Exhibit celebrates 40 years of gay activism

orty years ago this month, riots against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn marked the beginning of the gay liberation movement. An exhibit opening today at the New York Public Library charts what happened in the heady year that followed.

Before Stonewall, gay rights activists pursued a lonely agenda, working for homosexuals to be accepted as part of normal society and not as the sociopaths judged by psychiatric associations.

“But 1969 suddenly saw a mass movement getting behind these activists,” said curator Jason Baumann, amid the artifacts of the blossoming battle, from colorful newsweekly publications to photos of the first Gay Pride march up Sixth Avenue in 1970.

Gay bars were often owned by the mob and run as private clubs. The mob offered protection but sold out patrons whenever advantageous. On June 28, 1969, a routine raid on the Stonewall Inn — owned by “Fat Tony” Lauria — took a significant turn when patrons decided to fight back.

“The police were freaked out by drag queens throwing rocks,” Baumann said.

The rights groups that followed — with names like the Gay Liberation Front, the Radicalesbians and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries — no longer cared about fitting in, said Baumann.

“They wanted to transform society.”

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