Blake Hayes hosts a look at the premiere of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Films’ Stonewall Uprising at the Film Forum in New York City and catches up with the filmmakers, interviewees and fans at the original Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.
“Stonewall Uprising”
Veteran filmmakers Kate Davis and David Heilbroner (Adolescent Addict, Jockey) explore the dramatic event that launched a worldwide rights movement. Told by those who took part, from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives, journalists and a former mayor of New York, and featuring a rich trove of archival footage, Stonewall Uprising revisits a time when homosexual acts were illegal throughout America, and homosexuality itself was seen as a form of mental illness. Hunted and often entrapped by undercover police in their hometowns, gays from around the U.S. began fleeing to New York in search of a sanctuary. Hounded there still by an aggressive police force, they found refuge in a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, the Stonewall Inn. When police raided Stonewall on June 28, 1969, gay men and women did something they had not done before: they fought back. As the streets of New York erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations, the collective anger announced that the gay rights movement had arrived.
Blake Hayes is a New York based TV Host/Reporter and radio personality.
