of the environment-oriented demonstrations were inspired by Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, which warned of the harmful effects of pesticide use on the earth.[54] For demonstrators, Carson's warnings paralleled with the United States' use of chemicals in Vietnam such as Agent Orange, a chemical compound which was used to clear forestry being used as cover, initially conducted by the United States Air Force in Operation Ranch Hand in 1962.[55] Musicians Waist Deep in the Big Muddy; the Big Fool said to push on. — Pete Seeger, 1963/1967 Cornelis Vreeswijk, Fred Åkerström, Gösta Cervin in a protest march against the Vietnam War in Stockholm, 1965 Protest to American participation in the Vietnam War was a movement that many popular musicians shared in, which was a stark contrast to the pro-war compositions of artists during World War II.[56] These musicians included Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Lou Harrison, Gail Kubik, William Mayer, Elie Siegmeister, Robert Fink, David Noon, Richard Wernick, and John W. Downey.[57] However, of over 5,000 Vietnam War-related songs identified to date, many took a patriotic, pro-government, or pro-soldier perspective.[58] The two most notable genres involved in this protest were Rock and Roll and Folk music. While composers created pieces affronting the war, they were not limited to their music. Often protesters were being arrested and participating in peace marches and popular musicians were among their ranks.[59] This concept of intimate involvement reached new heights in May 1968 when the "Composers and Musicians for Peace" concert was staged in New York. As the war continued, and with the new media coverage, the movement snowballed and popular music reflected this. As early as the summer of 1965, music-based protest against the American involvement in Southeast Asia began with works like P. F. Sloan's folk rock song Eve of Destruction, recorded by Barry McGuire as one of the earliest musical protests against the Vietnam War.[60] A key figure on the rock end of the antiwar spectrum was Jimi Hendrix (1942–1970). Hendrix had a huge following among the youth culture exploring itself through drugs and experiencing itself through rock music. He was not an official protester of the war; one of Hendrix's biographers contends that Hendrix, being a former soldier, sympathized with the anticommunist view.[61] He did, however, protest the violence that took place in the Vietnam War. With the song "Machine Gun", dedicated to those fighting in Vietnam, this protest of violence is manifest. David Henderson, author of 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, describes the song as "scary funk ... his sound over the drone shifts from a woman's scream, to a siren, to a fighter plane diving, all amid Buddy Miles' Gatling-gun snare shots. ... he says 'evil man make me kill you ... make you kill me although we're only families apart.'"[62] This song was often accompanied with pleas from Hendrix to bring the soldiers back home and cease the bloodshed.[63] While Hendrix's views may not have been analogous to the protesters, his songs became anthems to the antiwar movement. Songs such as "Star Spangled Banner" showed individuals that "you can love your country, but hate the government."[64] Hendrix's anti-violence efforts are summed up in his words: "when the power of love overcomes the love of power ... the world will know peace." Thus, Hendrix's personal views did not coincide perfectly with those of the antiwar protesters; however, his anti-violence outlook was a driving force during the years of the Vietnam War even after his death (1970). The song known to many as the anthem of the protest movement was The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag – first released on an EP in the October 1965 issue of Rag Baby – by Country Joe and the Fish,[65] one of the most successful protest bands. Although this song was not on music charts probably because it was too radical, it was performed at many public events including the famous Woodstock music festival (1969). "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" was a song that used sarcasm to communicate the problems with not only the war but also the public's naïve attitudes towards it. It was said that "the happy beat and insouciance of the vocalist are in odd juxtaposition to the lyrics that reinforce the sad fact that the American public was being forced into realizing that Vietnam was no longer a remote place on the other side of the world, and the damage it was doing to the country could no longer be considered collateral, involving someone else."[66] Along with singer-songwriter Phil Ochs, who attended and organized anti-war events and wrote such songs as "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and "The War Is Over", another key historical figure of the antiwar movement was Bob Dylan. Folk and Rock were critical aspects of counterculture during the Vietnam War[67] both were genres that Dylan would dabble in. His success in writing protest songs came from his pre-existing popularity, as he did not initially intend on doing so. Tor Egil Førland, in his article "Bringing It All Back Home or Another Side of Bob Dylan: Midwestern Isolationist", quotes Todd Gitlin, a leader of a student movement at the time, in saying "Whether he liked it or not, Dylan sang for us. ... We followed his career as if he were singing our songs."[68] The anthem "Blowin' in the Wind" embodied Dylan's anti-war, pro-civil rights sentiment. To complement "Blowin' in the Wind" Dylan's song "The Times they are A-Changin'" alludes to a new method of governing that is necessary and warns those who currently participate in government that the change is imminent. Dylan tells the "senators and congressmen [to] please heed the call." Dylan's songs were designed to awaken the public and to cause a reaction. The protesters of the Vietnam War identified their cause so closely with the artistic compositions of Dylan that Joan Baez and Judy Collins performed "The Times they are A-Changin'" at a march protesting the Vietnam War (1965) and also for President Johnson.[68] While Dylan renounced the idea of subscribing to the ideals of one individual, his feelings of protest towards Vietnam were appropriated by the general movement and they "awaited his gnomic yet oracular pronouncements", which provided a guiding aspect to the movement as a whole.[69] John Lennon, former member of the Beatles, did most of his activism in his solo career with wife Yoko Ono. Given his immense fame due to the success of the Beatles, he was a very prominent movement figure with the constant media and press attention. Still being proactive on their honeymoon, the newlyweds controversially held a sit-in, where they sat in bed for a week answering press questions. They held numerous sit-ins, one where they first introduced their song "Give Peace a Chance". Lennon and Ono's song overshadowed many previous held anthems, as it became known as the ultimate anthem of peace in the 1970s, with their words "all we are saying ... is give peace a chance" being sung globally.[70] Military Members Main articles: G.I. movement and GI Underground Press Within the United States military various servicemembers would organize to avoid military duties and individual actors would also carry out their own acts of resistance. The movement consisted of the self-organizing of active duty members and veterans in collaboration with civilian peace activists. By 1971 the United States military would become so demoralized that the military would have severe difficulties properly waging war.[71][72] Students West German students protest against the Vietnam War in 1968 There was a great deal of civic unrest on college campuses throughout the 1960s as students became increasingly involved in the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, and anti-war movement. Doug McAdam explains the success of the mass mobilization of volunteers for Freedom Summer in terms of "Biographical Availability", where individuals must have a certain degree of social, economic, and psychological freedom to be able to participate in large scale social movements.[73] This explanation can also be applied to the Anti-War Movement because it occurred around the same time and the same biographical factors applied to the college-aged anti-war protesters. David Meyers (2007) also explains how the concept of personal efficacy affects mass movement mobilization. For example, according to Meyers' thesis, consider that American wealth increased drastically after World War II. At this time, America was a superpower and enjoyed great affluence after thirty years of depression, war, and sacrifice. Benjamin T. Harrison (2000) argues that the post World War II affluence set the stage for the protest generation in the 1960s.[74] His central thesis is that the World Wars and Great Depression spawned a 'beat generation' refusing to conform to mainstream American values which lead to the emergence of the Hippies and the counterculture. The Anti-war movement became part of a larger protest movement against the traditional American Values and attitudes. Meyers (2007) builds off this claim in his argument that the "relatively privileged enjoy the education and affirmation that afford them the belief that they might make a difference."[75] As a result of the present factors in terms of affluence, biographical availability (defined in the sociological areas of activism as the lack of restrictions on social relationships of which most likely increases the consequences of participating in a social movement), and increasing political atmosphere across the county, political activity increased drastically on college campuses. In one instance, John William Ward, then president of Amherst College, sat down in front of Westover Air Force Base near Chicopee, Massachusetts, along with 1000 students, some faculty, and his wife Barbara to protest against Richard Nixon's escalation of offensive bombing in Southeast Asia.[76] College enrollment reached 9 million by the end of the 1960s. Colleges and universities in America had more students than ever before, and these institutions often tried to restrict student behavior to maintain order on the campuses. To combat this, many college students became active in causes that promoted free speech, student input in the curriculum, and an end to archaic social restrictions. Students joined the antiwar movement because they did not want to fight in a foreign civil war that they believed did not concern them or because they were morally opposed to all war. Others disliked the war because it diverted funds and attention away from problems in the U.S. Intellectual growth and gaining a liberal perspective at college caused many students to become active in the antiwar movement. Another attractive feature of the opposition movement was the fact that it was a popular social event. Most student antiwar organizations were locally or campus-based, including chapters of the very loosely co-ordinated Students for a Democratic Society, because they were easier to organize and participate in than national groups. Common antiwar demonstrations for college students featured attempts to sever ties between the war machine and universities through burning draft cards, protesting universities furnishing grades to draft boards, and protesting military and Dow Chemical job fairs on campus.[77][78] From 1969 to 1970, student protesters attacked 197 ROTC buildings on college campuses. Protests grew after the Kent State shootings, radicalizing more and more students. Although the media often portrayed the student antiwar movement as aggressive and widespread, only 10% of the 2500 colleges in the United States had violent protests throughout the Vietnam War years. By the early 1970s, most student protest movements died down due to President Nixon's de-escalation of the war, the economic downturn, and disillusionment with the powerlessness of the antiwar movement.[79] Women See also: Women's liberation movement Woman protesting during the 1972 Republican National Convention. Women were a large part of the antiwar movement, even though they were sometimes relegated to second-class status within the organizations or faced sexism within opposition groups.[80] Some leaders of anti-war groups viewed women as sex objects or secretaries, not actual thinkers who could contribute positively and tangibly to the group's goals, or believed that women could not truly understand and join the antiwar movement because they were unaffected by the draft.[81] Women involved in opposition groups disliked the romanticism of the violence of both the war and the antiwar movement that was common amongst male war protesters.[82] Despite the inequalities, participation in various antiwar groups allowed women to gain experience with organizing protests and crafting effective antiwar rhetoric. These newfound skills combined with their dislike of sexism within the opposition movement caused many women to break away from the mainstream antiwar movement and create or join women's antiwar groups, such as Another Mother for Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and Women Strike for Peace (WSP), also known as Women For Peace. Female soldiers serving in Vietnam joined the movement to battle the war and sexism, racism, and the established military bureaucracy by writing articles for antiwar and antimilitary newspapers.[83] Mothers and older generations of women joined the opposition movement, as advocates for peace and people opposed to the effects of the war and the draft on the generation of young men. These women saw the draft as one of the most disliked parts of the war machine and sought to undermine the war itself through undermining the draft. Another Mother for Peace and WSP often held free draft counseling centers to give young men legal and illegal methods to oppose the draft.[81] Members of Women For Peace showed up at the White House every Sunday for 8 years from 11 to 1 for a peace vigil.[84] Such female antiwar groups often relied on maternalism, the image of women as peaceful caretakers of the world, to express and accomplish their goals. The government often saw middle-aged women involved in such organizations as the most dangerous members of the opposition movement because they were ordinary citizens who quickly and efficiently mobilized.[85] Many women in America sympathized with the Vietnamese civilians affected by the war and joined the opposition movement. They protested the use of napalm, a highly flammable jelly weapon created by the Dow Chemical Company and used as a weapon during the war, by boycotting Saran Wrap, another product made by the company.[86] Faced with the sexism sometimes found in the antiwar movement, New Left, and Civil Rights Movement, some women created their own organizations to establish true equality of the sexes. Some of frustrations of younger women became apparent during the antiwar movement: they desired more radical change and decreased acceptance of societal gender roles than older women activists.[87] Female activists' disillusion with the antiwar movement led to the formation of the Women's Liberation Movement to establish true equality for American women in all facets of life.[88] Political responses U.S. Congressional opposition to American involvement in wars and interventions United States 1812 North America House Federalists’ Address 1847 Mexican–American War Spot Resolutions 1917 World War I Filibuster of the Armed Ship Bill 1935–1939 Neutrality Acts 1935–1940 Ludlow Amendment 1970 Vietnam McGovern–Hatfield Amendment 1970 Southeast Asia Cooper–Church Amendment 1971 Vietnam Repeal of Tonkin Gulf Resolution 1973 Southeast Asia Case–Church Amendment 1973 War Powers Resolution 1974 Hughes–Ryan Amendment 1976 Angola Clark Amendment 1982 Nicaragua Boland Amendment 2007 Iraq House Concurrent Resolution 63 2018–2019 Yemen Yemen War Powers Resolution vte See also: List of Congressional opponents of the Vietnam War United Nations intervention In October 1967 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on resolutions urging President Johnson to request an emergency session of the United Nations security council to consider proposals for ending the war.[89] Dellums (war crimes) In January 1971, just weeks into his first term, Congressman Ron Dellums set up a Vietnam war crimes exhibit in an annex to his Congressional office. The exhibit featured four large posters depicting atrocities committed by American soldiers embellished with red paint. This was followed shortly thereafter by four days of hearings on "war crimes" in Vietnam, which began April 25. Dellums, assisted by the Citizens Commission of Inquiry,[90] had called for formal investigations into the allegations, but Congress chose not to endorse these proceedings. As such, the hearings were ad hoc and only informational in nature. As a condition of room use, press and camera presence were not permitted, but the proceedings were transcribed. In addition to [Ron Dellums] (Dem-CA), an additional 19 Congressional representatives took part in the hearings, including: Bella Abzug (Dem-NY), Shirley Chisholm (Dem-NY), Patsy Mink (Dem-HI), Parren Mitchell (Dem-MD), John Conyers (Dem-MI), Herman Badillo (Dem-NY), James Abourezk (Dem-SD), Leo Ryan (Dem-CA), Phil Burton (Dem-CA), Don Edwards (Dem-CA), Pete McCloskey (Rep-CA), Ed Koch (Dem-NY), John Seiberling (Dem-OH), Henry Reuss (Dem-WI), Benjamin Stanley Rosenthal (Dem-NY), Robert Kastenmeier (Dem-WI), and Abner J. Mikva (Dem-IL).[90] The transcripts describe alleged details of U.S. military's conduct in Vietnam. Some tactics were described as "gruesome", such as the severing of ears from corpses to verify body count. Others involved the killing of civilians. Soldiers claimed to have ordered artillery strikes on villages which did not appear to have any military presence. Soldiers were claimed to use racist terms such as "gooks", "dinks" and "slant eyes" when referring to the Vietnamese. Witnesses described that legal, by-the-book instruction was augmented by more questionable training by non-commissioned officers as to how soldiers should conduct themselves. One witness testified about "free-fire zones", areas as large as 80 square miles (210 km2) in which soldiers were free to shoot any Vietnamese they encountered after curfew without first making sure they were hostile. Allegations of exaggeration of body count, torture, murder and general abuse of civilians and the psychology and motivations of soldiers and officers were discussed at length. Fulbright (end to war) Main article: Fulbright Hearing In April and May 1971, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright, held a series of 22 hearings (referred to as the Fulbright Hearings) on proposals relating to ending the war. On the third day of the hearings, April 22, 1971, future Senator and 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress in opposition to the war. Speaking on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, he argued for the immediate, unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. During nearly two hours of discussions with committee members, Kerry related in some detail the findings of the Winter Soldier Investigation, in which veterans had described personally committing or witnessing atrocities and war crimes. Public opinion The American public's support of the Vietnam War decreased as the war continued on. As public support decreased, opposition grew.[91] The Gallup News Service began asking the American public whether it was a "mistake to send troops to Vietnam" in August 1965. At the time less than a quarter of Americans polled, 24%, believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam while 60% of Americans polled believed the opposite. Three years later, in September 1968, 54% of Americans polled believed it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam while 37% believed it was not a mistake.[92] A 1965 Gallup Poll asked the question, "Have you ever felt the urge to organize or join a public demonstration about something?"[93] Positive responses were quite low; not many people wanted to protest anything, and those who did want to show a public demonstration often wanted to demonstrate in support of the Vietnam War. However, when the American Public was asked in 1990, "Looking back, do you wish that you had made a stronger effort to protest or demonstrate against the Vietnam War, or not", 25 percent said they wished they had. Urge to Organize or Demonstrate Yes % No % U.S. adults 10 90 21 to 29 years old 15 85 30 to 49 years 12 88 50 and older 6 94 College graduates 21 79 High school graduates 9 91 High school nongraduates 5 95 Gallup, Oct. 29 – Nov. 2, 1965 [93] The Vietnam War and Public Opinion The attitude of Americans towards the Vietnam War between May 1966 and May 1971 according to public opinion polls. A major factor in the American public's disapproval of the Vietnam War came from the casualties being inflicted on US forces. In a Harris poll from 1967 asking what aspect most troubled people most about the Vietnam war the plurality answer of 31% was "the loss of our young men." A separate 1967 Harris poll asked the American public how the war affected their family, job or financial life. The majority of respondents, 55%, said that it had had no effect on their lives. Of the 45% who indicated the war had affected their lives, 32% listed inflation as the most important factor, while 25% listed casualties inflicted.[94] As the war continued, the public became much more opposed to the war, seeing that it was not ending. In a poll from December 1967, 71% of the public believed the war would not be settled in 1968.[95] A year later the same question was asked and 55% of people did not think the war would be settled in 1969.[96] When the American public was asked about the Vietnam-era Anti-War movement in the 1990s, 39% of the public said they approved, while 39% said they disapproved. The last 22% were unsure.[97] General effects See also: Vietnam stab-in-the-back myth The opposition to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War had many effects, which arguably led to the eventual end of the involvement of the United States. Howard Zinn, a controversial historian, states in his book A People's History of the United States that, "in the course of the war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical role in bringing the war to an end."[98] An alternative point of view is expressed by Michael Lind. Citing public polling data on protests during the war he claimed that: "The American public turned against the Vietnam War not because it was persuaded by the radical and liberal left that it was unjust, but out of sensitivity to its rising costs."[99] Fewer soldiers University of San Diego students holding sign saying "bring all the troops home now!". The first effect the opposition had that led to the end of the war was that fewer soldiers were available for the army. The draft was protested and even ROTC programs too. Howard Zinn first provides a note written by a student of Boston University on May 1, 1968, which stated to his draft board, "I have absolutely no intention to report for that exam, or for induction, or to aid in any way the American war effort against the people of Vietnam ..."[100] The opposition to the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War had many effects, which led to the eventual end of the involvement of the United States.[101] This refusal letter soon led to an overflow of refusals ultimately leading to the event provided by Zinn stating, "In May 1969 the Oakland induction center, where draftees reported from all of Northern California, reported that of 4,400 men ordered to report for induction, 2,400 did not show up. In the first quarter of 1970 the Selective Service System, for the first time, could not meet its quota."[101] The fewer numbers of soldiers as an effect of the opposition to the war also can be traced to the protests against the ROTC programs in colleges. Zinn argues this by stating, "Student protests against the ROTC resulted in the canceling of those programs in over forty colleges and universities. In 1966, 191,749 college students enrolled in ROTC. By 1973, the number was 72,459."[102] The number of ROTC students in college drastically dropped and the program lost any momentum it once had before the anti-war movement. College campuses 1970 protest at Florida State University. A further effect of the opposition was that many college campuses were completely shut down due to protests. These protests led to wear on the government who tried to mitigate the tumultuous behavior and return the colleges back to normal. The colleges involved in the anti-war movement included ones such as, Brown University, Kent State University, and the University of Massachusetts.[100] Even at The College of William and Mary unrest occurred with protests by the students and even some faculty members that resulted in "multiple informants" hired to report to the CIA on the activities of students and faculty members.[103] At the University of Massachusetts, "The 100th Commencement of the University of Massachusetts yesterday was a protest, a call for peace", "Red fists of protest, white peace symbols, and blue doves were stenciled on black academic gowns, and nearly every other senior wore an armband representing a plea for peace."[104] Additionally, "At Boston College, a Catholic institution, six thousand people gathered that evening in the gymnasium to denounce the war."[105] At Kent State University, "on May 4, when students gathered to demonstrate against the war, National Guardsmen fired into the crowd. Four students were killed."[106] Four days later, on May 8th, ten (some sources site eleven) people present at a demonstration that was a response to both the war in Vietnam and the Kent State massacre were bayonetted by National Guardsmen at the University of New Mexico. 131 were arrested.[107] Finally, "At the Brown University commencement in 1969, two-thirds of the graduating class turned their backs when Henry Kissinger stood up to address them."[106] Basically, from all of the evidence here provided by the historians, Zinn and McCarthy, the second effect was very prevalent and it was the uproar at many colleges and universities as an effect of the opposition to the United States' involvement in Vietnam. American soldiers The Fort Hood Three refused orders to go to Vietnam 1966. Another effect the opposition to the war had was that the American soldiers in Vietnam began to side with the opposition and feel remorse for what they were doing. Zinn argues this with an example in which the soldiers in a POW camp formed a peace committee as they wondered who the enemy of the war was, because it certainly was not known among them.[108] The statement of one of the soldiers reads, Until we got to the first camp, we didn't see a village intact; they were all destroyed. I sat down and put myself in the middle and asked myself: Is this right or wrong? Is it right to destroy villages? Is it right to kill people en masse? After a while it just got to me.[109] Howard Zinn provides that piece of evidence to reiterate how all of this destruction and fighting against an enemy that seems to be unknown has been taking a toll on the soldiers and that they began to sense a feeling of opposition as one effect of the opposition occurring in the United States. Timeline See also: Lists of protests against the Vietnam War 1964 Demonstrators against the Vietnam War holding signs on the boardwalk during the 1964 Democratic National Convention On May 12, twelve young men in New York publicly burned their draft cards to protest the war.[110][111] August – Prompted by the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. In December 1964, Joan Baez leads six hundred people in an antiwar demonstration in San Francisco.[112] 1965 On March 24, organized by professors against the war at the University of Michigan, a teach-in protest was attended by 2,500 participants. This model was to be repeated at 35 campuses across the country.[113] On March 16, Alice Herz, an 82-year-old pacifist, set herself on fire in the first known act of self-immolation to protest the Vietnam War. On April 17, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights activist group, led the first of several anti-war marches in Washington, D.C., with about 25,000 protesters.