Stonewall Riots

During the 1960s, riots were popular with women, African Americans, and other minority groups protesting against discrimination. Many gays and lesbians gathered around the Stonewall Inn in New York City to protest against discrimination. Many times when I read about articles like this one, where a group of people take action and stand up for what they believe in, I think, "Would I have done the same thing? Would I have gone against the majority for something that I believe in?" Sometimes I wonder if I would've been to afraid to do what they did. I think people sometimes forget to recognize just how much courage they had to be able to do what they did. They risked getting arrested, and sometimes even their life. After they protested outside of the bar, the article said, "When they moved against the Stonewall Inn, they expected that homosexuals would simply take their arrests without complaint, as they had usually done in the past. This time, however, gays fought back rather than submit, and a melee resulted in injuries to four policemen." When the police came to arrest the group of homosexuals, they decided to fight back, which ultimately resulted in them injuring four policemen. Although I don't agree with the group of men and women fighting back against the police to the point of injury, I believe that the reason why they decided to fight back against the police was because they were tired of constant discrimination and harassment against them. They may have reached their limit and just wanted the harassing to stop. Even though those riots resulted in homosexuals creating the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) to end discrimination, I wonder if the results would have differed had they did something similar to Martin Luther King's "nonviolent protests." Had they demonstrated a nonviolent protest, the result of the riots could've been different. It could've resulted in the police arresting them anyway, but maybe it could've lead to something different. The thing is, though, they followed their beliefs and fought for their rights, and I think that's something to be admired.

"Stonewall riots." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2010. http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/

Picture- Google http://philosopedia.org/images/2/2a/Stonewall2jul69.jpg