The Stonewall riots helped galvanize the gay rights movement nationwide.īut in Chicago, even after the riots, activist Art Johnston said police raids of gay bars would continue to make headlines for another decade. Rioters barricaded cops inside the bar and for several days took to the streets in an effort to put an end to years of harassment.

It’s been 50 years since violent protests broke out on June 28, 1969, following a raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood in New York.