Castro Street Window Display, June 2025
Mountain View Lodge #244 is very fortunate to be located on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View (the main street) where we put up different windows displays each month. Our June display is dedicated to LGBTQ Pride Month, that commemorates the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, culture and community.
As we all know, Oddfellows stands for Friendship, Love and Truth and our Order welcomes people regardless of age, religion or gender. Lodge 244 prides itself on welcoming members of the LGBTQ community. Our June window display includes pictures and quotes by various well-known gay people, past and present and our regular window models Eleanor and Franklin are dressed for the occasion. Franklin’s T-shirt declares that the First Pride was a Riot. Why is this?
Pride month coincides with the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York City, June 28 – July 3, 1969. Stonewall Inn was opened as private, members-only club gay bar in Greenwich Village in March 1967. At that time, it was funded by the Genovese Crime Family who thought that a business catering to the gay community might turn a profit.
Stonewall’s owners could not obtain a liquor license because state law in the 1960s did not allow bartenders to legally serve gay people. As a private club, each customer bought tickets that could be exchanged for drinks. The bar’s lack of a license made it vulnerable to police raids, and police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s. The owners gave cash bribes to the NYPD’s 6th Precinct, where the bar was located, to stave off raids, which then usually happened early on weekday evenings when crowds were small.
The raid, late on Friday, June 28, 1969, was different – the mafia was not alerted, and nor was the NYPD’s sixth precinct. That night the bar was very busy, and officers quickly lost control of the situation. The raid attracted a crowd and led to a riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear of being arrested.
The first anniversary of the riots was marked by peaceful demonstrations in several American cities that have since grown to become today’s pride parades. The Stonewall National Monument was established in 2016 at the site, now under new management. Today, pride events are held annually throughout the world toward the end of June to mark the Stonewall riots. On June 6, 2019, coinciding with World Pride being celebrated in New York City, Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill apologized for the 1969 raid. So, as our window model Franklin states – the First Pride was indeed a Riot!
— By Sinéad and Ria Toolis
Information on Pride and Stonewall obtained from Wikipedia