[113] Draft-card burnings took place at University of California, Berkeley at student demonstrations in May organized by a new anti-war group, the Vietnam Day Committee. Events included a teach-in attended by 30,000, and the burning in effigy of president Lyndon B. Johnson. A Gallup poll in May showed 48% of U.S. respondents felt the government was handling the war effectively, 28% felt the situation was being handled badly, and the rest had no opinion. May – First anti-Vietnam War demonstration in London was staged outside the U.S. embassy.[114] Protests were held in June on the steps of the Pentagon, and in August, attempts were made by activists at Berkeley to stop the movement of trains carrying troops. A Gallup poll in late August showed that 24% of Americans view sending troops to Vietnam as a mistake versus 60% who do not.[115] By mid-October, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris, and Rome.[113] On October 15, 1965, the first large scale act of civil disobedience in opposition to the Vietnam War occurred when approximately 40 people staged a sit-in at the Ann Arbor, Michigan draft board. They were sentenced to 10 to 15 days in jail. On November 2, Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old pacifist, set himself on fire below the third-floor window of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon, emulating the actions of the Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức. On November 27, Coretta Scott King, SDS President Carl Oglesby, and Dr. Benjamin Spock, among others, spoke at an anti-war rally of about 30,000 in Washington, D.C., in the largest demonstration to date. Parallel protests occurred elsewhere around the nation.[116] On that same day, President Johnson announced a significant escalation of U.S. involvement in Indochina, from 120,000 to 400,000 troops. 1966 Protest in Netherlands in July 1966 In February, a group of about 100 veterans attempted to return their military decorations to the White House in protest of the war, but were turned back. On March 26, anti-war demonstrations were held around the country and the world, with 20,000 taking part in New York City. A Gallup poll shows that 59% believe that sending troops to Vietnam was not a mistake. Among the age group of 21–29, 71% believe it was not a mistake compared to 48% of those over 50.[117] On May 15, another large demonstration, with 10,000 picketers calling for an end to the war, took place outside the White House and the Washington Monument. June – The Gallup poll respondents supporting the U.S. handling of the war slipped to 41%, 37% expressed disapproval, and the rest had no opinion. A crowd of 4,000 demonstrated against the U.S. war in London on July 3 and scuffled with police outside the U.S. embassy. 33 protesters were arrested. Joan Baez and A. J. Muste organized over 3,000 people across the nation in an antiwar tax protest. Participants refused to pay their taxes or did not pay the amount designated for funding the war.[118] Protests, strikes and sit-ins continued at Berkeley and across other campuses throughout the year. Three army privates, known as the "Fort Hood Three", refused to deploy in Vietnam, calling the war "illegal and immoral", and were sentenced to prison terms. Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali – formerly known as Cassius Clay – declared himself a conscientious objector and refused to go to war. According to a writer for Sports Illustrated, the governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, Jr., called Ali "disgusting" and the governor of Maine, John H. Reed, said that Ali "should be held in utter contempt by every patriotic American."[119] In 1967 Ali was sentenced to 5 years in prison for draft evasion, but his conviction was later overturned on appeal. In addition, he was stripped of his title and banned from professional boxing for more than three years. In June 1966 American students and others in England meeting at the London School of Economics formed the Stop It Committee. The group was prominent in every major London anti-war demonstration. It remained active until the end of the war in April 1975. 1967 The protest on June 23 in Los Angeles is singularly significant. It was one of the first massive war protests in the United States and the first in Los Angeles. Ending in a clash with riot police, it set a pattern for the massive protests which followed[120] and due to the size and violence of this event, Johnson attempted no further public speeches in venues outside military bases.[120][121] 2:51 Universal Newsreel about peace marches in April 1967 Mounted policemen watch a protest march in San Francisco on April 15, 1967. The San Francisco City Hall is in the background. Vietnam War protests at the Pentagon, October 1967 Another Mother for Peace group founded.[113] January 14 – 20,000–30,000 people staged a "Human Be-In" in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that had become the center of hippie activity. In February, about 2,500 members of Women Strike for Peace (WSP) marched to the Pentagon. This was a peaceful protest that became rowdier when the demonstrators were denied a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.[122] February 8 – Christian groups opposed to the war staged a nationwide "Fast for Peace." February 23 – The New York Review of Books published "The Responsibility of Intellectuals" by Noam Chomsky as a special supplement. March 12 – A three-page anti-war ad appeared in The New York Times bearing the signatures of 6,766 teachers and professors. The advertisement spanned two and a quarter pages in Section 4, The Week in Review. The advertisement itself cost around $16,500 and was sponsored by the Inter-University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy. March 17 – a group of antiwar citizens marched to the Pentagon to protest American involvement in Vietnam. March 25 – Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of the civil rights movement, led a march of 5,000 against the war in Chicago. April 4 – Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in New York City. "America rejected Ho Chi Minh's revolutionary government seeking self-determination. ... " (See details here.) On April 15, 400,000 people organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam marched from Central Park to the UN building in New York City to protest the war, where they were addressed by critics of the war such as Benjamin Spock, Martin Luther King Jr., event initiator and director James Bevel, Harry Belafonte, and Jan Barry Crumb, a veteran of the war. On the same date 100,000, including Coretta Scott King, marched in San Francisco. On April 24, Abbie Hoffman led a small group of protesters against both the war and capitalism who interrupted the New York Stock Exchange, causing chaos by throwing fistfuls of both real and fake dollars down from the gallery. May 2 – British philosopher Bertrand Russell presided over the "Russell Tribunal" in Stockholm, a mock war crimes tribunal, which ruled that the U.S. and its allies had committed war crimes in Vietnam. The proceedings were criticized as being a "show trial." On May 22, the fashionable À L'Innovation department store in Brussels, Belgium burnt down, killing over 300 people amid speculation that the fire was caused by Belgian Maoists against the Vietnam War. On May Jan 30 Crumb and ten like-minded men attended a peace demonstration in Washington, D.C., and on June 1 Vietnam Veterans Against the War was born. In the summer of 1967, Neil Armstrong and various other NASA officials began a tour of South America to raise awareness for space travel. According to First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, a 2005 biography, during the tour, several college students protested the astronaut, and shouted such phrases as "Murderers get out of Vietnam!" and other anti-Vietnam War messages. June 23, 1967 President Johnson was met in Los Angeles by a massive anti-war protest on the street outside the hotel where he was speaking at a Democratic fundraiser.Progressive Labor Party and SDS protesters. The Riot Act was read and 51 protesters arrested.[123][121] This was one of the first massive war protests in the United States and the first in Los Angeles, Ending in a clash with riot police, it set a pattern for the massive protests which followed.[120] The vigor of the response from the LAPD, initially intended to prevent the demonstrators from storming the hotel where Johnson was speaking, was to a certain extent based on exaggerated reports from undercover agents which had infiltrated the organizations sponsoring the protest. "Unresisting demonstrators were beaten – some in front of literally thousands of witnesses – without even the pretext of and attempt to make an arrest."[124] A crowd the Los Angeles Times reports at 10,000 clashed with 500 riot police outside President Johnson's fundraiser at the Century City Plaza Hotel. Expecting only 1,000 or 2,000 protesters, the LAPD field commander later told reporters he had been 'astounded' by the size of the demonstration. "Where did all those people come from? I asked myself." Scores were injured, including many peaceful middle-class protesters.[120] Some sources put the crowd as high as 15,000 and noted that the police attacked the marchers with nightsticks to disperse the crowd.[124] Due to the size and violence of this event, Johnson attempted no further public speeches in venues outside military bases.[120][121] July 30 – Gallup poll reported 52% of Americans disapproved of Johnson's handling of the war, 41% thought the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops, and over 56% thought the U.S. was losing the war or at an impasse. On August 28, 1967, U.S. representative Tim Lee Carter (R-KY) stated before congress: "Let us now, while we are yet strong, bring our men home, every man jack of them. The Viet Cong fight fiercely and tenaciously because it is their land and we are foreigners intervening in their civil war. If we must fight, let us fight in defense of our homeland and our own hemisphere." On September 20, over one thousand members of WSP rallied at the White House. The police used brutal tactics to try to limit it to 100 people (as per the law) or stop the demonstration, and the event tarnished the wholesome and nonviolent reputation of the WSP.[125] Demonstrations in The Hague in the Netherlands by the PSP, 1967. The placards read "USA out of Vietnam" and "USA murder". In October 1967, Stop the Draft Week resulted in major clashes at the Oakland, California military induction center, and saw more than a thousand registrants return their draft cards in events across the country. The cards were delivered to the Justice Department on October 20. Singer/musician-activist Joan Baez, a longtime critic of the war in Vietnam, was among those arrested in the Oakland demonstrations. On October 18, 300 students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison attempted to prevent Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm, from holding a job fair on campus. The police eventually forced the demonstration to end, but Dow was banned from the campus. Three police officers and 65 students were injured in the event, dubbed "Dow Day".[77][78][79] On October 21, 1967, the March on the Pentagon took place. A large demonstration organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a crowd of nearly 100,000 met at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and at least 30,000 people then marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Allen Ginsberg, attempted to "exorcise" and "levitate" the building, while others engaged in civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon. These actions were interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made. When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, some of these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP's rifles, as seen in famous photographs of the event (such as Flower Power and The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet). Norman Mailer documented the events surrounding the march, and the march on the Pentagon itself, in his non-fiction novel, The Armies of the Night. In November 1967 a non-binding referendum was voted on in San Francisco, California which posed the question of whether there should be an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. The vote was 67% against the referendum,[126] which was taken by a Johnson administration official as support for the war.[citation needed] 1968 Olof Palme marching against the Vietnam War in Stockholm, 1968 On January 15, 1968, over five thousand women rallied in D.C. in the Jeannette Rankin Brigade protest. This was the first all female antiwar protest intended to get Congress to withdrawal troops from Vietnam.[127] On January 18, 1968, while in the White House for a conference about juvenile delinquency, black singer and entertainer Eartha Kitt yelled at Lady Bird Johnson about the generation of young men dying in the war.[128] January 30, 1968 – Tet Offensive was launched and resulted in much higher casualties and changed perceptions. The optimistic assessments made prior to the offensive by the administration and the Pentagon came under heavy criticism and ridicule as the "credibility gap" that had opened in 1967 widened into a chasm.[129] February – Gallup poll showed 35% approved of Johnson's handling of the war; 50% disapproved; the rest, no opinion. [NYT, 2/14/68] In another poll that month, 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks."[130] March 12 – anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy received more votes than expected in the New Hampshire primary, leading to more expressions of opposition against the war. McCarthy urged his supporters to exchange the 'unkempt look' rapidly becoming fashionable among war opponents for a more clean-cut style to in order not to scare voters. These were known as "Clean Genes." March 16 – Robert F. Kennedy joined the race for the US presidency as an anti-war candidate. He was shot and killed on June 5, the morning after he won a decisive victory over McCarthy in the Democratic primary in California. March 17 – Major rally outside the U.S. Embassy in London's Grosvenor Square turned to a riot with 86 people injured and over 200 arrested. Over 10,000 had rallied peacefully in Trafalgar Square but met a police barricade outside the embassy. A UK Foreign Office report claimed that the rioting had been organized by 100 members of the German SDS who were "acknowledged experts in methods of riot against the police." In March, Gallup poll reported that 49% of respondents felt involvement in the war was an error. April 17 – National media films the anti-war riot that breaks out at Columbia University. The over-reaction by the police at Columbia is shown in Berlin and Paris, sparking reactions in those cities. On April 26, 1968, a million college and high school students boycotted class to show opposition to the war.[79] April 27 – an anti-war march in Chicago organized by Rennie Davis and others ended with police beating many of the marchers, a precursor to the police riots later that year at the Democratic Convention. During the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held August 26 – August 29 in Chicago, anti-war protesters marched and demonstrated throughout the city. Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley brought to bear 23,000 police and National Guardsman upon 10,000 protesters.[131] Tensions between police and protesters quickly escalated, resulting in a "police riot" and the chant by protesters "The whole world is watching". Eight leading anti-war activists were indicted by the U.S. Attorney and prosecuted in 1969 for conspiracy to riot; the 1970 convictions of the Chicago Seven were subsequently overturned on appeal. August – Gallup poll shows 53% said it was a mistake to send troops to Vietnam.[132] Among the academic or scholarly groups was the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, founded in 1968 by graduate students and junior faculty in Asian studies. 1969 March polls indicated that 19% of Americans wanted the war to end as soon as possible, 26% wanted South Vietnam to take over responsibility for the war from the U.S., 19% favored the current policy, and 33% wanted total military victory.[130] In March, students at SUNY Buffalo destroyed a Themis construction site.[79] On March 5, Senator J. William Fulbright was prevented from speaking at the first National Convocation on the Challenge of Building Peace by members of the Veterans and Reservists to End the War in Vietnam.[133] Late 1960s–early 1970s anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in Lund, Sweden. On April 6, a spontaneous anti-war rally in Central Park was recorded and later released as Environments 3. On May 22, the Canadian government announced that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants' military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada.[134] On July 16, activist David Harris was arrested for refusing the draft, and would ultimately serve a fifteen-month prison sentence; Harris' wife, prominent musician, pacifist and activist Joan Baez, toured and performed on behalf of her husband, throughout the remainder of 1969, attempting to raise consciousness around the issue of ending the draft. On July 31, The New York Times published the results of a Gallup poll showing that 53% of the respondents approved of Nixon's handling of the war, 30% disapproved, and the balance had no opinion. On August 15–18, the Woodstock Festival was held at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Peace was a primary theme in this pivotal popular music event. On October 15 the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam demonstrations took place. Millions of Americans took the day off from work and school to participate in local demonstrations against the war. These were the first major demonstrations against the Nixon administration's handling of the war. In October, 58% of Gallup respondents said U.S. entry into the war was a mistake. In November, Sam Melville, Jane Alpert, and several others bombed several corporate offices and military installations (including the Whitehall Army Induction Center) in and around New York City. On November 15, crowds of up to half a million people participated in an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. and a similar demonstration was held in San Francisco. These protests were organized by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (New Mobe) and the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (SMC). On December 7, The 5th Dimension performed their song "Declaration" on the Ed Sullivan Show. Consisting of the opening of the Declaration of Independence (through "for their future security"), it suggests that the right and duty of revolting against a tyrannical government is still relevant. In late December, the And babies poster is published – "easily the most successful poster to vent the outrage that so many felt about the war in Southeast Asia."[135] By end of the year, 69% of students identified themselves as doves.[79] 1970 Protest in Helsinki, Finland, 1970 On March 4, Antonia Martínez, a 21-year-old student at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras was shot and killed by a policeman while watching and commenting on the anti-Vietnam War and education reform student protests at the University of Puerto Rico. On March 14, two merchant seamen, claiming allegiance to the SDS, hijacked the SS Columbia Eagle, a U.S.-flagged merchant vessel under contract with the U.S. government, carrying 10,000 tons of napalm bombs for use by the U.S. Air Force in the Vietnam War. The hijackers forced its master to divert to then-neutral Cambodia (which promptly was taken over by anti-Communists, who eventually returned to the ship to the U.S.).[136][137][138][139][140][141][142] Kent State/Cambodia Invasion Protest, Washington, D.C.: After the Kent State shootings, on May 4, 100,000 anti-war demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C. to protest the shooting of the students in Ohio and the Nixon administration's incursion into Cambodia. Even though the demonstration was quickly put together, protesters were still able to bring out thousands to march in the Capital. It was an almost spontaneous response to the events of the previous week. Police ringed the White House with buses to block the demonstrators from getting too close to the executive mansion. Early in the morning before the march, Nixon met with protesters at the Lincoln Memorial but nothing was resolved and the protest went on as planned. National Student Strike: more than 450 university, college and high school campuses across the country were shut by student strikes and both violent and non-violent protests that involved more than 4 million students, in the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history. A Gallup poll in May shows that 56% of the public believed that sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake, 61% of those over 50 expressed that belief compared to 49% of those between the ages of 21–29.[143] On June 13, President Nixon established the President's Commission on Campus Unrest. The commission was directed to study the dissent, disorder, and violence breaking out on college and university campuses.[144] In July 1970. the award-winning documentary The World of Charlie Company was broadcast. "It showed GIs close to mutiny, balking at orders that seemed to them unreasonable. This was something never seen on television before."[145] The documentary was produced by CBS News. On August 24, 1970, near 3:40 a.m., a van filled with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil mixture was detonated on the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Sterling Hall bombing. One researcher was killed and three others were injured. Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life: To avert potential violence arising from planned anti-war protests, a government-sponsored rock festival was held near Portland, Oregon from August 28 to September 3, attracting 100,000 participants. The festival, arranged by the People's Army Jamboree (an ad hoc group) and Oregon governor Tom McCall, was set up when the FBI told the governor that President Nixon's planned appearance at an American Legion convention in Portland could lead to violence worse than that seen at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Chicano Moratorium: on August 29, some 25,000 Mexican-Americans participated in the largest anti-war demonstration in Los Angeles. Police attacked the crowd with billyclubs and tear gas; two people were killed. Immediately after the marchers were dispersed, sheriff's deputies raided a nearby bar, where they shot and killed Rubén Salazar, KMEX news director and Los Angeles Times columnist, with a tear-gas projectile. 1971 and after Protests against the Vietnam War in Washington D.C. on April 24, 1971 Rally in support of the Vietnamese people at the Moskvitch factory, 1973 On April 23, 1971, Vietnam veterans threw away over 700 medals on the West Steps of the Capitol building.[146] The next day, antiwar organizers claimed that 500,000 marched, making this the largest demonstration since the November 1969 march.[147] Two weeks later, on May 5, 1971, 1146 people were arrested on the Capitol grounds trying to shut down Congress. This brought the total arrested during the 1971 May Day Protests to over 12,000. Abbie Hoffman was arrested on charges of interstate travel to incite a riot and assaulting a police officer.[148] In August 1971, the Camden 28 conducted a raid on the Camden, New Jersey draft board offices. The 28 included five or more members of the clergy, as well as a number of local blue-collar workers. Beginning December 26, 1971, 15 anti-war veterans occupied the Statue of Liberty, flying a US flag upside down from her crown. They left on December 28, following issuance of a Federal Court order.[149] Also on December 28, 80 young veterans clashed with police and were arrested while trying to occupy the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.[150] On March 29, 1972, 166 people, many of them seminarians, were arrested in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for encircling the Federal Courthouse with a chain, to protest the trial of the Harrisburg Seven.[151] On April 19, 1972, in response to renewed escalation of bombing, students at many colleges and universities around the country broke into campus buildings and threatened strikes.[152] The following weekend, protests were held in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and elsewhere.[153][154] On May 13, 1972, protests again spread across the country in response to President Nixon's decision to mine harbors in North Vietnam[155] and renewed bombing of North Vietnam (Operation Linebacker). On July 6, 1972, four Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur on a White House Tour stopped and began praying to protest the war. In the next six weeks, such kneel-ins became a popular form of protest and led to over 158 protesters' arrests.[156] Organizations This article contains a list that has not been sorted. See Help:Sorting for more information. Please improve this article if you can. (July 2022) Committee for NonViolent Action (CNVA) – radical pacifist organization that "blended philosophical anarchism with Gandhian pacifism."[157] The organization used civil disobedience in direct action against military action. Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) – liberal international organization that was founded in 1957 by a group of nuclear pacifists. They attempted to increase public opinion in favor of their cause in an attempt to influence policy makers to halt atmospheric nuclear testing and reversing the arms race and the Cold War.[157] Another committee was called SNCC – Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Black Women Enraged – a Harlem antiwar movement.[32] National Black Anti-War Anti-Draft Union (NBAWADU) – led by Gwen Patton and formed from black members of SNCC and socialist parties.[32] National Black Draft Counselors (NBDC) – led by and created to help young black men avoid being drafted.[32] Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) – founded in 1919 after World War I and provided women with an early entry into the antiwar movement.[158] The League of Women Voters – founded in 1920, was one of the first groups to call for an end to military involvement in Vietnam.[159] Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur – popularized the use of kneel-ins and prayer to end the war and stop its escalation.[156] Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War (BAACAW)[160] Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA)[160] Asian Americans for Action (AAA)[160] Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) – Some Asian American student organizations under this were: Filipino American Collegiate (PACE), Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), and Chinese for Social Action (ICSA) Vietnam Veterans Against the War[161] Concerned Officers Movement – an organization of officers formed within the U.S. military. Movement for a Democratic Military – an antiwar and GI rights organization during the Vietnam War. GI Coffeehouses – coffeehouses created by antiwar activists as a method of supporting antiwar and anti-military sentiment among GIs. GI's Against Fascism – an organization of antiwar and anti-military GIs formed within the U.S. Navy in San Diego, CA. American Writers Against the Vietnam War[162] Americans for Democratic Action[163] FTA – a group whose initials either stand for Free the Army or the Army, depending on the situation, was led by Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland.[164] Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam (CALCAV)[165] WIN (Workshop in Nonviolence) Magazine editors and staff included Maris Cakars, Marty Jezer, Paul Johnson, Susan Kent Cakars and Tad Richards. Published authors such as Grace Paley, Barbara Deming, Andrea Dworkin and Abbie Hoffman. The Student Libertarian Movement – Libertarian organization that was formed in 1972. The guiding principles of this organization were opposition to the war in Vietnam and opposition to the draft. The organization did not take a strong stand on racial issues. For example, "In virtually hundreds of issues of libertarian newspapers, bulletins, and journals, the civil rights movement, Black nationalism, or race in general composed no more than 1 percent of all articles surveyed."