Judy Garland was buried on Friday, June 27, 1969.

That night, the New York City Police set out to close a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn.

The raid did not go as planned.

The clientele of the Stonewall not only occupied space outside of mainstream American culture, but even gay society itself: tranvestites, effeminate men, butch women. Runaways, hustlers, and outsiders, those who no longer cared what anyone thought of them.

As patrons of the bar were led to police wagons, a crowd gathered and began to boo the cops. How the actual fight started depends on who you talk to, but but the crucial part is this: bottles, beer cans, and rocks began sailing out of the crowd, aimed at the police.

The onslaught was so ferocious that the police took shelter in the bar and called for help.

For three nights, street battles raged. Few knew it then, but it was the start of a new chapter in the modern movement for human rights. The very word Stonewall became part of the gay vocabulary and meant, quite simply, uprising.

On Friday, the 27th of June, Judy Garland was buried. And a new human movement - with astonishing vigor and strength - was born. Nothing would ever be the same again.


haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story
Source: 2012 Pride Freedom Haggadah