"Like Owning Rosa Parks' Bus": Stonewall Inn Celebrates Obama Speech

motherjones.com — It was your average Monday night at the Stonewall Inn. But there were a few people here on this chilly January night who came to honor the legacy of the bar President Obama named as a touch-stone of the American civil rights movement. Equality, the President said, "is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall" — referring to the early hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969, when patrons decided enough was enough, and reacted en masse to a routine police raid to clear out deviants. Resistance attracted crowds in the streets of New York's Greenwich village, escalating into violent protests that lasted for six days. It was a moment that galvanized the gay rights movement. Those that spoke of the significance of President Obama's words were emotional, overjoyed at having this historic place ranked in that lineage of struggles, in such an important speech.

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