[166] Students for Democratic Society (SDS) – founded in 1960 and was seen as one of the most active college campus groups of the New Left and the antiwar movement.[79] Student Peace Union.[79] Furman University Corps of Kazoos () – created to make fun of the military and campus ROTC program at Furman University in South Carolina. Such anti-campus ROTC groups were common throughout the U.S.[79] Traditional peace groups like Fellowship of Reconciliation, American Friends Service Committee, the Bruderhof, War Resisters League, and the Catholic Workers Movement, became involved in the antiwar movement as well.[167] Various committees and campaigns for peace in Vietnam came about, including Campaign for Disarmament, Campaign to End the Air War, Campaign to Stop Funding the War, Campaign to Stop the Air War, Catholic Peace Fellowship, and Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors.[167] Concerned Americans Abroad, London-based group established by Heinz Norden Slogans and chants "Hell, no, we won't go!" was heard in antidraft and antiwar protests throughout the country.[168] "Bring the troops home now!" was heard in mass marches in Washington D.C., Seattle, San Francisco, Berkeley, New York, and San Diego. "Dow shall not kill." and "Making money burning babies!" were two slogans used by students at UCLA and other colleges to protest the Dow Chemical Company, the maker of napalm and Agent Orange.[13] and it refers to The Ten Commandments "Stop the war, feed the poor." was a popular slogan used by socially conscious and minority antiwar groups, protesting that the war diverted funds that struggling Americans desperately needed.[169] "Girls say yes to men who say no." was an antidraft slogan used by the SDS and other organizations.[170] "War is not healthy for children and other living things" was a slogan of Another Mother for Peace, and was popular on posters.[171] "End the nuclear race, not the human race." was first used by the WSP in antinuclear demonstrations and became incorporated into the antiwar events.[172] "Not my son, not your son, not their sons." was an antiwar and antidraft slogan used by the WSP during protests.[173] "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Cong are gonna win." was a common anti-war chant during anti-war marches and rallies in the later sixties. "Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" was especially chanted by students and other marchers and demonstrators in opposition to Lyndon B. Johnson.[174] "One, two, three, four, we don't want your war." was chanted in marches from Brisbane to Boston. " it all. We don't want this anymore." was also chanted in marches from Brisbane to Boston.[175] "আমার নাম তোমার নাম ভিয়েতনাম" (Amar nam tomar nam Bhiẏetnam; lit. 'Your name, My Name Vietnam'): Slogans chanted by leftists of Calcutta, including future President of India Pranab Mukherjee[176] Gallery Propaganda Leaflet targeting Veterans and GIs. Leaflet targeting Veterans and GIs.   Stop the Hawk protest sticker. Stop the Hawk protest sticker.   Ad for an FTA Show. Ad for an FTA Show.   1975 flyer for a protest march. 1975 flyer for a protest march.   Poster advertising the Student strike of 1970. Poster advertising the Student strike of 1970.   Fatigue Press GI Underground Newspaper May 1970 – 1000 GIs march against the war. Fatigue Press GI Underground Newspaper May 1970 – 1000 GIs march against the war. Protests 1965 protest in Sydney, Australia. 1965 protest in Sydney, Australia.   Anti-Vietnam War protest. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 1968. Anti-Vietnam War protest. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 1968.   Anti-Vietnam War protest. Vancouver, B.C., Canada. 1968. Anti-Vietnam War protest. Vancouver, B.C., Canada. 1968.   National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam's march on the Pentagon, October 21, 1967. National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam's march on the Pentagon, October 21, 1967.   1968 protests in Chicago. 1968 protests in Chicago.   1970 protest in Boston. 1970 protest in Boston. See also icon Society portal Bed-in Canada and the Vietnam War Civil disobedience Concerned Officers Movement Congressional opponents of the Vietnam War Court-martial of Howard Levy Donald W. Duncan Fort Hood Three GI's Against Fascism GI Coffeehouses GI Underground Press Legality of the Vietnam War List of peace activists List of anti-war organizations Lists of protests against the Vietnam War List of protest marches on Washington, D.C. May Day Protests 1971 Movement for a Democratic Military Nonviolence Opposition to the Iraq War Pacifism in the United States People's Peace Treaty Presidio mutiny Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War, book about soldier & sailor resistance during the Vietnam War Stop Our Ship (SOS) anti-Vietnam War movement in and around the U.S. Navy Sir! No Sir!, a 2005 documentary about the anti-war movement in the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces Sterling Hall bombing Soviet influence on the peace movement Teach-in The Spitting Image, a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran and sociology professor Jerry Lembcke which argues against the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by antiwar protesters United States Servicemen's Fund Vietnam stab-in-the-back myth Writers and Editors War Tax Protest Vietnam Veterans Against the War Waging Peace in Vietnam Winter Soldier Investigation Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Associated Press" for the underground press, at its zenith the LNS served more than 500 papers.[1] Founded in Washington, D.C., it operated out of New York City for most of its existence. Overview According to former LNS staffers Thorne Dreyer and Victoria Smith, the Liberation News Service "was an attempt at a new kind of journalism — developing a more personalistic style of reporting, questioning bourgeois conceptions of 'objectivity' and reevaluating established notions about the nature of news..."[2] They pointed out that LNS "provided coverage of events to which most papers would have otherwise had no access, and... put these events into a context, helping new papers in their attempts to develop a political analysis... In many places, where few radicals exist and journalistic experience is lacking, papers have been made possible primarily because LNS copy has been available to supplement scarce local material."[2] The total combined circulation of the LNS-member papers was estimated to be in the millions.[3] History Foundation Liberation News Service was founded in the summer of 1967 by Ray Mungo and Marshall Bloom after they were separated from the United States Student Press Association and its Collegiate Press Service.[4] Operating out of a townhouse at 3 Thomas Circle which they shared with the Washington Free Press,[5] the LNS soon released its inaugural mimeographed news packet.[6] With support from private donors and assistance from the nearby Institute for Policy Studies,[7] they were soon joined by other young journalists, including Allen Young, Marty Jezer and photographer David Fenton, sending out packets of articles and photographs on a twice-weekly schedule to underground newspapers across the U.S. and abroad. Expansion During this time the writings of Thorne Webb Dreyer — co-founder of the Austin, Texas, underground paper The Rag — were widely distributed, appearing regularly in dozens of periodicals. Dreyer's coverage of the October 21, 1967, March on the Pentagon – with its massive acts of civil disobedience – was distributed by LNS and published around the world. The night before the march, Bloom, Mungo, and the other staffers convened a chaotic meeting in a Washington loft with underground press editors from around the country who were in town to cover the event; but they failed to reach an agreement to create a democratic structure in which LNS would be owned and run by its member papers. Opening of the New York office By February 1968, LNS was becoming the hub for alternative journalism in the United States, supplying the growing movement media with interpretive coverage of current events and reports on movement activities and the Sixties counterculture. There were 150 underground papers and 90 college papers subscribing to LNS,[citation needed] with most subscribers paying (or at least being billed) $180 a year. LNS took over the former SCN office in New York, which had just been opened by former Columbia University graduate student George Cavalletto and others in a converted Chinese restaurant on Claremont Avenue in Harlem. Walking by, Steve Diamond saw a brand new Telex machine sitting in an otherwise empty storefront and a sign seeking volunteers, and attended a meeting shortly afterward at which the New York staff was formed.[8] Around this time, Rag co-founder Thorne Dreyer left Austin to help build LNS' editorial collective in New York City. Two months after it opened, the New York office became a central focus for LNS activity during the Columbia University student uprising in April 1968, as a continual stream of bulletins going out over the Telex kept underground papers and radio stations across the country up-to-the-minute on the latest developments in the Columbia student strike. To young radicals across the country, it seemed as if the revolution had come.[citation needed] Moving the headquarters to New York Recognizing that New York was where the action was and running short on funds, Bloom and Mungo decided to relocate the national headquarters from the expensive townhouse office in D.C. to the large storefront space in New York, which Cavalletto was renting for only $200 a month. Bringing Allen Young, Harvey Wasserman, Verandah Porche, and some of the other Washington staff with them, along with Sheila Ryan of the Washington Free Press, they moved into the New York office. A culture clash soon developed, however, between the headquarters staff and the already existing local staff in New York, which had been originally recruited by the Student Communications Network, and who had been running their own affairs up to that point. Over the summer the staff divided into warring cliques polarized between Bloom and Mungo, who controlled the board of directors, and Cavalletto, who held the lease on the office and was paying the rent. The Bloom/Mungo group was repeatedly outvoted in staff votes by the locals, who outnumbered them; only Steve Diamond of the New York group sided with the outsiders.[citation needed] Montague farm fight In August 1968, a successful fundraising event led to an ugly fight over control of the organization's funds, with an angry posse of LNSers trailing Bloom, Mungo, and Diamond to Massachusetts where they had used the $6,000 cash from the fundraiser to make the down payment on a farm in Montague which was to be the new headquarters of LNS. A tense six-hour standoff at the farm ended with Bloom writing a check to Cavalletto, but after the New York group left, Bloom filed kidnapping charges against 13 people, including Cavalletto, Ryan, Dreyer, and Victoria Smith.[9] The charges were later dismissed.[citation needed] For the next six months[10] LNS subscribers received rival news packets from LNS-Montague and LNS-New York, but the Montague group was understaffed, underfunded, and isolated on a remote (and cold) country farm. Only the New York headquarters group survived the split, with Young becoming a recognized leader.[4][11][8] Bloom committed suicide the following year.[12] A pro-Montague account of the split appears in Mungo's book Famous Long Ago: My Life and Hard Times with the Liberation News Service.[6] Reformation as a collective Now under the control of a collective, for several years LNS was produced from Morningside Heights in Manhattan, initially from the Claremont Avenue storefront, and later from the basement of an apartment building which at one time had been a food store.[11] The subscriber base grew to over 500 papers, and a high school underground press service, run by local high school students, was added. Allen Young estimates that something like 200 staffers worked at LNS over the years, "usually with 8-20 full-time participants or staff at any one time."[7] By 1972, LNS was garnering support from well-known journalists and activists, as documented in a letter signed by I.F. Stone, Jack Newfield, Nat Hentoff, and William M. Kunstler published in the New York Review of Books. In an appeal for funds, the signers praised the investigative work of LNS, noting that it had "grown from a mimeoed sheet distributed to ten newspapers to a printed 20-page packet of articles and graphics mailed to nearly 800 subscribers twice a week."[13] In 1969 LNS published a long essay co-authored by Thorne Dreyer and Victoria Smith, titled "The Movement and the New Media," which was considered to be the first serious journalistic portrait of the increasingly powerful underground press phenomenon.[2] Dreyer also wrote extensively about the growing repression of underground papers throughout the country. Dissolution Throughout the 1970s, with the end of the Vietnam War and the decline of the New Left, LNS dwindled along with the rapidly disappearing underground press. Reduced to serving only 150 newspapers, the LNS collective decided to close operations in August 1981.[14] Archives LNS records are archived variously in the Contemporary Culture Collection of Temple University Libraries, the Archive of Social Change of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Library, Interference Archive, and the Archives & Special Collections at Amherst College; its photographs are archived at New York University's Tamiment Library. See also Alternative news agency List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture The Venceremos Brigade is an international organization founded in 1969 by members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and officials of the Republic of Cuba.[1] It was formed as a coalition of young people to show solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by working side by side with Cuban workers, challenging U.S. policies towards Cuba, including the United States embargo against Cuba. The yearly brigade trips, which as of 2010 have brought more than 9,000 people to Cuba, continue today and are coordinated with the Pastors For Peace Friendship Caravans to Cuba.[citation needed] The 48th Brigade travelled to Cuba in July 2017.[2] History Original brigades Further information: New Left and Revolutionary Offensive The 1959 Cuban Revolution was a key event that galvanized and inspired the growing New Left in the 1960s. Cuba became viewed as a radical and anti-imperialist third world country worthy of praise by many of the radical activists of the 1960s.[3] In 1969, SDS was composed of competing factions with individual priorities and visions.[4] SDS delegates travelled to Havana, and were inspired by Fidel Castro's New Year's Day speech, in which he called on Cubans to help with the sugar harvest.[5] Although the Americans originally offered to help by taking industrial jobs displaced by the massive sugar harvest, Fidel reportedly responded that if North Americans were to help, they would cut cane.[6] Hoping to unite SDS members behind a new project, the leaders began planning a trip, bringing American activists to Cuba to cut sugar cane.[5] Carl Oglesby originally presented the idea to members of SDS, but was ousted from SDS before it came to fruition. Bernardine Dohrn appointed Julie Nichamin and Brian Murphy to organize the trip.[7] Allen Young was also partly responsible for the organization and negotiations with Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and other members of the Cuban government. While in the US, the group met occasionally by regions to supervise, recruit, and fundraise for the trips.[6] The trip cohort, the Venceremos ("we shall triumph" in Spanish language)[8] Brigade, was promoted as an inspiring and educational experience.[6] The brigade itself was designed to encompass members from all radical movements in the United States, from black power radicals to anti-war student activists.[3] In November 1969,[8] the first brigade of 216 Americans travelled to Cuba from Mexico City to skirt the U.S. government's restrictions on travel to the island.[8] The participants were to contribute to Cuba's monumental ten million ton zafra (harvest) of 1970, as well as to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The second Brigade arrived in February 1970, to cut cane and learn about Cuban life. Although the zafra did not reach ten million tons, the Brigades continued.[6] Later developments The Antonio Maceo Brigade was formed as a Cuban solidarity group of Cuban American radicals that first traveled to Cuba in 1977. Many Cubans who joined the brigade were motivated to prove that they weren't counterrevolutionary "gusanos". At the time the Venceremos Brigade refused to allow Cuban exiles to be members believing them all to be middle class and counterrevolutionary "gusanos".[9] The FBI has questioned individual brigade travellers over the years. Michael Ratner, who had represented members of the Venceremos Brigade, said that visits by FBI agents were most prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s and dropped off during the 1990s. In 2010, at least 10 brigade participants were visited by FBI agents.[10] Organization Ideology In Venceremos Brigade, Sandra Levinson and Carol Brightman describe the participants, brigadistas, as "American radicals."[11] They were attracted to Cuba by the socialist revolution taking place, the anti-imperialist movement, as well as Cuban culture.[6] The Venceremos Brigade included a diverse group of participants from the beginning. White, Black, Chicano, Native American, and Puerto Rican Americans, as well as activists and feminists participated. In part, the Venceremos Brigade went to Cuba to study revolutionary culture, Che Guevara, and Che's new socialist man.[6] New Left philosophy permeated the movement. The brigadistas also invoked Cuba's history of anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, and referred to the Black Power and feminist movements in the US, with the goal of creating a revolutionary political culture within the group.[5] Despite the leftist nature of the Brigades and the Cuban government, conflict emerged between Brigade organizers and gay members of the Brigade and their allies. To Cuban officials, the gay liberation movement represented U.S. imperialism, and was a challenge to Fidel Castro and Cuba.[5] The organizers of the Venceremos Brigades settled on a Don't ask, don't tell policy, requiring queer brigadistas to refrain from discussing or performing their sexuality.[5] Queer brigadistas were subject to homophobic slurs and questions, and homophobia was the overall policy. There were also gender-based tensions in the early brigades.[5] Notable brigadistas Karen Bass, mayor of Los Angeles[12][13] Carol Brightman, counter-cultural author.[14] Linda Burnham, communist political organizer.[15] Leslie Cagan, socialist peace activist and radio executive[16] Johnnetta Cole, college president and museum executive[12] Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, historian and academic[13] Tibor Kalman, graphic designer[17] Michael Kazin, historian, professor and co-editor of Dissent magazine.[18] Jeffrey Bruce Klein, founder of Mother Jones magazine.[19] Antonio Villaraigosa, former mayor of Los Angeles[12][20] Allen Young, counter-cultural activist and later critic of the Cuban government.[21][22] The Cuban Revolution (Spanish: Revolución cubana) was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement. After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Revolutionary Directorate of March 13.[8] The rebels finally ousted Batista on 1 January 1959, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución (from Spanish: "Day of the Revolution"). The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.[9] The Cuban Revolution had powerful domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba–United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations, such as the Cuban thaw, gained momentum during the 2010s.[10][11][12][13] In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society.[14][15] The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.[16][17][18][19] Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were suppressed by the revolutionary government.[20][21][22][23] Background Corruption in Cuba Main article: Corruption in Cuba Estrada Palma in 1899 The Republic of Cuba at the turn of the 20th century was largely characterized by a deeply ingrained tradition of corruption where political participation resulted in opportunities for elites to engage in wealth accumulation.[24] Cuba's first presidential period under Don Tomás Estrada Palma from 1902 to 1906 was considered to uphold the best standards of administrative integrity in the history of the Republic of Cuba.[25] However, a United States intervention in 1906 resulted in Charles Edward Magoon, an American diplomat, taking over the government until 1909. Although Magoon's government did not condone corrupt practices, there is debate as to how much was done to stop what was widespread especially with the surge of American money coming into the small country. Hugh Thomas suggests that while Magoon disapproved of corrupt practices, corruption still persisted under his administration and he undermined the autonomy of the judiciary and their court decisions.[26][page needed] On January 29, 1909, the sovereign government of Cuba was restored, and José Miguel Gómez became president. No explicit evidence of Magoon's corruption ever surfaced, but his parting gesture of issuing lucrative Cuban contracts to U.S. firms was a continued point of contention. Cuba's subsequent president, José Miguel Gómez, was the first to become involved in pervasive corruption and government corruption scandals. These scandals involved bribes that were allegedly paid to Cuban officials and legislators under a contract to search the Havana harbour, as well as the payment of fees to government associates and high-level officials.[25] Gómez's successor, Mario García Menocal, wanted to put an end to the corruption scandals and claimed to be committed to administrative integrity as he ran on a slogan of "honesty, peace and work".[25] Despite his intentions, corruption actually intensified under his government from 1913 to 1921.[26][page needed] Instances of fraud became more common while private actors and contractors frequently colluded with public officials and legislators. Charles Edward Chapman attributes the increase of corruption to the sugar boom that occurred in Cuba under the Menocal administration.[27] Furthermore, the advent of World War One enabled the Cuban government to manipulate sugar prices, the sales of exports and import permits.[25] While in office, García Menocal hosted his college fraternity, in the 1920 Delta Kappa Epsilon National Convention, the first international fraternity conference outside the US, which took place in Cuba. He was responsible for creating the Cuban Peso; until his presidency Cuba used both the Spanish Real and US Dollar. President Menocal left the Cuban national treasury in overdraft and therefore in precarious financial situation. Menocal supposedly spent $800 million during his 8 years in office and left a floating debt of $40 million. Alfredo Zayas succeeded Menocal from 1921 to 1925 and engaged in what Calixto Maso refers to as the "maximum expression of administrative corruption".[25] Both petty and grand corruption spread to nearly all aspects of public life and the Cuban administration became largely characterized by nepotism as Zayas relied on friends and relatives to illegally gain greater access to wealth.[26][page needed] Gerardo Machado succeeded Zayas from 1925 to 1933, and entered the presidency with widespread popularity and support from the major political parties. However, his support declined over time. Due to Zaya's previous policies, Gerardo Machado aimed to diminish corruption and improve the public sector's performance under his successive administration from 1925 to 1933. While he was successfully able to reduce the amounts of low level and petty corruption, grand corruption still largely persisted. Machado embarked on development projects that enabled the persistence of grand corruption through inflated costs and the creation of "large margins" that enabled public officials to appropriate money illegally.[28] Under his government, opportunities for corruption became concentrated into fewer hands with "centralized government purchasing procedures" and the collection of bribes among a smaller number of bureaucrats and administrators.[28] Through the development of real estate infrastructures and the growth of Cuba's tourism industry, Machado's administration was able to use insider information to profit from private sector business deals.[28] Many people objected to his running again for re-election in 1928, as his victory violated his promise to serve for only one term. As protests and rebellions became more strident, his administration curtailed free speech and used repressive police tactics against opponents. Machado unleashed a wave of violence against his critics, and there were numerous murders and assassinations committed by the police and army under Machado's administration. The extent of his involvement in these is disputed, but in the end, Machado is described as a dictator. In May 1933, Machada was forced out as newly appointed US ambassador Sumner Welles arrived in Cuba and initiated negotiation with the opposition groups for a government to succeed Machado's. A provisional government headed by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada (son of Cuban independence hero Carlos Manuel de Céspedes) and including members of the ABC was brokered; it took power in August 1933 amidst a general strike in Havana. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada subsequently was offered the position of President by ambassador Sumner Welles. He took office on August 13, 1933, and Welles proposed that "general elections may be held approximately 3 months from now so that Cuba may once more have a constitutional government in the real sense of the word." Céspedes agreed, and declared that a general election would be held on February 24, 1934, for a new presidential term to begin on May 20, 1934. However, on September 4–5, 1933, the Sergeants' Revolt took place while Céspedes was in Matanzas and Santa Clara after a hurricane had ravaged those regions. The junta of officers led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista and students proclaimed that it had taken power in order to fulfill the aims of the revolution; it briefly described a program which included economic restructuring, punishment of wrongdoers, recognition of public debts, creation of courts, political reorganization, and any other actions necessary to construct a new Cuba based on justice and democracy.[29] Only five days after the coup, Batista and the Student Directory promoted Ramón Grau to the role of President.The ensuing One Hundred Days Government issued a number of reformist declarations but never gained diplomatic recognition from the US; it was overthrown in January 1934 under pressure from Batista and the US ambassador. Grau was replaced by Carlos Mendieta, and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government. The corruption was not curtailed under Mendieta and he resigned in 1935 after unrest continued, and their followed a number of interim and weak presidents under the guidance of Batista and the US. Batista, supported by the Democratic Socialist Coalition which included Julio Antonio Mella's Communist Party, defeated Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution in the 1940 election, and served a four-year term as President of Cuba. Batista was endorsed by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party), which at the time had little significance and no probability of an electoral victory. This support was primarily due to Batista's labor laws and his support for labor unions, with which the Communists had close ties. In fact, Communists attacked the anti-Batista opposition, saying Grau and others were "fascists" and "reactionaries". Senator and anti-corruption crusader Eduardo René Chibás Ribas Senator Eduardo Chibás dedicated himself to exposing corruption in the Cuban government, and formed the Partido Ortodoxo in 1947 to further this aim. Argote-Freyre points out that Cuba's population under the Republic had a high tolerance for corruption. Furthermore, Cubans knew and criticized who was corrupt, but admired them for their ability to act as "criminals with impunity".