A REFLECTION ON STONEWALL

On Christopher Street in Lower Manhattan, an unassuming brick building stands across from a small park, adorned with pride flags. I first visited Stonewall and the surrounding neighborhood on a field trip for my Media & Sexuality course. The frigid February cold and wind made my eyes water, but stories of the famed riots while standing along the pier where Marsha P. Johnson’s body was found did the same. We went to the memorial mere days before the “T” in LGBT was removed from the National Parks Service website.

The gravity of this letter being scraped from the page combined with the knowledge that we were among the last to witness it in its original (and intended) form was chilling. I returned in early May, within my last weeks of living in New York City, to reflect and take in the history once more. 

In the early hours of June 28th, 1969, the Stonewall Riots kicked off the active era of the Gay Liberation Movement in New York City. Famed figures like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera dance around the minds of visitors as they walk through this small park, but the legacy of hundreds of activists that were involved in the riots and the protests that followed live on. Marsha’s murder goes unsolved, and Sylvia died in exile after the community failed her.

It is more important now than ever to say their names and tell their stories. It is our most ardent method of fighting back against an administration that removed the T. They can remove a letter but they cannot remove us. They will not win.

For more information about the monument and its history, visit stonewallvisitorcenter.org.