This is the first day of Pride Month that began after the Stonewall Rebellion.

There has been much rewriting and reinterpreting of events that we have too often replaced the actual events and people that night in June, 1969, that resulted in the raising up of marginal participants and the erasure of those who were actually the movers and shakers that night, the Community as a whole and those not glitzy enough to be the shiny object that attracts and distracts.

I asked a friend who was inside the Stonewall Inn that night for his commentless account of events that night without any embellishment or assumption to speak for others.

I wanted just his experience to which, like the individual stories of others being there that night, to which much has been added in the following years by the generations who followed and appear to be more interested in the “Based on a true story” version of events and not the true story itself.

This is one unembellished account experienced by one person who was there. My friend, when telling his story, points out that it is what he experienced and saw from where he was, not an all encompassing narrative, and it must be remembered that accounts of the happenings are as varied as the people involved as each saw things from where they were, who they were with, and what was happening before the Community acted, so his story is not a universal one as none of those in the bar that night would be.

 A personal account of June 28, 1969.  The Stonewall Rebellion.

My Name is David Velasco Bermudez. I am a veteran of the Stonewall rebellion. This is my true account of what I experienced in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 while in the Stonewall.

I arrived with a couple of friends at the Stonewall inn approximately around 12:30 am. At the door the bouncer checked id’s and had you sign the book when entering. Fat Tony, the bar manager was there. The Stonewall was packed. Some were there to celebrate the life of Judy Garland who was laid to rest the day before. Others were there because the Stonewall was our safe place. A place we could be free to be ourselves. The Stonewall was a mob owned, dirty, with no running water with just two tubs of water and a brush behind the bar to wash the glasses. The juke box was playing as usual, but none of us knew that this night would change Gay history forever.

We went to our usual spot in the bar where the Latinos hung out. It was in the back where there was a booth. We could see most of the club from there. It must have been around 1:30 am when all of a sudden the bright lights went on. Someone yelled it’s a raid. When I looked up I saw Officer Pines, two or three uniformed officers and it looked like a couple of plain clothes detectives. The Stonewall had already been raided the week before. The drill was usually the same. Everybody would line up, show their id’s, take a lot of bull shit and insults from the cops, and the drag queens would be arrested. 

Not this time. The air was heavy, and we were tired of the constant harassment and beatings.

I heard someone scream, “Get your fucking hands of me.” 

Before you knew it, all hell broke loose. My friends and I said, “let’s get the hell out of here”. If we were arrested our names would be in the paper’s and no question we would have been fired from our jobs and thrown out of our apartments. As we got to the middle of the bar I got slammed on the back of my head. It was one of the plain clothes men. I started to fight back then somebody else jumped him so we headed for the door. When I got to the door there was a guy pinned down on the floor by a uniformed cop with his bully club on the guy’s throat. I started yelling he is going to kill him.

I grabbed the cop to try and pull him off, but I got hit again by someone else. I was sort of dazed. My friends grabbed me and brought me outside. We started to cross the street to the park when I looked back. The paddy wagons and police reinforcements were getting there. People on the street started to join in. The rebellion was now turning into a riot. The spark was lit. The gay liberation movement was born.”

In other oral accounts yet to be written down, this is how it was.

It is only in retrospect that individuals have been chosen when it is clear someone yelled at the police and the explosion happened. If there is to be any credit given for starting what happened in the bar, it is not a shot glass or a brick, it was not a person who arrived later and another one who did not arrive at all, but a “Someone” yet to be named, and probably never will be, that got it going.

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