Before Stonewall

In 1969, the patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village decided to fight back, transforming a routine police raid into three nights of rioting which marked the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement. Before Stonewall examines a historical background of this sudden burst of political energy - from the social experimentation of the Roaring Twenties, to the discovery of the true size of this hidden society during World War II, the scape–goating of homosexuals during the McCarthy era and the development of the early homophile rights movement – providing an informative and engaging portrait of the history of homosexual experience in America.