[30] Corrupt officials went beyond members of congress to also include military officials who granted favours to residents and accepted bribes.[30] The establishment of an illegal gambling network within the military enabled army personnel such as Lieutenant Colonel Pedraza and Major Mariné to engage in extensive illegal gambling activities.[30] Mauricio Augusto Font and Alfonso Quiroz, authors of The Cuban Republic and José Martí, say that corruption pervaded in public life under the administrations of Presidents Ramón Grau and Carlos Prío Socarrás.[31] Prío was reported to have stolen over $90 million in public funds, which was equivalent to one fourth of the annual national budget.[32] Prior to the Communist revolution, Cuba was ruled under the elected government of Fulgencio Batista from 1940 to 1944. Throughout this time period, Batista's support base consisted mainly of corrupt politicians and military officials. Batista himself was able to heavily profit from the regime before coming into power through inflated government contracts and gambling proceeds.[30] In 1942, the British Foreign Office reported that the U.S. State Department was "very worried" about corruption under President Fulgencio Batista, describing the problem as "endemic" and exceeding "anything which had gone on previously". British diplomats believed that corruption was rooted within Cuba's most powerful institutions, with the highest individuals in government and military being heavily involved in gambling and the drug trade.[33] In terms of civil society, Eduardo Saenz Rovner writes that corruption within the police and government enabled the expansion of criminal organizations in Cuba.[33] Batista refused U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's offer to send experts to help reform the Cuban Civil Service. Batista didn't run in the 1944 election, and Partido Auténtico party member Ramón Grau was elected president,[34] and oversaw extensive corruption during his administration. He had Carlos Prío Socarrás serve turns as Minister of Public Works, Minister of Labor and Prime Minister. On the next election July 1, 1948, Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico which presided over corruption and irresponsible government of this period. [35][36] Prío was assisted by Chief of the Armed Forces General Genobebo Pérez Dámera and Colonel José Luis Chinea Cardenas, who had previously been in charge of the Province of Santa Clara. The eight years under Grau and Prío, were marked by violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks.[37] The Prío administration increasingly came to be perceived by the public as ineffectual in the face of violence and corruption, much as the Grau administration before it. With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. On March 10, 1952, Batista and his collaborators seized military and police commands throughout the country and occupied major radio and TV stations. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile. Batista, after his military coup against Prío Socarras, again took power and ruled until 1959. Under his rule, Batista led a corrupt dictatorship that involved close links with organized crime organizations and the reduction of civil freedoms of Cubans. This period resulted in Batista engaging in more "sophisticated practices of corruption" at both the administrative and civil society levels.[24] Batista and his administration engaged in profiteering from the lottery as well as illegal gambling.[24] Corruption further flourished in civil society through increasing amounts of police corruption, censorship of the press as well as media, and creating anti-communist campaigns that suppressed opposition with violence, torture and public executions.[38] The former culture of toleration and acceptance towards corruption also dissolved with the dictatorship of Batista. For instance, one citizen wrote that "however corrupt Grau and Prío were, we elected them and therefore allowed them to steal from us. Batista robs us without our permission."[39] Corruption under Batista further expanded into the economic sector with alliances that he forged with foreign investors and the prevalence of illegal casinos and criminal organizations in the country's capital of Havana.[39] Batista regime Main article: 1952 Cuban coup d'état In the decades following the United States' invasion of Cuba in 1898, and formal independence from the U.S. on 20 May 1902, Cuba experienced a period of significant instability, enduring a number of revolts, coups and a period of U.S. military occupation. Fulgencio Batista, a former soldier who had served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became president for the second time in 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and canceling the 1952 elections.[40] Although Batista had been relatively progressive during his first term,[41] in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns.[42] While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure,[43] Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organized crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy, especially sugar-cane plantations and other local resources.[43][44][45] Although the US armed and politically supported the Batista dictatorship, later US president John F. Kennedy recognized its corruption and the justifiability of removing it.[46] During his first term as president, Batista was supported by the original Communist Party of Cuba (later known as the Popular Socialist Party),[41] but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist.[43][47] Batista developed a rather weak security bridge as an attempt to silence political opponents. In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro's constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts.[48] After deciding that the Cuban regime could not be replaced through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as "The Movement", stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana's disgruntled working class by the end of 1952. Early stages: 1953–1955 Further information: Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution Attack on the Moncada Barracks Main article: Attack on the Moncada Barracks Fidel Castro under arrest after the July 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba Striking their first blow against the Batista government, Fidel and Raúl Castro gathered 70 fighters and planned a multi-pronged attack on several military installations.[49] On 26 July 1953, the rebels attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago and the barracks in Bayamo, only to be decisively defeated by the far more numerous government soldiers.[50] It was hoped that the staged attack would spark a nationwide revolt against Batista's government. After an hour of fighting most of the rebels and their leader fled to the mountains.[51] The exact number of rebels killed in the battle is debatable; however, in his autobiography, Fidel Castro claimed that nine were killed in the fighting, and an additional 56 were executed after being captured by the Batista government.[52] Due to the government's large number of men, Hunt revised the number to be around 60 members taking the opportunity to flee to the mountains along with Castro.[30] Among the dead was Abel Santamaría, Castro's second-in-command, who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the same day as the attack.[53] Imprisonment and immigration Numerous key Movement revolutionaries, including the Castro brothers, were captured shortly afterwards. In a highly political trial, Fidel spoke for nearly four hours in his defense, ending with the words "Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me." Castro's defense was based on nationalism, the representation and beneficial programs for the non-elite Cubans, and his patriotism and justice for the Cuban community.[54] Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in the Presidio Modelo prison, located on Isla de Pinos, while Raúl was sentenced to 13 years.[55] However, in 1955, under broad political pressure, the Batista government freed all political prisoners in Cuba, including the Moncada attackers. Fidel's Jesuit childhood teachers succeeded in persuading Batista to include Fidel and Raúl in the release.[56] Soon, the Castro brothers joined with other exiles in Mexico to prepare for the overthrow of Batista, receiving training from Alberto Bayo, a leader of Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. In June 1955, Fidel met the Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who joined his cause.[56] Raúl and Fidel's chief advisor Ernesto aided the initiation of Batista's amnesty.[54] The revolutionaries named themselves the "26th of July Movement", in reference to the date of their attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.[50] Student protests in Havana, 1956 Student demonstrations By late 1955, student riots and demonstrations became more common, and unemployment became problematic as new graduates could not find jobs.[57][58] These protests were dealt with increasing repression. All young people were seen as possible revolutionaries.[59] Due to its continued opposition to the Cuban government and much protest activity taking place on its campus, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on 30 November 1956 (it did not reopen until 1959 under the first revolutionary government).[60] Attack on the Domingo Goicuria Barracks While the Castro brothers and the other 26 July Movement guerrillas were training in Mexico and preparing for their amphibious deployment to Cuba, another revolutionary group followed the example of the Moncada Barracks assault. On 29 April 1956 at 12:50 pm during Sunday mass, an independent guerrilla group of around 100 rebels led by Reynol Garcia attacked the Domingo Goicuria army barracks in Matanzas province. The attack was repelled with ten rebels and three soldiers killed in the fighting, and one rebel summarily executed by the garrison commander, Pilar Garcia.[61] Florida International University historian Miguel A. Brito was in the nearby cathedral when the firefight began. He writes, "That day, the Cuban Revolution began for me and Matanzas."[62][63] Insurgency: 1956–1957 Map of Cuba showing the location of the arrival of the rebels on the Granma in late 1956, the rebels' stronghold in the Sierra Maestra, and Guevara and Cienfuegos' route towards Havana via Las Villas Province in December 1958 Granma landing Main article: Granma (yacht) The yacht Granma departed from Tuxpan, Veracruz, Mexico, on 25 November 1956, carrying the Castro brothers and 80 others including Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos, even though the yacht was only designed to accommodate 12 people with a maximum of 25. On 2 December,[64] it landed in Playa Las Coloradas, in the municipality of Niquero, arriving two days later than planned because the boat was heavily loaded, unlike during the practice sailing runs.[65] This dashed any hopes for a coordinated attack with the llano wing of the Movement. After arriving and exiting the ship, the band of rebels began to make their way into the Sierra Maestra mountains, a range in southeastern Cuba. Three days after the trek began, Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants – while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains.[66] The group of survivors included Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. The dispersed survivors, alone or in small groups, wandered through the mountains, looking for each other. Eventually, the men would link up again – with the help of peasant sympathizers – and would form the core leadership of the guerrilla army. A number of female revolutionaries, including Celia Sanchez and Haydée Santamaría (the sister of Abel Santamaria), also assisted Fidel Castro's operations in the mountains.[67] Presidential palace attack Main article: Havana Presidential Palace attack (1957) Havana Presidential Palace attack, 13 March 1957 On 13 March 1957, a separate group of revolutionaries – the anticommunist Student Revolutionary Directorate (RD) (Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, DRE), composed mostly of students – stormed the Presidential Palace in Havana, attempting to assassinate Batista and overthrow the government. The attack ended in utter failure. The RD's leader, student José Antonio Echeverría, died in a shootout with Batista's forces at the Havana radio station he had seized to spread the news of Batista's anticipated death. The handful of survivors included Dr. Humberto Castello (who later became the Inspector General in the Escambray), Rolando Cubela and Faure Chomon (both later Comandantes of the 13 March Movement, centered in the Escambray Mountains of Las Villas Province).[68] The plan, as explained by Faure Chaumón Mediavilla, was to attack the Presidential Palace and occupy the radio station Radio Reloj at the Radiocentro CMQ Building in order to announce the death of Batista and call for a general strike. The Presidential Palace was to be captured by fifty men under the direction of Carlos Gutiérrez Menoyo and Faure Chomón, with support from a group of 100 armed men occupying the tallest buildings in the surrounding area of the Presidential Palace (La Tabacalera, the Sevilla Hotel, the Palace of Fine Arts). However this secondary support operation was not carried out, as the men failed to arrive at the scene due to last-minute hesitation. Although the attackers reached the third floor of the palace, they did not locate or execute Batista. Humboldt 7 massacre Main article: Humboldt 7 massacre Havana police at the entrance door of apartment 201, 20 April 1957 The Humboldt 7 massacre occurred on 20 April 1957 at apartment 201 of the Humboldt 7 residential building when the National Police led by Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura Novo assassinated four participants who had survived the assault on the Presidential Palace and in the seizure of the Radio Reloj station at the Radiocentro CMQ Building. Juan Pedro Carbó was sought by police for the assassination of Col. Antonio Blanco Rico, Chief of Batista's secret service.[69] Marcos Rodríguez Alfonso (also known as "Marquitos") began arguing with Fructuoso, Carbó and Machadito; Joe Westbrook had not yet arrived. Marquitos, who gave the airs to be a revolutionary, was strongly against the revolution and was thus resented by the others. On the morning of 20 April 1957, Marquitos met with Lt. Colonel Esteban Ventura and revealed the location of where the young revolutionaries were, Humboldt 7.[70][71] After 5:00 pm on 20 April, a large contingent of police officers arrived and assaulted apartment 201, where the four men were staying. The men were not aware that the police were outside. The police rounded up and executed the rebels, who were unarmed.[72] The incident was covered up until a post-revolution investigation in 1959. Marquitos was arrested and, after a double trial, was sentenced by the Supreme Court to the penalty of death by firing squad in March 1964.[73] Frank País Main article: Frank País Frank País was a revolutionary organizer who had built an extensive urban network, who had been tried and acquitted for his role in organizing an unsuccessful uprising in Santiago de Cuba in support of Castro's landing. On 30 June 1957, Frank's younger brother, Josué País, was killed by the Santiago police. During the latter part of July 1957, a wave of systematic police searches forced Frank País into hiding in Santiago de Cuba. On 30 July he was in a safe house with Raúl Pujol, despite warnings from other members of the Movement that it was not secure. The Santiago police under Colonel José Salas Cañizares surrounded the building. Frank and Raúl attempted to escape. However, an informant betrayed them as they tried to walk to a waiting getaway car. The police officers drove the two men to the Callejón del Muro (Rampart Lane) and shot them in the back of the head. In defiance of Batista's regime, País was buried in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the olive green uniform and red and black armband of 26 July Movement. In response to the death of País, the workers of Santiago declared a spontaneous general strike. This strike was the largest popular demonstration in the city up to that point. The mobilization of 30 July 1957 is considered one of the most decisive dates in both the Cuban Revolution and the fall of Batista's dictatorship. This day has been instituted in Cuba as the Day of the Martyrs of the Revolution. The Frank País Second Front, the guerrilla unit led by Raúl Castro in the Sierra Maestra was named for the fallen revolutionary. His childhood home at 226 San Bartolomé Street was turned into The Santiago Frank País García House Museum and designated as a national monument. The international airport in Holguín, Cuba also bears his name.[74] Naval mutiny at Cienfuegos On 6 September 1957 elements of the Cuban navy in the Cienfuegos Naval Base staged a rising against the Batista regime. Led by junior officers in sympathy with the 26th of July Movement, this was originally intended to coincide with the seizure of warships in Havana harbour. Reportedly individual officials within the U.S. Embassy were aware of the plot and had promised U.S. recognition if it were successful.[75] By 5:30am the base was in the hands of the mutineers. Most of the 150 naval personnel sleeping at the base joined with the twenty-eight original conspirators, while eighteen officers were arrested. About two hundred 26th of July Movement members and other rebel supporters entered the base from the town and were given weapons. Cienfuegos was in rebel hands for several hours.[76] By the afternoon Government motorised infantry had arrived from Santa Clara, supported by B-26 bombers. Armoured units followed from Havana. After street fighting throughout the afternoon and night the last of the rebels, holding out in the police headquarters, were overwhelmed. Approximately 70 mutineers and rebel supporters were executed and reprisals against civilians added to the estimated total death toll of 300 men.[77] The use of bombers and tanks recently provided under a US-Cuban arms agreement specifically for use in hemisphere defence, now raised tensions between the two governments.[78] Escalation and US involvement The United States supplied Cuba with planes, ships, tanks, and other technology such as napalm, which was used against the rebels. This would eventually come to an end due to a later arms embargo in 1958.[79] According to Tad Szulc, the United States began funding the 26th of July Movement around October or November 1957 and ending around middle 1958. "No less than $50,000" would be delivered to key leaders of the 26th of July Movement,[80] the purpose being to instill sympathies to the United States amongst the rebels in case the movement succeeded.[81] Comandante William Alexander Morgan of the Second National Front of the Escambray While Batista increased troop deployments to the Sierra Maestra region to crush the 26 July guerrillas, the Second National Front of the Escambray kept battalions of the Constitutional Army tied up in the Escambray Mountains region. The Second National Front was led by former Revolutionary Directorate member Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo and the "Comandante Yanqui" William Alexander Morgan. Gutiérrez Menoyo formed and headed the guerrilla band after news had broken out about Castro's landing in the Sierra Maestra, and José Antonio Echeverría had stormed the Havana Radio station. Though Morgan was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army, his recreating features from Army basic training made a critical difference in the Second National Front troops battle readiness.[82] Thereafter, the United States imposed an economic embargo on the Cuban government and recalled its ambassador, weakening the government's mandate further.[83] Batista's support among Cubans began to fade, with former supporters either joining the revolutionaries or distancing themselves from Batista. Once Batista started making drastic decisions concerning Cuba's economy, he began to nationalize U.S. oil refineries and other U.S. properties.[84] Nonetheless, the Mafia and U.S. businessmen maintained their support for the regime.[85][86] Batista's government often resorted to brutal methods to keep Cuba's cities under control. However, in the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro, aided by Frank País, Ramos Latour, Huber Matos, and many others, staged successful attacks on small garrisons of Batista's troops. Castro was joined by CIA connected Frank Sturgis who offered to train Castro's troops in guerrilla warfare. Castro accepted the offer, but he also had an immediate need for guns and ammunition, so Sturgis became a gunrunner. Sturgis purchased boatloads of weapons and ammunition from CIA weapons expert Samuel Cummings' International Armament Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Sturgis opened a training camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, where he taught Che Guevara and other 26 July Movement rebel soldiers guerrilla warfare. In addition, poorly armed irregulars known as escopeteros harassed Batista's forces in the foothills and plains of Oriente Province. The escopeteros also provided direct military support to Castro's main forces by protecting supply lines and by sharing intelligence.[87] Ultimately, the mountains came under Castro's control.[88] In addition to armed resistance, the rebels sought to use propaganda to their advantage. A pirate radio station called Radio Rebelde ("Rebel Radio") was set up in February 1958, allowing Castro and his forces to broadcast their message nationwide within enemy territory.[89] Castro's affiliation with the New York Times journalist Herbert Matthews created a front page-worthy report on anti-communist propaganda.[90] The radio broadcasts were made possible by Carlos Franqui, a previous acquaintance of Castro who subsequently became a Cuban exile in Puerto Rico.[91] During this time, Castro's forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force had a manpower of around 37,000.[92] Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. An arms embargo – imposed on the Cuban government by the United States on 14 March 1958 – contributed significantly to the weakness of Batista's forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.[93] Final offensives: 1958–1959 Operation Verano Main article: Operation Verano Batista finally responded to Castro's efforts with an attack on the mountains called Operation Verano (Summer), known to the rebels as la Ofensiva. The army sent some 12,000 soldiers, half of them untrained recruits, into the mountains, along with his own brother Raul. In a series of small skirmishes, Castro's determined guerrillas defeated the Cuban army.[93] In the Battle of La Plata, which lasted from 11 to 21 July 1958, Castro's forces defeated a 500-man battalion, capturing 240 men while losing just three of their own.[94] However, the tide nearly turned on 29 July 1958, when Batista's troops almost destroyed Castro's small army of some 300 men at the Battle of Las Mercedes. With his forces pinned down by superior numbers, Castro asked for, and received, a temporary cease-fire on 1 August. Over the next seven days, while fruitless negotiations took place, Castro's forces gradually escaped from the trap. By 8 August, Castro's entire army had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.[93] Battle of Las Mercedes Main article: Battle of Las Mercedes The Battle of Las Mercedes (29 July–8 August 1958) was the last battle of Operation Verano.[citation needed] The battle was a trap, designed by Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo to lure Fidel Castro's guerrillas into a place where they could be surrounded and destroyed. The battle ended with a cease-fire which Castro proposed and which Cantillo accepted. During the cease-fire, Castro's forces escaped back into the hills. The battle, though technically a victory for the Cuban army, left the army dispirited and demoralized. Castro viewed the result as a victory and soon launched his own offensive. Map showing key locations of the Cuban Revolution Battalion 17 began its pull back on 29 July 1958. Castro sent a column of men under René Ramos Latour to ambush the retreating soldiers. They attacked the advance guard and killed some 30 soldiers but then came under attack from previously undetected Cuban forces. Latour called for help and Castro came to the battle scene with his own column of men. Castro's column also came under fire from another group of Cuban soldiers that had secretly advanced up the road from the Estrada Palma Sugar Mill. As the battle heated up, General Cantillo called up more forces from nearby towns and some 1,500 troops started heading towards the fighting. However, this force was halted by a column under Che Guevara's command. While some critics accuse Che for not coming to the aid of Latour, Major Bockman argues that Che's move here was the correct thing to do. Indeed, he called Che's tactical appreciation of the battle "brilliant". By the end of July, Castro's troops were fully engaged and in danger of being wiped out by the vastly superior numbers of the Cuban army. He had lost 70 men, including René Latour, and both he and the remains of Latour's column were surrounded. The next day, Castro requested a cease-fire with General Cantillo, even offering to negotiate an end to the war. This offer was accepted by General Cantillo for reasons that remain unclear. Batista sent a personal representative to negotiate with Castro on 2 August. The negotiations yielded no result but during the next six nights, Castro's troops managed to slip away unnoticed. On 8 August when the Cuban army resumed its attack, they found no one to fight. Castro's remaining forces had escaped back into the mountains, and Operation Verano had effectively ended in failure for the Batista government.[93] Battle of Yaguajay Main article: Battle of Yaguajay Central part of the battle's monument and plaza with the statue of Camilo Cienfuegos In 1958, Fidel Castro ordered his revolutionary army to go on the offensive against Batista's army. While Castro led one force against Guisa, Masó and other towns, another major offensive was directed at the capture of the city of Santa Clara, the capital of what was then Las Villas Province. Three columns were sent against Santa Clara under the command of Che Guevara, Jaime Vega, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Vega's column was caught in an ambush and completely destroyed. Guevara's column took up positions around Santa Clara (near Fomento). Cienfuegos's column directly attacked a local army garrison at Yaguajay. Initially numbering just 60 men out of Castro's hardened core of 230, Cienfuegos's group had gained many recruits as it crossed the countryside towards Santa Clara, eventually reaching an estimated strength of 450 to 500 fighters. The garrison consisted of some 250 men under the command of a Cuban captain of Chinese ancestry, Alfredo Abon Lee.[95][96] The attack seems to have started around 19 December. Convinced that reinforcements would be sent from Santa Clara, Lee put up a determined defense of his post. The guerrillas repeatedly attempted to overpower Lee and his men, but failed each time. By 26 December Camilo Cienfuegos had become quite frustrated; it seemed that Lee could not be overpowered, nor could he be convinced to surrender. In desperation, Cienfuegos tried using a homemade tank against Lee's position. The "tank" was actually a large tractor encased in iron plates with attached makeshift flamethrowers on top. It, too, proved unsuccessful. Finally, on 30 December Lee ran out of ammunition and was forced to surrender his force to the guerrillas.