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Stonewall rebel reflects 40 years after NYC riots


  By MARCUS FRANKLIN, Associated Press Writer Marcus Franklin,
Associated Press Writer   � Sat Jun 27, 7:48 pm ET

NEW YORK � Raymond Castro was a regular at The Stonewall Inn in 1969,
finding it a haven from a world where gay men and women could be
arrested for kissing or holding hands in public. Inside the bar, where
plywood covered the windows, warning lights served as a signal for
couples to stop dancing.

When police raided the bar in the past for selling liquor without a
license, patrons normally submitted to arrest or dispersed quietly.
But on June 28, Castro recalled, people fought back.

As officers tried to throw him in a police wagon, Castro used the
vehicle as a spring to push back, knocking them to the ground.

"They literally carried me into the ... wagon and threw me in there,"
recalled Castro, now 67. "It must've been the motivation of the crowd
that inspired me to resist. Or maybe at that point enough was enough."

The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising at the bar
in Manhattan's Greenwich Village became one of the defining moments of
the gay rights movement. Thousands of people are converging on the
city for gay pride events to mark the riots' 40th anniversary, while a
bill is pending in the Legislature to make New York the seventh state
to legalize same-sex marriage.

Castro said the demonstrations became a catalyst for years of progress
allowing gays and lesbians to live more open lives � although he
didn't see it at the time.

"I never thought 40 years ago that it would turn out to be much of
anything," he said in a phone interview. "I had no clue of history
being made."

Castro, who now lives in Madeira Beach, Fla., outside St. Petersburg,
is far removed from Stonewall. But his name surfaced in newly released
NYPD police reports documenting arrests during the riots. The reports
had previously redacted names of some arrested on the first night, but
were obtained in May under the Freedom of Information Law by
OutHistory.Org, a Web site run by the Center for Lesbian and Gay
Studies at the City University of New York.

Another name that appears in police reports for the first time is that
of Marilyn Fowler, confirming earlier accounts that a woman was one of
the main instigators of initial resistance to police.

"There are many witnesses to the Stonewall riots who say a woman, a
lesbian presumably, played an important role in intensifying the
resistance when they tried to arrest her and put her in the wagon,"
said Jonathan Ned Katz, the Web site's director, who recently obtained
the documents. "It's a very important name to be discovered."

And for Castro, the name refutes other long-held beliefs that the
Stonewall demonstrators were all white gay men.

"It wasn't just gays," said Castro, who was born in Puerto Rico and
left in 1945. "It wasn't just white gays."

"You had straight people sympathetic to gays. People of the arts. You
had people who had had enough (of the police). You had Latinos, you
had blacks, you had whites, Chinese, you had everything. It was a
melting pot. Young, old. Fems, butches."

Castro recalled being arrested with a woman on June 28 but didn't
remember her name. He was arrested on a harassment charge, according
to the police report, that was later dismissed.

"Defendants ... did shove and kick the officer ..." reads the report,
one of nine NYPD documents Katz posted on the Web site.

It was hot and humid the night police officers raided the inn for
selling liquor without a license. Police estimated 200 patrons were
thrown out of Stonewall, according to a June 29, 1969, New York Times
article.

After the raid, the crowd outside the Stonewall swelled to about 400,
according to the Times account, citing police estimates.

Police were "attempting to leave premises with prisoners" when "they
were confronted by a large crowd who attempted to stop them from
removing prisoners. The crowd became disorderly," read a copy of the
NYPD complaint.

Four police officers were injured, including one with a broken wrist,
according to the Times, which described the scene as a "rampage" by
hundreds of young men. Thirteen people were arrested that first night
on charges including harassment, disorderly conduct, and resisting
arrest, the story says.

As the raid moved outside, with people hurling coins, stones, garbage
and insults at the police, Castro was somehow pushed back inside the
bar, where police held him and others. After a while, two police
officers escorted him out of the bar in handcuffs, he said, before he
pushed back as he was escorted into the wagon.

There are little reminders of Stonewall in Manhattan's Greenwich
Village today. The building was designated a national landmark in
1999, and currently houses a bar unaffiliated with the inn.

At the time, Castro says, patrons would usually knock to get into the
Christopher Street inn, while someone inside peered through a peephole
to size up the visitor.

"If you were one of us they'd let you in," Castro said. "If you were
straight or you looked like a cop they'd say 'private club.'"

In 1972 Castro left New York City for suburban Long Island, where he
met his partner of 30 years, Frank Sturniolo, in a disco. By 1989, the
couple had settled in Florida, said Castro, who retired from his job
as a decorator in an Entenmann's bakery specialty shop.

Castro, who is battling stomach cancer, marveled at the progress for
gay rights over the past four decades. In the 1970s, major psychiatric
associations removed homosexuality from their lists of mental
disorders. The country has more than 400 openly gay and lesbian
elected officials, according to the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a
political action committee.

Still, Castro and other gay rights advocates say, there's more work to
be done. For example, the military's "don't ask, don't tell" remains
in place. So does a federal law allowing states to ban or refuse
recognition of same-sex marriages.

To Castro's disappointment, Florida voters passed a constitutional
amendment last November banning same-sex marriage and civil unions, as
did voters in other states, including California.

"I hope that I see it in Florida some day," he said. 



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