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In addition to Stonewall, there are four other sites already given National Historic Landmark status, all of them private homes. The National Park Service project has identified close to 400 sites deemed of historical LGBT interest across the country, from bathhouses to places of worship.
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The music was mostly Motown, a lot of Martha and the Vandellas." Everyone went because it was the best place to dance and the jukebox was so good. We were angry that we couldn't dance."Īs for the music that soundtracked that dancing, "it was totally eclectic," Lanigan-Schmidt says. "That had everything to do with the rebellion," he continues. Because you were having an affectionate moment, you felt totally humanized." Being able to dance with someone of the same sex changed everything in the way you felt about yourself. "It was the only bar where we could slow dance," recalls artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, who participated in the riots. The violent protests in reaction to the police raid were motivated-at least partly-by these marginalized groups feeling that their freedom to dance was being threatened. Even before the riots, the Stonewall had already achieved underground fame as a rare space where gay men, lesbians and drag queens could lock limbs with each other with impunity. While its centrality to the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States is widely acknowledged, the point that gets lost in the historicity of the place is that the Stonewall was, above all, a dance bar. Coverage of the Stonewall riots was tinged with homophobia