[citation needed] The surrender of the garrison was a major blow to the defenders of the provincial capital of Santa Clara. The next day, the combined forces of Cienfuegos, Guevara, and local revolutionaries under William Alexander Morgan captured the city in a fight of vast confusion. Panicked by news of the defeat at Santa Clara and other losses, Batista fled Cuba the next day. Battle of Guisa Main article: Battle of Guisa On the morning of 20 November 1958, a convoy of the Batista soldiers began its usual journey from Guisa. Shortly after leaving that town, located in the northern foothills of the Sierra Maestra, the rebels attacked the caravan.[97] Guisa was 12 kilometers from the Command Post of the Zone of Operations, located on the outskirts of the city of Bayamo. Nine days earlier, Fidel Castro had left the La Plata Command, beginning an unstoppable march east with his escort and a small group of combatants.[a] On 19 November, the rebels arrived in Santa Barbara. By that time, there were approximately 230 combatants. Fidel gathered his officers to organize the siege of Guisa, and ordered the placement of a mine on the Monjarás bridge, over the Cupeinicú river. That night the combatants made a camp in Hoyo de Pipa. In the early morning, they took the path that runs between the Heliografo hill and the Mateo Roblejo hill, where they occupied strategic positions. In the meeting on the 20th, the army lost a truck, a bus, and a jeep. Six were killed and 17 prisoners were taken, three of them wounded. At around 10:30 am, the military Command Post located in the Zone of Operations in Bayamo sent a reinforcement made up of Co. 32, plus a platoon from Co. L and another platoon from Co. 22. This force was unable to advance for the resistance of the rebels. Fidel ordered the mining of another bridge over a tributary of the Cupeinicú River. Hours later the army sent a platoon from Co. 82 and another platoon from Co. 93, supported by a T-17 tank.[98][b][99] Rebel offensive This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Cuban Revolution" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The enemy soldier in the Cuban example which at present concerns us, is the junior partner of the dictator; he is the man who gets the last crumb left by a long line of profiteers that begins in Wall Street and ends with him. He is disposed to defend his privileges, but he is disposed to defend them only to the degree that they are important to him. His salary and his pension are worth some suffering and some dangers, but they are never worth his life. If the price of maintaining them will cost it, he is better off giving them up; that is to say, withdrawing from the face of the guerrilla danger. — Che Guevara, 1958[100] Map showing key locations in the Sierra Maestra during the 1958 stage of the Cuban Revolution On 21 August 1958, after the defeat of Batista's Ofensiva, Castro's forces began their own offensive. In the Oriente province (in the area of the present-day provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and Holguín),[101] Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida Bosque directed attacks on four fronts. Descending from the mountains with new weapons captured during the Ofensiva and smuggled in by plane, Castro's forces won a series of initial victories. Castro's major victory at Guisa, and the successful capture of several towns including Maffo, Contramaestre, and Central Oriente, brought the Cauto plains under his control. Meanwhile, three rebel columns, under the command of Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and Jaime Vega, proceeded westward toward Santa Clara, the capital of Villa Clara Province. Batista's forces ambushed and destroyed Jaime Vega's column, but the surviving two columns reached the central provinces, where they joined forces with several other resistance groups not under the command of Castro. When Che Guevara's column passed through the province of Las Villas, and specifically through the Escambray Mountains – where the anticommunist Revolutionary Directorate forces (who became known as the 13 March Movement) had been fighting Batista's army for many months – friction developed between the two groups of rebels. Nonetheless, the combined rebel army continued the offensive, and Cienfuegos won a key victory in the Battle of Yaguajay on 30 December 1958, earning him the nickname "The Hero of Yaguajay". 1958 Cuban general election Main article: 1958 Cuban general election Andrés Rivero Aguero, 1958 president elect General elections were held in Cuba on 3 November 1958.[102] The three major presidential candidates were Carlos Márquez Sterling of the Partido del Pueblo Libre, Ramón Grau of the Partido Auténtico and Andrés Rivero Agüero of the Coalición Progresista Nacional. There was also a minor party candidate on the ballot, Alberto Salas Amaro for the Union Cubana party. Voter turnout was estimated at 50% of eligible voters.[103] Although Andrés Rivero Agüero won the presidential election with 70% of the vote, he was unable to take office due to the Cuban Revolution.[104] Rivero Agüero was due to be sworn in on 24 February 1959. In a conversation between him and the American ambassador Earl E. T. Smith on 15 November 1958, he called Castro a "sick man" and stated it would be impossible to reach a settlement with him. Rivero Agüero also said that he planned to restore constitutional government and would convene a Constitutional Assembly after taking office.[105] This was the last competitive election in Cuba, the 1940 Constitution of Cuba, the Congress and the Senate of the Cuban Republic, were quickly dismantled shortly thereafter. The rebels had publicly called for an election boycott, issuing its Total War Manifesto on 12 March 1958, threatening to kill anyone that voted.[citation needed] Battle of Santa Clara and Batista's flight Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos entering Havana after the rebel victory, 8 January 1959 On 31 December 1958, the Battle of Santa Clara took place in a scene of great confusion. The city of Santa Clara fell to the combined forces of Che Guevara, Cienfuegos, and Revolutionary Directorate (RD) rebels led by Comandantes Rolando Cubela, Juan ("El Mejicano") Abrahantes, and William Alexander Morgan. News of these defeats caused Batista to panic. He fled Cuba by air for the Dominican Republic just hours later on 1 January 1959. Comandante William Alexander Morgan, leading RD rebel forces, continued fighting as Batista departed and had captured the city of Cienfuegos by 2 January.[106] Cuban General Eulogio Cantillo entered Havana's Presidential Palace, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra as the new president, and began appointing new members to Batista's old government.[107] Castro learned of Batista's flight in the morning and immediately started negotiations to take over Santiago de Cuba. On 2 January, the military commander in the city, Colonel Rubido, ordered his soldiers not to fight, and Castro's forces took over the city. The forces of Guevara and Cienfuegos entered Havana at about the same time. They had met no opposition on their journey from Santa Clara to Cuba's capital. Castro himself arrived in Havana on 8 January after a long victory march. His initial choice of president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, took office on 3 January.[108] Aftermath Further information: Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution Presidency of Manuel Urrutia Lleó Main article: Manuel Urrutia Lleó Manuel Urrutia Lleó, in the presidential palace, president of Cuba, 1959 Che Guevara with Manuel Urrutia in 1959, who was president at the beginning of the revolution, after being appointed by the rebels Manuel Urrutia Lleó (8 December 1901 – 5 July 1981) was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the first revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward. The Cuban Revolution gained victory on 1 January 1959, and Urrutia returned from exile in Venezuela to take up residence in the presidential palace. His new revolutionary government consisted largely of Cuban political veterans and pro-business liberals including José Miró, who was appointed as prime minister.[109] Once in power, Urrutia swiftly began a program of closing all brothels, gambling outlets and the national lottery, arguing that these had long been a corrupting influence on the state. The measures drew immediate resistance from the large associated workforce. The disapproving Castro, then commander of Cuba's new armed forces, intervened to request a stay of execution until alternative employment could be found.[110] Disagreements also arose in the new government concerning pay cuts, which were imposed on all public officials on Castro's demand. The disputed cuts included a reduction of the $100,000 a year presidential salary Urrutia had inherited from Batista.[111] By February, following the surprise resignation of Miró, Castro had assumed the role of prime minister; this strengthened his power and rendered Urrutia increasingly a figurehead president.[109] As Urrutia's participation in the legislative process declined, other unresolved disputes between the two leaders continued to fester. His belief in the restoration of elections was rejected by Castro, who felt that they would usher in a return to the old discredited system of corrupt parties and fraudulent balloting that had marked the Batista era.[112] Urrutia was then accused by the Avance newspaper of buying a luxury villa, which was portrayed as a frivolous betrayal of the revolution and led to an outcry from the general public. He denied the allegation issuing a writ against the newspaper in response. The story further increased tensions between the various factions in the government, though Urrutia asserted publicly that he had "absolutely no disagreements" with Fidel Castro. Urrutia attempted to distance the Cuban government (including Castro) from the growing influence of the communists within the administration, making a series of critical public comments against the latter group. Whilst Castro had not openly declared any affiliation with the Cuban communists, Urrutia had been a declared anti-communist since they had refused to support the insurrection against Batista,[113] stating in an interview, "If the Cuban people had heeded those words, we would still have Batista with us ... and all those other war criminals who are now running away".[112] Relations with the United States Main article: Cuba–United States relations Victorious rebels in the Havana Hilton, January 1959 Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in 1962 The Cuban Revolution was a crucial turning point in U.S.-Cuban relations. Although the United States government was initially willing to recognize Castro's new government,[114] it soon came to fear that Communist insurgencies would spread through the nations of Latin America, as they had in Southeast Asia.[115] Meanwhile, Castro's government resented the Americans for providing aid to Batista's government during the revolution.[114] After the revolutionary government nationalized all U.S. property in Cuba in August 1960, the American Eisenhower administration froze all Cuban assets on American soil, severed diplomatic ties and tightened its embargo of Cuba.[10][15][116] The Key West–Havana ferry shut down. In 1961, the U.S. government launched the Bay of Pigs Invasion, in which Brigade 2506 (a CIA-trained force of 1,500 soldiers, mostly Cuban exiles) landed on a mission to oust Castro; the attempt to overthrow Castro failed, with the invasion being repulsed by the Cuban military.[115][117] The U.S. embargo against Cuba is still in force as of 2020, although it underwent a partial loosening during the Obama administration, only to be strengthened in 2017 under Trump.[10] The U.S. began efforts to normalize relations with Cuba in the mid-2010s,[12][118] and formally reopened its embassy in Havana after over half a century in August 2015.[13] The Trump administration reversed much of the Cuban Thaw by severely restricting travel by US citizens to Cuba and tightening the US government's embargo against the country.[119][120] I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. — U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[121] Relations with the Soviet Union Main article: Cuba–Soviet Union relations Following the American embargo, the Soviet Union became Cuba's main ally.[15] The Soviet Union did not initially want anything to do with Cuba or Latin America until the United States had taken an interest in dismantling Castro's communist government.[39] At first, many people in the Soviet Union did not know anything about Cuba, and those that did saw Castro as a "troublemaker" and the Cuba Revolution as "one big heresy".[39] There were three big reasons why the Soviet Union changed their attitudes and finally took interest in the island country. First was the success of the Cuban Revolution, to which Moscow responded with great interest as they understood that if a communist revolution was successful for Cuba, it could be successful elsewhere in Latin America. So from then on the Soviets began looking into foreign affairs in Latin America. Second, after learning about the United States' aggressive plan to deploy another Guatemala scenario in Cuba, the Soviet opinion quickly changed feet.[39] Third, Soviet leaders saw the Cuban Revolution as first and foremost an anti–North American revolution which of course whet their appetite as this was during the height of the cold war and the Soviet, US battle for global dominance was at its apex.[122] Map created by American intelligence showing Surface-to-Air Missile Activity in Cuba, 5 September 1962, a month before the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis The Soviets' attitude of optimism changed to one of concern for the safety of Cuba after it was excluded from the inter-American system at the conference held at Punta del Este in January 1962 by the Organization of American States.[122] This coupled with the threat of a United States invasion of the island was really the turning point for Soviet Concern, the idea was that should Cuba be defeated by the United States it would mean defeat for the Soviet Union and for Marxism–Leninism. If Cuba were to fall, "other Latin American countries would reject us, claiming that for all our might the Soviet Union had not been able to do anything for Cuba except to make empty protests to the United Nations" wrote Khrushchev.[122] The Soviet attitude towards Cuba changed to concern for the safety of the island nation because of increased US tensions and threats of invasion making the Soviet–Cuban relationship superficial insofar as it only cared about denying the US power in the region and maintaining Soviet supremacy.[122] All of these events lead up to the two Communist countries quickly developing close military and intelligence ties, which culminated in the stationing of Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba in 1962, an act which triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. The aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis saw embarrassment for the Soviet Union,[citation needed] and many countries including Soviet countries were quick to criticize Moscow's handling of the situation. In a letter that Khrushchev writes to Castro in January of the following year (1963), after the end of conflict, he talks about wanting to discuss the issues in the two countries' relations. He writes attacking voices from other countries, including socialist ones, blaming the USSR of being opportunistic and self-serving. He explained the decision to withdraw missiles from Cuba, stressing the possibility of advancing Communism through peaceful means. Khrushchev underlined the importance of guaranteeing against an American attack on Cuba and urged Havana to focus on economic, cultural, and technological development to become a shining beacon of socialism in Latin America. In closing he invites Fidel Castro to visit Moscow and discuss the preparations for such a trip.[123] The following two decades in the 1970s and 1980s were somewhat of an enigma in the sense that the 1970s and 1980s were filled with the most prosperity in Cuba's history, yet the revolutionary government hit full stride in achieving its most organized form, and it adopted and enacted several brutal features of socialist regimes from the Eastern Bloc.[citation needed] Despite this it seems to be a time of prosperity.[citation needed] In 1972 Cuba joined COMECON, officially joining their trade with the Soviet Union's socialist trade bloc. That along with increased Soviet subsidies, better trade terms, and better, more practical domestic policy led to several years of prosperous growth. This period also sees Cuba strengthening its foreign policy with other communistic anti-US imperial countries like Nicaragua. This period is marked as the Sovietization of the 1970s and 1980s.[124] Cuba maintained close links to the Soviets until the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. The end of Soviet economic aid and the loss of its trade partners in the Eastern Bloc led to an economic crisis and period of shortages known as the Special Period in Cuba.[125] Current day relations with Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, ended in 2002 after the Russian Federation closed an intelligence base in Cuba over budgetary concerns. However, in the last decade, relations have increased in recent years after Russia faced international backlash from the West over the situation in Ukraine in 2014. In retaliation for NATO expansion towards the east, Russia has sought to create these same agreements in Latin America. Russia has specifically sought greater ties with Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, and Mexico. Currently, these countries maintain close economic ties with the United States. In 2012, Putin decided that Russia focus its military power in Cuba like it had in the past. Putin is quoted saying "Our goal is to expand Russia's presence on the global arms and military equipment market. This means expanding the number of countries we sell to and expanding the range of goods and services we offer."[126] Global influence The greatest threat presented by Castro's Cuba is as an example to other Latin American states which are beset by poverty, corruption, feudalism, and plutocratic exploitation ... his influence in Latin America might be overwhelming and irresistible if, with Soviet help, he could establish in Cuba a Communist utopia. — Walter Lippmann, Newsweek, 27 April 1964[127] Castro's victory and post-revolutionary foreign policy had global repercussions as influenced by the expansion of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe after the 1917 October Revolution. In line with his call for revolution in Latin America and beyond against imperial powers, laid out in his Declarations of Havana, Castro immediately sought to "export" his revolution to other countries in the Caribbean and beyond, sending weapons to Algerian rebels as early as 1960.[19] In the following decades, Cuba became heavily involved in supporting Communist insurgencies and independence movements in many developing countries, sending military aid to insurgents in Ghana, Nicaragua, Yemen, and Angola, among others.[19] Castro's intervention in the Angolan Civil War in the 1970s and 1980s was particularly significant, involving as many as 60,000 Cuban soldiers.[19][128] Characteristics Ideology Propaganda poster in Havana, 2012 At the time of the revolution various sectors of society supported the revolutionary movement from communists to business leaders and the Catholic Church.[129] The beliefs of Fidel Castro during the revolution have been the subject of much historical debate. Fidel Castro was openly ambiguous about his beliefs at the time. Some orthodox historians argue Castro was a communist from the beginning with a long-term plan; however, others have argued he had no strong ideological loyalties. Leslie Dewart has stated that there is no evidence to suggest Castro was ever a communist agent. Levine and Papasotiriou believe Castro believed in little outside of a distaste for American imperialism. As evidence for his lack of communist leanings they note his friendly relations with the United States shortly after the revolution and him not joining the Cuban Communist Party during the beginning of his land reforms.[129] At the time of the revolution the 26th of July Movement involved people of various political persuasions, but most were in agreement and desired the reinstatement of the 1940 Constitution of Cuba and supported the ideals of Jose Marti. Che Guevara commented to Jorge Masetti in an interview during the revolution that "Fidel isn't a communist" also stating "politically you can define Fidel and his movement as 'revolutionary nationalist'. Of course he is anti-American, in the sense that Americans are anti-revolutionaries".[130] Women's roles Main article: Women in the Cuban Revolution Raúl Castro, Vilma Espín, Jorge Risquet and José Nivaldo Causse in 1958 The importance of women's contributions to the Cuban Revolution is reflected in the very accomplishments that allowed the revolution to be successful, from the participation in the Moncada Barracks, to the Mariana Grajales all-women's platoon that served as Fidel Castro's personal security detail. Tete Puebla, second in command of the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon, has said: Women in Cuba have always been on the front line of the struggle. At Moncada we had Yeye (Haydee Santamaria) and Melba (Hernandez). With the Granma (yacht) and November 30, we had Celia, Vilma, and many other compañeras. There were many women comrades who were tortured and murdered. From the beginning there were women in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. First they were simple soldiers, later sergeants. Those of us in the Mariana Grajales Platoon were the first officers. The ones who ended the war with officers' ranks stayed in the armed forces.[131] Before the Mariana Grajales Platoon was established, the revolutionary women of the Sierra Maestra were not organized for combat and primarily helped with cooking, mending clothes, and tending to the sick, frequently acting as couriers, as well as teaching guerrillas to read and write.[131] Haydée Santamaría and Melba Hernandez were the only women who participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks, afterward acting alongside Natalia Revuelta, and Lidia Castro (Fidel Castro's sister) to form alliances with anti-Batista organizations, as well as the assembly and distribution of "History Will Absolve Me".[132] Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin were leading strategists and highly skilled combatants who held essential roles throughout the revolution. Tete Puebla, founding member and second in command of the Mariana Grajales Platoon, said of Celia Sanchez, "When you speak of Celia, you've got to speak of Fidel, and vice versa. Celia's ideas touched almost everything in the Sierra."[131] Related archival collections There were many foreign presences in Cuba during this time. Esther Brinch was a Danish translator for the Danish government in 1960's Cuba. Brinch's work covered the Cuban Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis.[133] A collection of Brinch's archival materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center. See also Bolivarian Revolution Communist revolution Communism Cuban thaw History of Cuba Latin American wars of independence Corruption in Cuba Consolidation of the Cuban Revolution Foreign relations of Cuba flag Cuba portal Communism portal icon Socialism portal Notes  Sierra Maestra, Dic. 1, 58 2 y 45 p.m. Coronel García Casares: I am writing these lines to inquire about a man of ours [Lieutenant Orlando Pupo] who was almost certainly taken prisoner by your forces. The event happened like this: after the Army units withdrew, I sent a vanguard to explore in the direction of the Furnace. Further back I set off on the same road where our vanguard was going. By chance said vanguard had taken another road and came to the road behind us. As I expected, I sent a man to catch up with her to tell her to stop before reaching the Furnace. The messenger left with the belief that it was going ahead and therefore would be completely unnoticed of the danger; He was also traveling on horseback, with the consequent noise of his footsteps. Once the error was discovered, everything possible was done to warn him of the situation, but he had already reached the danger zone. They waited several hours for him and he did not return. Today it has not appeared. A gunshot was also heard at night. I am sure that he was taken prisoner; I confess that even the fear that he would have been later killed. I'm worried about the shot that was heard. And I know that when it is a post that fires it is never limited to a single shot in these cases. I have been explicit in the narration of the incident so that you can have sufficient evidence. I hope I can count on your chivalry, to prevent that young man from being assassinated uselessly, if he was not killed last night. We all feel special affection for that partner and we are concerned about his fate. I propose that you return him to our lines, as I have done with hundreds of military personnel, including numerous officers. Military honor will win with that elemental gesture of reciprocity. "Politeness does not remove the brave." Many painful events have occurred in this war because of some unscrupulous or honorable military personnel, and believe me that the Army needs men and gestures to compensate for those blemishes. It is because I have a high opinion of you that I decide to talk to you about this case, in the assurance that you will do what is within your power. If some formal inconvenience arises, it can be done in the form of an exchange, for one or more of the soldiers we took prisoner during the action of Guisa. Sincerely, Fidel Castro R.  The following is an excerpt from a speech given on 1 December 1958 by Fidel Castro, broadcast on the Rebel Army's radio station, which reported on the victory of the revolutionary forces in the battle of Guisa in the Sierra Maestra mountains, one of the turning points in the revolutionary war that spelled the doom of the Batista dictatorship. A month later the dictatorship collapsed and Rebel Army forces entered Havana: Yesterday at 9 p.m., after ten days of intense combat, our forces entered Guisa; the battle took place within sight of Bayamo, where the dictatorship has its command center and the bulk of its forces: The action at Guisa began at exactly 8:30 a.m. on November 20 when our forces intercepted an enemy patrol that made the trip from Guisa to Bayamo on a daily basis. The patrol was turned back, and that same day the first enemy reinforcements arrived. At 4:00 p.m. a T-17 thirty-ton tank was destroyed by a powerful land mine: the impact of the explosion was such that the tank was thrown several meters through the air, falling forward with its wheels up and its cab smashed in on the pavement of the road. Hours before that, a truck full of soldiers had been blown up by another mine. At 6:00 p.m. the reinforcements withdrew. On the following day, the enemy advanced, supported by Sherman tanks, and was able to reach Guisa, leaving a reinforcement in the local garrison. On the 22nd, our troops, exhausted from two days of fighting, took up positions on the road from Bayamo to Guisa. On the 23rd, an enemy troop tried to advance along the road from Corojo and was repulsed. On the 25th, an infantry battalion, led by two T-17 tanks, advanced along the Bayamo-Guisa road, guarding a convoy of fourteen trucks. At two kilometers from this point, the rebel troops fired on the convoy, cutting off its retreat, while a mine paralyzed the lead tank. Then began one of the most violent combats that has taken place in the Sierra Maestra. Inside the Guisa garrison, the complete battalion that came in reinforcement, along with two T-17 tanks, was now within the rebel lines. At 6:00 p.m., the enemy had to abandon all its trucks, using them as a barricade tightly encircling the two tanks. At 10:00 p.m., while a battery of mortars attacked them, rebel recruits, armed with picks and shovels, opened a ditch in the road next to the tank that had been destroyed on the 20th, so that between the tank and the ditch, the other two T-17 tanks within the lines were prevented from escaping. They remained isolated, without food or water, until the morning of the 27th when, in another attempt to break the line, two battalions of reinforcements brought from Bayamo advanced with Sherman tanks to the site of the action. Throughout the day of the 27th the reinforcements were fought. At 6:00 p.m., the enemy artillery began a retreat under cover of the Sherman tanks, which succeeded in freeing one of the T-17 tanks that were inside the lines; on the field, full of dead soldiers, an enormous quantity of arms was left behind, including 35,000 bullets, 14 trucks, 200 knapsacks, and a T-17 tank in perfect condition, along with abundant 37-millimeter cannon shot. The action wasn't over – a rebel column intercepted the enemy in retreat along the Central Highway and caused it new casualties, obtaining more ammunition and arms. On the 28th, two rebel squads, led by the captured tank, advanced toward Guisa. At 2:30 a.m. on the 29th, the rebels took up positions, and the tank managed to place itself facing the Guisa army quarters. The enemy, entrenched in numerous buildings, gave intense fire. The tank's cannon had already fired fifty shots when two bazooka shots from the enemy killed its engine, but the tank's cannon continued firing until its ammunition was exhausted and the men inside lowered the cannon tube. Then occurred an act of unparalleled heroism: rebel Lieutenant Leopoldo Cintras Frías, who was operating the tank's machine gun, removed it from the tank, and despite being wounded, crawled under intense crossfire and managed to carry away the heavy weapon. Meanwhile, that same day, four enemy battalions advanced from separate points: along the road from Bayamo to Guisa, along the road from Bayamo to Corojo, and along the one from Santa Rita to Guisa. All of the enemy forces from Bayamo, Manzanillo, Yara, Estrada Palma, and Baire were mobilized to smash us. The column that advanced along the road from Corojo was repulsed after two hours of combat. The advance of the battalions that came along the road from Bayamo to Guisa was halted, and they encamped two kilometers from Guisa; those that advanced along the road from Corralillo were also turned back. The battalions that encamped two kilometers from Guisa tried to advance during the entire day of the 30th; at 4:00 p.m., while our forces were fighting them, the Guisa garrison abandoned the town in hasty flight, leaving behind abundant arms and armaments. At 9:00 p.m., our vanguard entered the town of Guisa. Enemy supplies seized included a T-17 tank—captured, lost, and recaptured; 94 weapons (guns and machine guns, Springfield and Garand); 12 60-millimeter mortars; one 91-millimeter mortar; a bazooka; seven 30-caliber tripod machine guns; 50,000 bullets; 130 Garand grenades; 70 howitzers of 60- and 81-millimeter mortar; 20 bazooka rockets; 200 knapsacks, 160 uniforms, 14 transport trucks; food; and medicine. The army took two hundred losses counting casualties and wounded. We took eight compañeros who died heroically in action, and seven wounded. A squadron of women, the "Mariana Grajales", fought valiantly during the ten days of action, resisting the aerial bombardment and the attack by the enemy artillery. Guisa, twelve kilometers from the military port of Bayamo, is now free Cuban territory. Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots.[1] Similar organizations also formed in the UK, Australia and Canada. The GLF provided a voice for the newly-out and newly-radicalized gay community, and a meeting place for a number of activists who would go on to form other groups, such as the Gay Activists Alliance and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in the US. [2] In the UK and Canada, activists also developed a platform for gay liberation and demonstrated for gay rights. Activists from both the US and UK groups would later go on to found or be active in groups including ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Stonewall.[3] United States 1970s poster used by the US GLF The United States Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots. The riots are considered by many to be the prime catalyst for the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States.[4][5] On June 28, 1969 in Greenwich Village, New York, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a well known gay bar, located on Christopher Street. Police raids of the Stonewall, and other lesbian and gay bars, were a routine practice at the time, with regular payoffs to dirty cops and organized crime figures an expected part of staying in business.[6] The Stonewall Inn was made up of two former horse stables which had been renovated into one building in 1930. Like all gay bars of the era, it was subject to countless police raids, as LGBT activities and fraternization were still largely illegal. But this time, when the police began arresting patrons, the customers began pelting them with coins, and later, bottles and rocks. The lesbian and gay crowd also freed staff members who had been put into police vans, and the outnumbered officers retreated inside the bar. Soon, the Tactical Patrol Force (TPF), originally trained to deal with war protests, were called in to control the mob, which was now using a parking meter as a battering ram. As the patrol force advanced, the crowd did not disperse, but instead doubled back and re-formed behind the riot police, throwing rocks, shouting "Gay Power!", dancing, and taunting their opposition. For the next several nights, the crowd would return in ever increasing numbers, handing out leaflets and rallying themselves. Soon the word "Stonewall" came to represent fighting for equality in the gay community.[citation needed] And in commemoration, Gay Pride marches are held every year on the anniversary of the riots. In early July 1969, due in large part to the Stonewall riots in June of that year, discussions in the gay community led to the formation of the Gay Liberation Front. According to scholar Henry Abelove, it was named GLF "in a provocative allusion to the Algerian National Liberation Front and the Vietnamese National Liberation Front."[7][8] On August 2, 1969, the group held a protest at the Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village and would go on to hold weekly protests there.[9] One of GLF's early acts included organizing a march protesting coverage of gay people by The Village Voice, which took place on September 12, 1969.[10] The GLF had a broad political platform, denouncing racism and declaring support for various Third World struggles and the Black Panther Party. They took an anti-capitalist stance and attacked the nuclear family and traditional gender roles. On October 31, 1969, sixty members of the GLF, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF), and the Gay Guerilla Theatre group staged a protest outside the offices of the San Francisco Examiner in response to a series of news articles disparaging people in San Francisco's gay bars and clubs.[11][12][13][14] The peaceful protest against the Examiner turned tumultuous and was later called "Friday of the Purple Hand" and "Bloody Friday of the Purple Hand".[14][15][16][17][18][19] Examiner employees "dumped a barrel of printers' ink on the crowd from the roof of the newspaper building", according to glbtq.com.[20] Some reports state that it was a barrel of ink poured from the roof of the building.[21] The protesters "used the ink to scrawl slogans on the building walls" and slap purple hand prints "throughout downtown [San Francisco]" resulting in "one of the most visible demonstrations of gay power" according to the Bay Area Reporter.[14][16][19] According to Larry LittleJohn, then president of Society for Individual Rights, "At that point, the tactical squad arrived – not to get the employees who dumped the ink, but to arrest the demonstrators. Somebody could have been hurt if that ink had gotten into their eyes, but the police were knocking people to the ground."[14] The accounts of police brutality include women being thrown to the ground and protesters' teeth being knocked out.[14][22] Inspired by Black Hand extortion methods of Camorra gangsters and the Mafia,[23] some gay and lesbian activists attempted to institute "purple hand" as a warning to stop anti-gay attacks, but with little success.[citation needed] In Turkey, the LGBT rights organization MorEl Eskişehir LGBTT Oluşumu (Purple Hand Eskişehir LGBT Formation), also bears the name of this symbol.[24] Come Out!, the first periodical published by the GLF, came out it November 1969.[25] In 1970, several GLF women, such as Martha Shelley, Lois Hart, Karla Jay,[26] and Michela Griffo went on to form the Lavender Menace, a lesbian activist organization. In 1970, the drag queen caucus of the GLF, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, formed the group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which focused on providing support for gay prisoners, housing for homeless gay youth and street people, especially other young "street queens" [27].[6][28] In 1970, several Black and Latinx members of the GLF, including graphic artist Juan Carlos Vidal and poet Néstor Latrónico, formed Third World Gay Revolution (T.W.G.R.), which attempted to vocalize and combat the triple oppression of heterosexism, racism, and classism experienced by queer people of color. Another chapter of T.W.G.R. opened in Chicago shortly after the original group formed in New York.[29][30][31] In 1970, the GLF, led by Gary Alinder, protested the American Psychiatric Association's classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. In 1970 "The U.S. Mission" had a permit to use a campground in the Sequoia National Forest. Once it was learned that the group was sponsored by the GLF, the Sequoia National Forest supervisor cancelled the permit, and the campground was closed for the period.[32] United Kingdom 1971 GLF cover version of Ink magazine, UK ... if we are to succeed in transforming our society we must persuade others of the merits of our ideas, and there is no way we can achieve this if we cannot even persuade those most affected by our oppression to join us in fighting for justice. We do not intend to ask for anything. We intend to stand firm and assert our basic rights. If this involves violence, it will not be we who initiate this, but those who attempt to stand in our way to freedom. —GLF Manifesto, 1971[33] The UK Gay Liberation Front existed between 1970–1973.[34] Its first meeting was held in the basement of the London School of Economics on 13 October 1970. Bob Mellors and Aubrey Walter had seen the effect of the GLF in the United States and created a parallel movement based on revolutionary politics.[35] Come Together, the organisation's newspaper, came out of its Media Workshop the same year.[36] By 1971, the UK GLF was recognized as a political movement in the national press, holding weekly meetings of 200 to 300 people.[37] The GLF Manifesto was published, and a series of high-profile direct actions, were carried out, such as the disruption of the launch of the Church-based morality campaign, Festival of Light.[38] The disruption of the opening of the 1971 Festival of Light was one of the most well-organised GLF actions. The first meeting of the Festival of Light was organised by Mary Whitehouse at Methodist Central Hall. Amongst GLF members taking part in this protest were the "Radical Feminists", a group of gender non-conforming males in drag, who invaded and spontaneously kissed each other;[39] others released mice, sounded horns, and unveiled banners, and a contingent dressed as workmen obtained access to the basement and shut off the lights.[40] Easter 1972 saw the Gay Lib annual conference held in the Guild of Students building at the University of Birmingham.[41] Birmingham GLF marching in Kings Heath / Moseley, Birmingham 1975 By 1974, internal disagreements had led to the movement's splintering. Organizations that spun off from the movement included the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, Gay News, and Icebreakers. The GLF Information Service continued for a few further years providing gay related resources.[35] GLF branches had been set up in some provincial British towns (e.g., Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, and Leicester) and some survived for a few years longer. The Leicester Gay Liberation Front founded by Jeff Martin was noted for its involvement in the setting up of the local "Gayline", which is still active today and has received funding from the National Lottery. They also carried out a high-profile campaign against the local paper, the Leicester Mercury, which refused to advertise Gayline's services at the time.[42][43] The papers of the GLF are among the Hall-Carpenter Archives at the London School of Economics.[44] Several members of the GLF, including Peter Tatchell, continued campaigning beyond the 1970s under the organisation of OutRage!, which was founded in 1990 and dissolved in 2011, using similar tactics to the GLF (such as "zaps"[45] and performance protest[46]) to attract a significant level of media interest and controversy.[citation needed] It was at this point that a divide emerged within the gay activist movement, mainly due to a difference in ideologies,[3] after which a number of groups including Organization for Lesbian and Gay Alliance (OLGA), the Lesbian Avengers, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, Dykes And Faggots Together (DAFT), Queer Nation, Stonewall (which focused on lobbying tactics) and OutRage! co-existed.[3] These groups were very influential following the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 1990s and the violence against lesbians and gay men that followed.[3] Canada The first gay liberation groups identifying with the Gay Liberation Front movement in Canada were in Montreal, Quebec. The Front de Libération Homosexual (FLH) was formed in November 1970, in response to a call for organised activist groups in the city by the publication Mainmise.[47] Another factor in the group's formation was the response from police against gay establishments in the city after the suspension of civil liberties by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the fall of 1970.[47] This group was short-lived; they were disbanded after over forty members were charged for failure to procure a liquor license at one of the group's events in 1972.[47] A Vancouver, British Columbia group calling itself the Vancouver Gay Liberation Front emerged in 1971, mostly out of meetings from a local commune, called Pink Cheeks. The group gained support from The Georgia Straight, a left-leaning newspaper, and opened a drop-in centre and published a newsletter.[47] The group struggled to maintain a core group of members, and competition from other local groups, such as the Canadian Gay Activists Alliance (CGAA) and the Gay Alliance Toward Equality (GATE), soon led to its demise.[48] Denmark Bøssernes Befrielsesfront [da] (BBF; lit. The Gays' Liberation Front) was founded in Copenhagen in 1971, the name inspired by the American Gay Liberation Front. BBF was opposed to the already-established gay rights group "Forbundet af 1948" for being too formal. BBF's activities included going to schools to educate about how it was like being gay, and civil disobedience against the law that prohibited men from publicly dancing together, which was eventually repealed in 1973. The group regularly met at "Bøssehuset" (lit. The gay house) in Christiania.[49][50] New Zealand Further information: LGBT in New Zealand Women's Liberation and Māori activist Ngahuia Te Awekotuku initiated the foundation of the Auckland Gay Liberation Front in March 1972, alongside fellow University of Auckland students Nigel Baumber, Ray Waru, and others. In the following months Gay Liberation Fronts established in Wellington, Christchurch and Hamilton, with further groups founded in Rotorua, Nelson, Taranaki, and other places between 1973 and 1977. Gay Liberation groups carried out numerous direct action protests, including guerilla theatre performances, zaps, disrupting meetings of anti-gay groups like the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards, and pickets.[51] Supporting the wellbeing of gays and helping them to come out was an early concern of the movement, leading to the formation of counselling services such as Gay-Aid in Wellington and Gays-An in Christchurch. A "Gay Week" was held from 29 May to 3 June 1972, featuring guerrilla theatre, a forum, dance, and teach-in.[52] Gay Liberation organizations were not always successful in these aims; sexism and transphobia in the movement also led to the establishment of separate lesbian-feminist and trans organizations, such as SHE - Sisters for Homophile Equality - founded in Christchurch in September 1973. Gay Liberation chapters also worked alongside groups such as Hedesthia, a social and political organization for transvestites and transsexuals.[53] See also LGBT portal Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) during one of its street theatre performances in London Gay Activists Alliance Gay Left, UK gay collective and journal Hall-Carpenter archives List of LGBT rights organizations Notable members of the GLF in London: Sam Green, Angela Mason, Mary Susan McIntosh, Bob Mellors, Peter Tatchell, Alan Wakeman Notable members of the GLF in the USA: Arthur Bell, Arthur Evans, Tom Brougham, N. A. Diaman, Jim Fouratt, Harry Hay, Brenda Howard, Karla Jay, Marsha P. Johnson, Charles Pitts, Sylvia Rivera, Martha Shelley, Jim Toy, Dan C. Tsang, Allen Young Notable members of the GLF in New Zealand: Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Robin Duff, Peter Wells, Bruce Burnett, Roger Blackley OutRage! Socialism and LGBT rights Stonewall riots Stonewall UK The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community[note 1] in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, and neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.[5][6][7] As was common for American gay bars at the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia.[8][9][10] While police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Tensions between New York City Police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding the right to live openly regarding their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested. The new activist organizations concentrated on confrontational tactics, and within months three newspapers were established to promote rights for gay men and lesbians. A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.[11] Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. Today, LGBT Pride events are held annually worldwide in June in honor of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall National Monument was established at the site in 2016.[12] An estimated 5 million participants commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising,[13] and on June 6, 2019, New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill rendered a formal apology for the actions of officers at Stonewall in 1969.[14][15] Background Very few establishments welcomed gay people in the 1950s and 1960s; those that did were often run by organized crime groups, due to the illegal nature of gay bars at the time. The homophobic legal system of the 1950s and 1960s[note 2][16] prompted early homosexual groups in the US to prove gay people could be assimilated into society, and such early groups favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. However, the last years of the 1960s saw activity among many social/political movements, including the civil rights movement, the counterculture of the 1960s, and the anti-Vietnam War movement. Such influences served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. Homosexuality in 20th-century United States Further information: LGBT history in the United States and Lavender scare Following the social upheaval of World War II, many people in the United States felt a fervent desire to "restore the prewar social order and hold off the forces of change", according to historian Barry Adam.[19] Spurred by the national emphasis on anti-communism, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted hearings searching for communists in the US government, the US Army, and other government-funded agencies and institutions, leading to a national paranoia. Anarchists, communists, and other people deemed un-American and subversive were considered security risks. Gay men and lesbians were included in this list by the US State Department on the theory that they were susceptible to blackmail. In 1950, a Senate investigation chaired by Clyde R. Hoey noted in a report, "It is generally believed that those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons",[20] and said all of the government's intelligence agencies "are in complete agreement that sex perverts in Government constitute security risks".[21] Between 1947 and 1950, 1,700 federal job applications were denied, 4,380 people were discharged from the military, and 420 were fired from their government jobs for being suspected homosexuals.[22] Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police departments kept lists of known homosexuals and their favored establishments and friends; the US Post Office kept track of addresses where material pertaining to homosexuality was mailed.[23] State and local governments followed suit: bars catering to gay men and lesbians were shut down and their customers were arrested and exposed in newspapers. Cities performed "sweeps" to rid neighborhoods, parks, bars, and beaches of gay people. They outlawed the wearing of opposite-gender clothes and universities expelled instructors suspected of being homosexual.[24] In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) as a mental disorder. A large-scale study of homosexuality in 1962 was used to justify the inclusion of the "disorder" as a supposed pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex caused by traumatic parent–child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession.[25] In 1956, however, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference.[26] Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay men and lesbians,[27] but homosexuality remained in the DSM until 1974.[28] Homophile activism Main article: Homophile movement In response to this trend, two organizations formed independently of each other to advance the cause of gay men and lesbians and provide social opportunities where they could socialize without fear of being arrested. Los Angeles area homosexuals created the Mattachine Society in 1950, in the home of communist activist Harry Hay.[29] Their objectives were to unify homosexuals, educate them, provide leadership, and assist "sexual deviants" with legal troubles.[30] Facing enormous opposition to their radical approach, in 1953 the Mattachine shifted their focus to assimilation and respectability. They reasoned that they would change more minds about homosexuality by proving that gay men and lesbians were normal people, no different from heterosexuals.[31][32] Soon after, several women in San Francisco met in their living rooms to form the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) for lesbians.[33] Although the eight women who created the DOB initially came together to be able to have a safe place to dance, as the DOB grew they developed similar goals to the Mattachine and urged their members to assimilate into general society.[34] One of the first challenges to government repression came in 1953. An organization named ONE, Inc. published a magazine called ONE. The US Postal Service refused to mail its August issue, which concerned homosexual people in heterosexual marriages, on the grounds that the material was obscene despite it being covered in brown paper wrapping. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, which in 1958 ruled that ONE, Inc. could mail its materials through the Postal Service.[35] Homophile organizations—as homosexual groups self-identified in this era—grew in number and spread to the East Coast. Gradually, members of these organizations grew bolder. Frank Kameny founded the Mattachine of Washington, D.C. He had been fired from the US Army Map Service for being a homosexual and sued unsuccessfully to be reinstated. Kameny wrote that homosexuals were no different from heterosexuals, often aiming his efforts at mental health professionals, some of whom attended Mattachine and DOB meetings telling members they were abnormal.[36] In 1965, news on Cuban prison work camps for homosexuals inspired Mattachine New York and D.C. to organize protests at the United Nations and the White House. Similar demonstrations were then held also at other government buildings. The purpose was to protest the treatment of gay people in Cuba[37][38] and US employment discrimination. These pickets shocked many gay people and upset some of the leadership of Mattachine and the DOB.[39][40] At the same time, demonstrations in the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War all grew in prominence, frequency, and severity throughout the 1960s, as did their confrontations with police forces.[41] Earlier resistance and riots Main article: List of LGBT actions in the United States prior to the Stonewall riots See also: Cooper Do-nuts Riot and Compton's Cafeteria riot On the outer fringes of the few small gay communities were people who challenged gender expectations. They were effeminate men and masculine women, or people who dressed and lived in contrast to their sex assigned at birth, either part or full-time. Contemporaneous nomenclature classified them as transvestites and they were the most visible representatives of sexual minorities. They believed the carefully crafted image portrayed by the Mattachine Society and DOB asserted homosexuals were respectable, normal people.[42] The Mattachine and DOB considered the trials of being arrested for wearing clothing of the opposite gender as a parallel to the struggles of homophile organizations: similar but distinctly separate. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people staged a small riot at the Cooper Do-nuts cafe in Los Angeles in 1959 in response to police harassment.[43] In a larger 1966 event in San Francisco, drag queens, hustlers, and trans women[44] were sitting in Compton's Cafeteria when the police arrived to arrest people appearing to be physically male who were dressed as women. A riot ensued, with the cafeteria patrons slinging cups, plates, and saucers and breaking the plexiglass windows in the front of the restaurant and returning several days later to smash the windows again after they were replaced.[45] Professor Susan Stryker classifies the Compton's Cafeteria riot as an "act of anti-transgender discrimination, rather than an act of discrimination against sexual orientation" and connects the uprising to the issues of gender, race, and class that were being downplayed by homophile organizations.[42] It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.[45] Greenwich Village A color photograph of Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village The Manhattan neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Harlem were home to sizable gay and lesbian populations after World War I, when people who had served in the military took advantage of the opportunity to settle in larger cities. The enclaves of gay men and lesbians, described by a newspaper story as "short-haired women and long-haired men", developed a distinct subculture through the following two decades.[46] Prohibition inadvertently benefited gay establishments, as drinking alcohol was pushed underground along with other behaviors considered immoral. New York City passed laws against homosexuality in public and private businesses, but because alcohol was in high demand, speakeasies and impromptu drinking establishments were so numerous and temporary that authorities were unable to police them all.[47] However, police raids continued, resulting in the closure of iconic establishments such as Eve's Hangout in 1926.[48] The social repression of the 1950s resulted in a cultural revolution in Greenwich Village. A cohort of poets, later named the Beat poets, wrote about the evils of the social organization at the time, glorifying anarchy, drugs, and hedonistic pleasures over unquestioning social compliance, consumerism, and closed-mindedness. Of them, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs—both Greenwich Village residents—also wrote bluntly and honestly about homosexuality. Their writings attracted sympathetic liberal-minded people, as well as homosexuals looking for a community.[49] By the early 1960s, a campaign to rid New York City of gay bars was in full effect by order of Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., who was concerned about the image of the city in preparation for the 1964 World's Fair. The city revoked the liquor licenses of the bars and undercover police officers worked to entrap as many homosexual men as possible.[50] Entrapment usually consisted of an undercover officer who found a man in a bar or public park, engaged him in conversation; if the conversation headed toward the possibility that they might leave together—or the officer bought the man a drink—he was arrested for solicitation. One story in the New York Post described an arrest in a gym locker room, where the officer grabbed his crotch, moaning and a man who asked him if he was all right was arrested.[51] Few lawyers would defend cases as undesirable as these and some of those lawyers kicked back their fees to the arresting officer.[52] The Mattachine Society succeeded in getting newly elected mayor John Lindsay to end the campaign of police entrapment in New York City. They had a more difficult time with the New York State Liquor Authority (SLA). While no laws prohibited serving homosexuals, courts allowed the SLA discretion in approving and revoking liquor licenses for businesses that might become "disorderly".[10][53] Despite the high population of gay men and lesbians who called Greenwich Village home, very few places existed, other than bars, where they were able to congregate openly without being harassed or arrested. In 1966 the New York Mattachine held a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar named Julius, which was frequented by gay men, to illustrate the discrimination homosexuals faced.[54] None of the bars frequented by gay men and lesbians were owned by gay people. Almost all of them were owned and controlled by organized crime, who treated the regulars poorly, watered down the liquor, and overcharged for drinks. However, they also paid off police to prevent frequent raids.[10][55] Stonewall Inn Main article: Stonewall Inn MapWikimedia | © OpenStreetMap [Interactive fullscreen map + nearby articles] Location of the Stonewall Inn in relation to Greenwich Village 1 Stonewall Inn 2 Christopher Park 3 Sheridan Square The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese crime family.[8][10] In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub for heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff known as a gayola, as the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license.[56][57] It had no running water behind the bar—dirty glasses were run through tubs of water and immediately reused.[10][55] There were no fire exits, and the toilets overran consistently.[58] Though the bar was not used for prostitution, drug sales and other black market activities took place. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed;[59] dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club.[60] Visitors to the Stonewall Inn in 1969 were greeted by a bouncer who inspected them through a peephole in the door. The legal drinking age was 18 and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"[61]), visitors would have to be known by the doorman or look gay. Patrons were required to sign their names in a book to prove that the bar was a private "bottle club", but they rarely signed their real names.[10] There were two dance floors in the Stonewall. The interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights. If police were spotted, regular white lights were turned on, signaling that everyone should stop dancing or touching.[61] In the rear of the bar was a smaller room frequented by "queens"; it was one of two bars where effeminate men who wore makeup and teased their hair (though dressed in men's clothing) could go.[62] Only a few people in full drag were allowed in by the bouncers. The customers were "98 percent male" but a few lesbians sometimes came to the bar. Younger homeless adolescent males, who slept in nearby Christopher Park, would often try to get in so customers would buy them drinks.[63] The age of the clientele ranged between the upper teens and early thirties and the racial mix was distributed among mainly white, with Black, and Hispanic patrons.[62][64] Because of its mix of people, its location, and the attraction of dancing, the Stonewall Inn was known by many as "the gay bar in the city".[65] Police raids on gay bars were frequent, occurring on average once a month for each bar. Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized.[8][10] Bar management usually knew about raids beforehand due to police tip-offs, and raids occurred early enough in the evening that business could commence after the police had finished.[66] During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing and would be arrested if found not wearing them. Typically, employees and management of the bars were also arrested.[66] The period immediately before June 28, 1969, was marked by frequent raids of local bars—including a raid at the Stonewall Inn on the Tuesday before the riots[67]—and the closing of the Checkerboard, the Tele-Star, and two other clubs in Greenwich Village.[68][69] Historian David Carter presents information[70] indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked in the Financial District.[10] They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently. Riots Police raid A color digital illustration of the station layout of the Stonewall Inn in 1969: a rectangular building with the front along Christopher Street; the entrance opens to a lobby where patrons could go to the larger part of the bar to the right that also featured a larger dance floor. From that room was an entrance to a smaller room with a smaller dance floor and smaller bar. The toilets are located near the rear of the building Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969[71] The sign left by police following the raid is now on display just inside the entrance. Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen entered the bar early that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once ready, the undercover officers called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom. According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, Detective Charles Smythe, and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!"[72] The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 205 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. Michael Fader remembered, Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar. The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any people appearing to be physically male and dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those suspected of cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. Both patrons and police recalled that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, spurred by police who began to assault some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.[73] When did you ever see a fag fight back? ... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit ... Predominantly, the theme [w]as, "this shit has got to stop!" —anonymous Stonewall riots participant[74] The police were to transport the bar's alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight cases of beer and nineteen bottles of hard liquor were seized, but the patrol wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons were required to wait in line for about 15 minutes.[75] Those who were not arrested were released from the front door, but they did not leave quickly as usual. Instead, they stopped outside and a crowd began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside the Stonewall and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion. The crowd's applause encouraged them further.[76] When the first patrol wagon arrived, Inspector Pine recalled that the crowd—most of whom were homosexual—had grown to at least ten times the number of people who were arrested and they all became very quiet.[77] Confusion over radio communication delayed the arrival of a second wagon. The police began escorting Mafia members into the first wagon, to the cheers of the bystanders. Next, regular employees were loaded into the wagon. A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", someone began singing "We Shall Overcome" and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with "growing and intensive hostility".[78] An officer shoved a person in drag, who responded by hitting him on the head with his purse as the crowd began to boo. Author Edmund White, who had been passing by, recalled, "Everyone's restless, angry, and high-spirited. No one has a slogan, no one even has an attitude, but something's brewing."[79] Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten. A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke–stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.[80] Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown (Stormé DeLarverie has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman, but accounts vary[81][note 3]), sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon,[84] the crowd became a mob and became violent.[85][86] Violence breaks out The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, knocking a few people down, which incited bystanders even more. Some of those handcuffed in the wagon escaped when police left them unattended (deliberately, according to some witnesses).[note 4][88] As the crowd tried to overturn the police wagon, two police cars and the wagon—with a few slashed tires—left immediately, with Inspector Pine urging them to return as soon as possible. The commotion attracted more people who learned what was happening. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar had been raided because "they didn't pay off the cops", to which someone else yelled, "Let's pay them off!"[89] Coins sailed through the air towards the police as the crowd shouted "Pigs!" and "Faggot cops!" Beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd who found a construction site nearby with stacks of bricks. The police, outnumbered by between 500 and 600 people, grabbed several people, including activist folk singer (and mentor of Bob Dylan) Dave Van Ronk—who had been attracted to the revolt from a bar two doors away from the Stonewall. Though Van Ronk was not gay, he had experienced police violence when he participated in antiwar demonstrations: "As far as I was concerned, anybody who'd stand against the cops was all right with me and that's why I stayed in ... Every time you turned around the cops were pulling some outrage or another."[89] Van Ronk was the first of thirteen arrested that night.[90] Ten police officers—including two policewomen—barricaded themselves, Van Ronk, Howard Smith (a column writer for The Village Voice), and several handcuffed detainees inside the Stonewall Inn for their own safety. Multiple accounts of the riot assert that there was no pre-existing organization or apparent cause for the demonstration; what ensued was spontaneous.[note 5] Michael Fader explained:[93] We all had a collective feeling like we'd had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in the one particular place and it was not an organized demonstration ... Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us ... All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just kind of ran its course. It was the police who were doing most of the destruction. We were really trying to get back in and break free. And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren't going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it's like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way and that's what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue and we're going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren't going to go away. And we didn't. A black and white photograph showing the backs of three uniformed police officers and a man with short-cropped hair in a suit pushing back a crowd of young men with longer hair dressed in jeans and contemporary clothing for the late 1960s, arguing and defying the police; other people in the background on a stoop are watching This photograph – the only known photo of the riots – appeared on the front page of The New York Daily News on Sunday, June 29, 1969. Here the "street kids" who were the first to fight back against the police are seen. The only known photograph taken during the first night of the riots, taken by freelance photographer Joseph Ambrosini, shows the homeless gay youth who slept in nearby Christopher Park, scuffling with police. Jackie Hormona and Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt are on the far left.[1][94] The Mattachine Society newsletter a month later offered its explanation of why the riots occurred: "It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in, or cannot afford, other places of homosexual social gathering ... The Stonewall became home to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant and broadminded gay place in town, explains why."[95] Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that "flame queens", hustlers, and gay "street kids"—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.[96] The mob lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as the police grabbed a fire hose. Because it had no water pressure, the hose was ineffective in dispersing the crowd and seemed only to encourage them.[97] Marsha P. Johnson later said that it was the police that had started the fire in the bar.[98][note 6] When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by plywood by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. Howard Smith, in the bar with the police, took a wrench from the bar and stuffed it in his pants, unsure if he might have to use it against the mob or the police. He watched someone squirt lighter fluid into the bar; as it was lit and the police took aim, sirens were heard and fire trucks arrived. The onslaught had lasted 45 minutes.[101] When the violence broke out, the women and transmasculine people being held down the street at The Women's House of Detention joined in by chanting, setting fire to their belongings and tossing them into the street below. The historian Hugh Ryan says, "When I would talk to people about Stonewall, they would tell me, that night on Stonewall, we looked to the prison because we saw the women rioting and chanting, "Gay rights, gay rights, gay rights."[102] Escalation The Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) of the New York City Police Department arrived to free the police trapped inside the Stonewall. One officer's eye was cut and a few others were bruised from being struck by flying debris. Bob Kohler, who was walking his dog by the Stonewall that night, saw the TPF arrive: "I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over ... The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been because everybody else had rioted ... but the fairies were not supposed to riot ... no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill."[103] With larger numbers, police detained anyone they could and put them in patrol wagons to go to jail, though Inspector Pine recalled, "Fights erupted with the transvestites, who wouldn't go into the patrol wagon." His recollection was corroborated by another witness across the street who said, "All I could see about who was fighting was that it was transvestites and they were fighting furiously."[104] The TPF formed a phalanx and attempted to clear the streets by marching slowly and pushing the crowd back. The mob openly mocked the police. The crowd cheered, started impromptu kick lines and sang to the tune of "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay": "We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don't wear underwear/ We show our pubic hair."[105][106][note 7] Lucian Truscott reported in The Village Voice: "A stagnant situation there brought on some gay tomfoolery in the form of a chorus line facing the line of helmeted and club-carrying cops. Just as the line got into a full kick routine, the TPF advanced again and cleared the crowd of screaming gay power[-]ites down Christopher to Seventh Avenue."[107] One participant who had been in the Stonewall during the raid recalled, "The police rushed us and that's when I realized this is not a good thing to do, because they got me in the back with a nightstick." Another account stated, "I just can't ever get that one sight out of my mind. The cops with the [nightsticks] and the kick line on the other side. It was the most amazing thing ... And all the sudden that kick line, which I guess was a spoof on the machismo ... I think that's when I felt rage. Because people were getting smashed with bats. And for what? A kick line."[108] Marsha P. Johnson, an African-American street queen,[109][110][111] recalled arriving at the bar around "2:00 [am]", and that at that point the riots were well underway, with the building in flames.[98] As the riots went on into the early hours of the morning, Johnson, along with Zazu Nova and Jackie Hormona, were noted as "three individuals known to have been in the vanguard" of the pushback against the police.[112] Craig Rodwell, owner of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, reported watching police chase participants through the crooked streets, only to see them appear around the next corner behind the police. Members of the mob stopped cars, overturning one of them to block Christopher Street. Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke, in their column printed in Screw, declared that "massive crowds of angry protesters chased [the police] for blocks screaming, 'Catch them!'"[107] A color photograph of Christopher Park in winter, showing the wrought iron entrance arch in the foreground and the brick pavement surrounded by five and six-story brick buildings; in the center background are four white statue figures: two males standing, one with his hand on the other's shoulder and two females seated on a park bench, one woman with her hand touching the other's thigh. All are dressed in jeans and loose clothing Christopher Park, where many of the demonstrators met after the first night of rioting to talk about what had happened. It is now the site of the Gay Liberation Monument, featuring a sculpture of four figures by George Segal.[113] By 4:00 a.m., the streets had nearly been cleared. Many people sat on stoops or gathered nearby in Christopher Park throughout the morning, dazed in disbelief at what had transpired. Many witnesses remembered the surreal and eerie quiet that descended upon Christopher Street, though there continued to be "electricity in the air".[114] One commented: "There was a certain beauty in the aftermath of the riot ... It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay and, you know, this was our street."[115] Thirteen people had been arrested. Some in the crowd were hospitalized,[note 8] and four police officers were injured. Almost everything in the Stonewall Inn was broken. Inspector Pine had intended to close and dismantle the Stonewall Inn that night. Pay phones, toilets, mirrors, jukeboxes, and cigarette machines were all smashed, possibly in the riot and possibly by the police.[101][117] Second night of rioting During the siege of the Stonewall, Craig Rodwell called The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Daily News to tell them what was happening. All three papers covered the riots; the Daily News placed coverage on the front page. News of the riot spread quickly throughout Greenwich Village, fueled by rumors that it had been organized by the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, or triggered by "a homosexual police officer whose roommate went dancing at the Stonewall against the officer's wishes".[68] All day Saturday, June 28, people came to stare at the burned and blackened Stonewall Inn. Graffiti appeared on the walls of the bar, declaring "Drag power", "They invaded our rights", "Support gay power" and "Legalize gay bars", along with accusations of police looting and—regarding the status of the bar—"We are open."[68][118] The next night, rioting again surrounded Christopher Street; participants remember differently which night was more frantic or violent. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening—hustlers, street youths, and "queens"—but they were joined by "police provocateurs", curious bystanders, and even tourists.[119] Remarkable to many was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness: "From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets."[120] Thousands of people had gathered in front of the Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street until the crowd spilled into adjoining blocks. The throng surrounded buses and cars, harassing the occupants unless they either admitted they were gay or indicated their support for the demonstrators.[121] Marsha P. Johnson was seen climbing a lamppost and dropping a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield.[122] As on the previous evening, fires were started in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood. More than a hundred police were present from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Precincts, but after 2:00 a.m. the TPF arrived again. Kick lines and police chases waxed and waned; when police captured demonstrators, whom the majority of witnesses described as "sissies" or "swishes", the crowd surged to recapture them.[123] Again, street battling ensued until 4:00 a.m.[122] Beat poet and longtime Greenwich Village resident Allen Ginsberg lived on Christopher Street and happened upon the jubilant chaos. After he learned of the riot that had occurred the previous evening, he stated, "Gay power! Isn't that great! ... It's about time we did something to assert ourselves" and visited the open Stonewall Inn for the first time. While walking home, he declared to Lucian Truscott, "You know, the guys there were so beautiful—they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago."[124] Leaflets, press coverage, and more violence Activity in Greenwich Village was sporadic on Monday and Tuesday, partly due to rain. Police and Village residents had a few altercations, as both groups antagonized each other. Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant took the opportunity the morning after the first riot to print and distribute 5,000 leaflets, one of them reading: "Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars." The leaflets called for gay people to own their own establishments, for a boycott of the Stonewall and other Mafia-owned bars, and for public pressure on the mayor's office to investigate the "intolerable situation".[125][126] Not everyone in the gay community considered the revolt a positive development. To many older homosexuals and many members of the Mattachine Society who had worked throughout the 1960s to promote homosexuals as no different from heterosexuals, the display of violence and effeminate behavior was embarrassing. Randy Wicker, who had marched in the first gay picket lines before the White House in 1965, said the "screaming queens forming chorus lines and kicking went against everything that I wanted people to think about homosexuals ... that we were a bunch of drag queens in the Village acting disorderly and tacky and cheap."[127] Others found the closing of the Stonewall Inn, termed a "sleaze joint", as advantageous to the Village.[128] On Wednesday, however, The Village Voice ran reports of the riots, written by Howard Smith and Lucian Truscott, that included unflattering descriptions of the events and its participants: "forces of faggotry", "limp wrists" and "Sunday fag follies".[129][note 9] A mob descended upon Christopher Street once again and threatened to burn down the offices of The Village Voice. Also in the mob of between 500 and 1,000 were other groups that had had unsuccessful confrontations with the police and were curious how the police were defeated in this situation. Another explosive street battle took place, with injuries to demonstrators and police alike, local shops getting looted, and arrests of five people.[130][131] The incidents on Wednesday night lasted about an hour and were summarized by one witness: "The word is out. Christopher Street shall be liberated. The fags have had it with oppression."[132] Aftermath The feeling of urgency spread throughout Greenwich Village, even to people who had not witnessed the riots. Many who were moved by the rebellion attended organizational meetings, sensing an opportunity to take action. On July 4, 1969, the Mattachine Society performed its annual picket in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, called the Annual Reminder. Organizers Craig Rodwell, Frank Kameny, Randy Wicker, Barbara Gittings, and Kay Lahusen, who had all participated for several years, took a bus along with other picketers from New York City to Philadelphia. Since 1965, the pickets had been very controlled: women wore skirts and men wore suits and ties and all marched quietly in organized lines.[133] This year Rodwell remembered feeling restricted by the rules Kameny had set. When two women spontaneously held hands, Kameny broke them apart, saying, "None of that! None of that!" Rodwell, however, convinced about ten couples to hold hands. The hand-holding couples made Kameny furious, but they earned more press attention than all of the previous marches.[134][135] Participant Lilli Vincenz remembered, "It was clear that things were changing. People who had felt oppressed now felt empowered."[134] Rodwell returned to New York City determined to change the established quiet, meek ways of trying to get attention. One of his first priorities was planning Christopher Street Liberation Day.[136] Gay rights demonstration in Trafalgar Square, London, including members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). The GLF in the UK held its first meeting in a basement classroom at the London School of Economics on October 13, 1970. The organization was very informal, instituting marches and other activities, leading to the first British Gay Pride March in 1972. Gay Liberation Front Although the Mattachine Society had existed since the 1950s, many of their methods now seemed too mild for people who had witnessed or been inspired by the riots. Mattachine recognized the shift in attitudes in a story from their newsletter entitled, "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World."[137][note 10] When a Mattachine officer suggested an "amicable and sweet" candlelight vigil demonstration, a man in the audience fumed and shouted, "Sweet! Bullshit! That's the role society has been forcing these queens to play."[138] With a flyer announcing: "Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your Sweet Ass We Are!",[138] the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was soon formed, the first gay organization to use gay in its name. Previous organizations such as the Mattachine Society, the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), and various homophile groups had masked their purpose by deliberately choosing obscure names.[139] The rise of militancy became apparent to Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings—who had worked in homophile organizations for years and were both very public about their roles—when they attended a GLF meeting to see the new group. A young GLF member demanded to know who they were and what their credentials were. Gittings, nonplussed, stammered, "I'm gay. That's why I'm here."[140] The GLF borrowed tactics from and aligned themselves with black and antiwar demonstrators with the ideal that they "could work to restructure American society".[141] They took on causes of the Black Panthers, marching to the Women's House of Detention in support of Afeni Shakur and other radical New Left causes. Four months after the group formed, however, it disbanded when members were unable to agree on operating procedure.[142] Gay Activists Alliance Within six months of the Stonewall riots, activists started a citywide newspaper called Gay; they considered it necessary because the most liberal publication in the city—The Village Voice—refused to print the word gay in GLF advertisements seeking new members and volunteers.[143] Two other newspapers were initiated within a six-week period: Come Out! and Gay Power; the readership of these three periodicals quickly climbed to between 20,000 and 25,000.[144][145] GLF members organized several same-sex dances, but GLF meetings were chaotic. When Bob Kohler asked for clothes and money to help the homeless youth who had participated in the riots, many of whom slept in Christopher Park or Sheridan Square, the response was a discussion on the downfall of capitalism.[146] In late December 1969, several people who had visited GLF meetings and left out of frustration formed the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA). The GAA was to be more orderly and entirely focused on gay issues. Their constitution began, "We as liberated homosexual activists demand the freedom for expression of our dignity and value as human beings."[147] The GAA developed and perfected a confrontational tactic called a zap: they would catch a politician off guard during a public relations opportunity and force him or her to acknowledge gay and lesbian rights. City councilmen were zapped and mayor John Lindsay was zapped several times—once on television when GAA members made up the majority of the audience.[148] Police raids on gay bars did not stop after the Stonewall riots. In March 1970, deputy inspector Seymour Pine raided the Zodiac and 17 Barrow Street. An after-hours gay club with no liquor or occupancy licenses called The Snake Pit was soon raided and 167 people were arrested. One of them was Diego Viñales, an Argentinian national so frightened that he might be deported as a homosexual that he tried to escape the police precinct by jumping out of a two-story window, impaling himself on a 14-inch (36 cm) spike fence.[149] The New York Daily News printed a graphic photo of the young man's impalement on the front page. GAA members organized a march from Christopher Park to the Sixth Precinct in which hundreds of gay men, lesbians, and liberal sympathizers peacefully confronted the TPF.[144] They also sponsored a letter-writing campaign to Mayor Lindsay in which the Greenwich Village Democratic Party and congressman Ed Koch sent pleas to end raids on gay bars in the city.[150] The Stonewall Inn lasted only a few weeks after the riot. By October 1969 it was up for rent. Village residents surmised it was too notorious a location and Rodwell's boycott discouraged business.[151] Gay Pride Main article: NYC Pride March § Origins Christopher Street Liberation Day, on June 28, 1970, marked the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots with an assembly on Christopher Street; with simultaneous Gay Pride marches in Los Angeles and Chicago, these were the first Gay Pride marches in US history.[152][153] The next year, Gay Pride marches took place in Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee, London, Paris, West Berlin and Stockholm.[154] The march in New York covered 51 blocks, from Christopher Street to Central Park. The march took less than half the scheduled time due to excitement, but also due to wariness about walking through the city with gay banners and signs. Although the parade permit was delivered only two hours before the start of the march, the marchers encountered little resistance from onlookers.[155] The New York Times reported (on the front page) that the marchers took up the entire street for about 15 city blocks.[156] Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing "the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago".[154] There was little open animosity and some bystanders applauded when a tall, pretty girl carrying a sign "I am a Lesbian" walked by. —The New York Times coverage of Gay Liberation Day, 1970[156] By 1972, the participating cities included Atlanta, Buffalo, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Miami, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia,[157] as well as San Francisco. Frank Kameny soon realized the pivotal change brought by the Stonewall riots. An organizer of gay activism in the 1950s, he was used to persuasion, trying to convince heterosexuals that gay people were no different from them. When he and other people marched in front of the White House, the State Department, and Independence Hall only five years earlier, their objective was to look as if they could work for the US government.[158] Ten people marched with Kameny then and they alerted no press to their intentions. Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, "By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year later there were at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that a count could be made, it was twenty-five hundred."[159] Similar to Kameny's regret at his own reaction to the shift in attitudes after the riots, Randy Wicker came to describe his embarrassment as "one of the greatest mistakes of his life".[160] The image of gay people retaliating against police, after so many years of allowing such treatment to go unchallenged, "stirred an unexpected spirit among many homosexuals".[160] Kay Lahusen, who photographed the marches in 1965, stated, "Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile movement ... Many new activists consider the Stonewall uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly, it was the birth of gay pride on a massive scale."[161] David Carter, in his article "What made Stonewall different", explained that even though there were several uprisings before Stonewall, the reason Stonewall was so significant was that thousands of people were involved, the riot lasted a long time (six days), it was the first to get major media coverage, and it sparked the formation of many gay rights groups.[162] Legacy The Stonewall riots are often considered to be the origin or impetus of the gay liberation movement, and many studies of LGBT history in the U.S. are divided into pre- and post-Stonewall analyses.[157] However, this has been criticized by historians of sexuality. Calls for the rights of gender and sexual minorities predate the Stonewall riots,[note 11] and there was already the emergence of a gay liberation movement in New York at the time of the riots. The Stonewall riots were not the only time LGBT people organized politically amid attacks on LGBT establishments. However, the event has been said to occupy a unique place in the collective memory of many LGBT people,[157] including those outside of the United States,[163] as it "is marked by an international commemorative ritual – an annual gay pride parade", according to sociologist Elizabeth A. Armstrong.[157] Community Banner reading "Stonewall was a riot" pictured during Berlin Pride, 2009 Within two years of the Stonewall riots, there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.[164] People who joined activist organizations after the riots had very little in common other than their same-sex attraction. Many who arrived at GLF or GAA meetings were taken aback by the number of gay people in one place.[165] Race, class, ideology, and gender became frequent obstacles in the years after the riots. This was illustrated during the 1973 Stonewall rally when, moments after Barbara Gittings exuberantly praised the diversity of the crowd, feminist activist Jean O'Leary protested what she perceived as the mocking of women by cross-dressers and drag queens in attendance. During a speech by O'Leary, in which she claimed that drag queens made fun of women for entertainment value and profit, Sylvia Rivera and Lee Brewster jumped on the stage and shouted "You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you and these bitches tell us to quit being ourselves!"[166] Both the drag queens and lesbian feminists in attendance left in disgust.[167] Queer anarchists at Stockholm pride with banner reading "Remember Stonewall" O'Leary also worked in the early 1970s to exclude transgender people from gay rights issues because she felt that rights for transgender people would be too difficult to attain.[167] Sylvia Rivera left New York City in the mid-1970s, relocating to upstate New York.[168] She later returned to the city in the mid-1990s, after the 1992 death of friend Marsha P. Johnson. Rivera lived on the "gay pier" at the end of Christopher street and advocated for homeless members of the gay community.[168][169] The initial disagreements among participants in the movements, however, often evolved after further reflection. O'Leary later regretted her stance against the drag queens attending in 1973: "Looking back, I find this so embarrassing because my views have changed so much since then. I would never pick on a transvestite now."[167] "It was horrible. How could I work to exclude transvestites and at the same time criticize the feminists who were doing their best back in those days to exclude lesbians?"[170] O'Leary was referring to the Lavender Menace, an appellation by second-wave feminist Betty Friedan based on attempts by members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to distance themselves from the perception of NOW as a haven for lesbians. As part of this process, Rita Mae Brown and other lesbians who had been active in NOW were forced out. They staged a protest in 1970 at the Second Congress to Unite Women and earned the support of many NOW members, finally gaining full acceptance in 1971.[171] The growth of lesbian feminism in the 1970s at times so conflicted with the gay liberation movement that some lesbians refused to work with gay men. Many lesbians found men's attitudes patriarchal and chauvinistic and saw in gay men the same misguided notions about women that they saw in heterosexual men.[172] The issues most important to gay men—entrapment and public solicitation—were not shared by lesbians. In 1977, a Lesbian Pride Rally was organized as an alternative to sharing gay men's issues, especially what Adrienne Rich termed "the violent, self-destructive world of the gay bars".[172] Veteran gay activist Barbara Gittings chose to work in the gay rights movement, explaining, "It's a matter of where does it hurt the most? For me it hurts the most not in the female arena, but the gay arena."[172] Throughout the 1970s, gay activism had significant successes. One of the first and most important was the "zap" in May 1970 by the Los Angeles GLF at a convention of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). At a conference on behavior modification, during a film demonstrating the use of electroshock therapy to decrease same-sex attraction, Morris Kight and GLF members in the audience interrupted the film with shouts of "Torture!" and "Barbarism!"[173] They took over the microphone to announce that medical professionals who prescribed such therapy for their homosexual patients were complicit in torturing them. Although 20 psychiatrists in attendance left, the GLF spent the hour following the zap with those remaining, trying to convince them that homosexual people were not mentally ill.[173] When the APA invited gay activists to speak to the group in 1972, activists brought John E. Fryer, a gay psychiatrist who wore a mask, because he felt his practice was in danger. In December 1973—in large part due to the efforts of gay activists—the APA voted unanimously to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.[174][175] Gay men and lesbians came together to work in grassroots political organizations responding to organized resistance in 1977. A coalition of conservatives named Save Our Children staged a campaign to repeal a civil rights ordinance in Miami-Dade County. Save Our Children was successful enough to influence similar repeals in several American cities in 1978. However, that same year, a campaign in California called the Briggs Initiative, designed to force the dismissal of homosexual public school employees, was defeated.[176] Reaction to the influence of Save Our Children and the Briggs Initiative in the gay community was so significant that it has been called the second Stonewall for many activists, marking their initiation into political participation.[177] The subsequent 1979 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights was timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[178] Rejection of prior gay subculture The Stonewall riots marked such a significant turning point that many aspects of prior gay and lesbian culture, such as bar culture formed from decades of shame and secrecy, were forcefully ignored and denied. Historian Martin Duberman writes, "The decades preceding Stonewall ... continue to be regarded by most gay men and lesbians as some vast neolithic wasteland."[179] Sociologist Barry Adam notes, "Every social movement must choose at some point what to retain and what to reject out of its past. What traits are the results of oppression and what are healthy and authentic?"[180] In conjunction with the growing feminist movement of the early 1970s, roles of butch and femme that developed in lesbian bars in the 1950s and 1960s were rejected, because as one writer put it: "all role playing is sick."[181] Lesbian feminists considered the butch roles as archaic imitations of masculine behavior.[182] Some women, according to Lillian Faderman, were eager to shed the roles they felt forced into playing. The roles returned for some women in the 1980s, although they allowed for more flexibility than before Stonewall.[183] Author Michael Bronski highlights the "attack on pre-Stonewall culture", particularly gay pulp fiction for men, where the themes often reflected self-hatred or ambivalence about being gay. Many books ended unsatisfactorily and drastically, often with suicide, and writers portrayed their gay characters as alcoholics or deeply unhappy. These books, which he describes as "an enormous and cohesive literature by and for gay men",[184] have not been reissued and are lost to later generations. Dismissing the notion that the rejection was motivated by political correctness, Bronski writes, "gay liberation was a youth movement whose sense of history was defined to a large degree by rejection of the past."[185] Lasting impact and recognition A color photograph of the Stonewall taken recently, showing a smaller plate glass window in a portion of the 1969 building The Stonewall, a bar in part of the building where the Stonewall Inn was located. The building and the surrounding streets have been declared a National Historic Landmark. The riots spawned from a bar raid became a literal example of gay men and lesbians fighting back and a symbolic call to arms for many people. Historian David Carter remarks in his book about the Stonewall riots that the bar itself was a complex business that represented a community center, an opportunity for the Mafia to blackmail its own customers, a home, and a place of "exploitation and degradation".[186] The true legacy of the Stonewall riots, Carter insists, is the "ongoing struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality".[187] Historian Nicholas Edsall writes:[188] Stonewall has been compared to any number of acts of radical protest and defiance in American history from the Boston Tea Party on. But the best and certainly a more nearly contemporary analogy is Rosa Parks' refusal to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955, which sparked the modern civil rights movement. Within months after Stonewall, radical gay liberation groups and newsletters sprang up in cities and on college campuses across America and then across all of northern Europe as well. Before the rebellion at the Stonewall Inn, homosexuals were, as historians Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney write:[189] a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else ... But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance ... From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly. People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect. Historian Lillian Faderman calls the riots the "shot heard round the world", explaining, "The Stonewall Rebellion was crucial because it sounded the rally for that movement. It became an emblem of gay and lesbian power. By calling on the dramatic tactic of violent protest that was being used by other oppressed groups, the events at the Stonewall implied that homosexuals had as much reason to be disaffected as they."[190] Joan Nestle co-founded the Lesbian Herstory Archives in 1974 and credits "its creation to that night and the courage that found its voice in the streets."[137] Cautious, however, not to attribute the start of gay activism to the Stonewall riots, Nestle writes: I certainly don't see gay and lesbian history starting with Stonewall ... and I don't see resistance starting with Stonewall. What I do see is a historical coming together of forces, and the sixties changed how human beings endured things in this society and what they refused to endure ... Certainly, something special happened on that night in 1969 and we've made it more special in our need to have what I call a point of origin ... it's more complex than saying that it all started with Stonewall.[191] The events of the early morning of June 28, 1969, were not the first instances of gay men and lesbians fighting back against police in New York City and elsewhere. Not only had the Mattachine Society been active in major cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, but similarly marginalized people started the riot at Compton's Cafeteria in 1966 and another riot responded to a raid on Los Angeles' Black Cat Tavern in 1967.[192] However, several circumstances were in play that made the Stonewall riots memorable. The location of the Lower Manhattan raid was a factor: it was across the street from The Village Voice offices, and the narrow crooked streets gave the rioters an advantage over the police.[157] Many of the participants and residents of Greenwich Village were involved in political organizations that were effectively able to mobilize a large and cohesive gay community in the weeks and months after the rebellion. The most significant facet of the Stonewall riots, however, was the commemoration of them in Christopher Street Liberation Day, which grew into the annual Gay Pride events around the world.[157] Stonewall (officially Stonewall Equality Limited) is an LGBT rights charity in the United Kingdom, founded in 1989 and named after the Stonewall Inn because of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Awards is an annual event the charity has held since 2006 to recognize people who have affected the lives of British lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. The middle of the 1990s was marked by the inclusion of bisexuals as a represented group within the gay community, when they successfully sought to be included on the platform of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. Transgender people also asked to be included but were not, though trans-inclusive language was added to the march's list of demands.[193] The transgender community continued to find itself simultaneously welcome and at odds with the gay community as attitudes about non-binary gender discrimination and pansexual orientation developed and came increasingly into conflict.[42][194] In 1994, New York City celebrated "Stonewall 25" with a march that went past the United Nations Headquarters and into Central Park. Estimates put the attendance at 1.1 million people.[195] Sylvia Rivera led an alternate march in New York City in 1994 to protest the exclusion of transgender people from the events.[196] Attendance at LGBT Pride events has grown substantially over the decades. Most large cities around the world now have some kind of Pride demonstration; Pride events in some cities mark the largest annual celebration of any kind.[196] The growing trend towards commercializing marches into parades—with events receiving corporate sponsorship—has caused concern about taking away the autonomy of the original grassroots demonstrations that put inexpensive activism in the hands of individuals.[196] In Paris (France), town square commemorating the Stonewall Riots A "Stonewall Shabbat Seder" was first held at B'nai Jeshurun, a synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, in 1995.[197][198] President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to "commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT Americans".[199] The year marked the 40th anniversary of the riots, giving journalists and activists cause to reflect on progress made since 1969. Frank Rich noted in The New York Times that no federal legislation exists to protect the rights of gay Americans. An editorial in the Washington Blade compared the scruffy, violent activism during and following the Stonewall riots to the lackluster response to failed promises given by President Obama; for being ignored, wealthy LGBT activists reacted by promising to give less money to Democratic causes.[200] Two years later, the Stonewall Inn served as a rallying point for celebrations after the New York State Senate voted to pass same-sex marriage. The act was signed into law by Governor Andrew Cuomo on June 24, 2011.[201] Individual states continue to battle with homophobia. The Missouri Senate passed a measure its supporters characterize as a religious freedom bill that could change the state's constitution despite Democrats' objections and their 39-hour filibuster. This bill allows the "protection of certain religious organizations and individuals from being penalized by the state because of their sincere religious beliefs or practices concerning marriage between two persons of the same sex" discriminating against homosexual patronage.[202] Obama also referenced the Stonewall riots in a call for full equality during his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013: We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall ... Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.[203] This was a historic moment: the first time that a president mentioned gay rights or the word "gay" in an inaugural address.[203][204] In 2014, a marker dedicated to the Stonewall riots was included in the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display in Chicago celebrating LGBT history and people.[205][206] Throughout June 2019, Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019, produced by Heritage of Pride in partnership with the I Love New York program's LGBT division, took place in New York to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. The final official estimate included 5  million visitors attending in Manhattan alone, making it the largest LGBTQ celebration in history.[13] June is traditionally Pride month in New York City and worldwide, and the events were held under the auspices of the annual NYC Pride March. An apology from New York City Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill, on June 6, 2019, coincided with WorldPride being celebrated in New York City. O'Neill apologized on behalf of the NYPD for the actions of its officers at the Stonewall uprising in 1969.[14][15] The official 50th-anniversary commemoration of the Stonewall Uprising occurred on June 28 on Christopher Street in front of Stonewall Inn. The official commemoration was themed as a rally, in reference to the original rallies in front of Stonewall Inn in 1969. Speakers at this event included mayor Bill De Blasio, senator Kirsten Gillibrand, congressman Jerry Nadler, American activist X González, and global activist Rémy Bonny.[207][208] In 2019, Paris, France, officially named a square in the Marais district as Place des Émeutes-de-Stonewall[209] (Stonewall Riots Place). Stonewall Day Stonewall Day logo by Pride Live In 2018, 49 years after the uprising, Stonewall Day was announced as a commemoration day by Pride Live, a social advocacy and community engagement organization.[210][211] The second Stonewall Day was held on Friday, June 28, 2019, outside the Stonewall Inn.[212] During this event, Pride Live introduced their Stonewall Ambassadors program, to raise awareness for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.[213] Those appearing at the event included: Geena Rocero, First Lady of New York City Chirlane McCray, Josephine Skriver, Wilson Cruz, Ryan Jamaal Swain, Angelica Ross, Donatella Versace, Conchita Wurst, Bob the Drag Queen, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lady Gaga,[214] with performances by Alex Newell and Alicia Keys.[215] Historic landmark and monument Main article: Stonewall National Monument A banner hanging from the top of the building the day after President Obama announced creation of the Stonewall National Monument Plaque commemorating the Stonewall Riots In June 1999, the US Department of the Interior included 51 and 53 Christopher Street and the surrounding area in Greenwich Village into the National Register of Historic Places, the first of significance to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. In a dedication ceremony, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior John Berry stated, "Let it forever be remembered that here—on this spot—men and women stood proud, they stood fast, so that we may be who we are, we may work where we will, live where we choose, and love whom our hearts desire."[216] The Stonewall Inn was itself named a National Historic Landmark in February 2000.[217] In May 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission announced it would officially consider designating the Stonewall Inn as a landmark, making it the first city location to be considered based on its LGBT cultural significance alone.[218] On June 23, 2015, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved the designation of the Stonewall Inn as a city landmark, making it the first landmark honored for its role in the fight for gay rights.[219] On June 24, 2016, President Obama announced the establishment[220] of the Stonewall National Monument site to be administered by the National Park Service. The designation, which followed transfer of city parkland to the federal government, protects Christopher Park and adjacent areas totaling more than seven acres; the Stonewall Inn is within the boundaries of the monument but remains privately owned.[221] The National Park Foundation formed a new nonprofit organization to raise funds for a ranger station and interpretive exhibits for the monument.[222] Media representations No newsreel or TV footage was taken of the riots and few home movies and photographs exist, but those that do have been used in documentaries.[223] Film Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984), a documentary on the decades leading up to the Stonewall Rebellion Stonewall (1995), a dramatic presentation of the events leading up to the riots After Stonewall (1999), a documentary of the years from Stonewall to the century's end Stonewall Uprising (2010), a documentary using archival footage, photographs, documents, and witness statements Stonewall (2015), a drama about a fictional protagonist who interacts with fictionalized versions of some of the people in and around the riots Happy Birthday, Marsha! (2016), a short, experimental drama, inspired by some of the legends surrounding gay and transgender rights activists Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, set on the night of the riots Music Activist Madeline Davis wrote the folk song "Stonewall Nation" in 1971 after attending her first gay civil rights march. Released on Mark Custom Recording Service, it is widely regarded as the first gay liberation record, with lyrics that "celebrate the resiliency and potential power of radical gay activism."[224] The song "'69: Judy Garland", written by Stephin Merritt and appearing on 50 Song Memoir by The Magnetic Fields, centers on the Stonewall Riots and the idea[note 5] that they were caused by the death of Judy Garland six days earlier, on June 22, 1969. New York City Opera commissioned the English composer Iain Bell and American librettist Mark Campbell in 2018 to write the opera Stonewall to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the riots, to be premiered on June 19, 2019 and directed by Leonard Foglia.[225] The Stonewall Celebration Concert is the debut studio album by Renato Russo, released in 1994. The album was a tribute to twenty-five years of the Stonewall riots in New York. Part of the royalties was donated to Ação da Cidadania Contra a Fome, a Miséria e Pela Vida (Citizen Action Against Hunger and Poverty and for Life) campaign. Theatre Street Theatre (1982) by Doric Wilson[226][227] See also 1960s portal LGBT portal flag New York City portal flag New York (state) portal flag United States portal Christopher Street Day LGBT culture in New York City LGBT history in New York LGBT rights in New York Operation Soap Polish Stonewall Queer Liberation March Tasty nightclub raid (1994), dubbed "Australia's Stonewall"
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