Judy's Rainbow connection

This story originally appeared in the Pioneer Press, June 23, 2005. It has been revised for publication in “The Power Dump Diaries” and is dedicated to my many wonderful friends in the GLBT community. Happy Pride Week!

It has been said that when the news broke across the Atlantic of legendary star Judy Garland’s death from an accidental drug overdose at age 47 in a London apartment on June 22, 1969, that the flags on Fire Island, a popular summer spot for Manhattan’s gay and lesbian community, were immediately lowered to half mast.

Garland enjoyed a particularly large following of gay men who were attracted to her big, belting voice and whose turbulent private life and melodramatic persona had turned her into a camp icon.

Her poignant “Over the Rainbow” from the classic 1939 MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz” had also become an anthem of sexual freedom – a place where if one had heart, courage and brains, gays and lesbians could live in a spirit of tolerance and acceptance.

At the height of Garland’s career in the 1940s and 1950s, the catchphrase, “Are you a friend of Dorothy’s” had become a code among closeted gay men, which meant, “Are you one of us?”

Garland’s death was also to spark the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement. As 22,000 fans filed past the singer’s open casket at Campbell’s Funeral Home in New York City, more than half of them were said to be gay men.

The evening after Garland’s funeral on June 27, many of those who had traveled to New York City to pay homage to the singer had gathered at the Stonewall Inn, a popular, Greenwich Village gay bar that was owned by the mafia. Like other gay bars across the country, the Stonewall Inn was frequently raided by police who busted patrons in transgender dress or for same-sex, public displays of affection.

In the early morning hours of June 28, police raided the Stonewall that touched off three nights of rioting in New York. According to legend, a drag queen started swinging at a police officer. A lesbian patron who was being carried out to a squad car had also put up such a struggle that it encouraged gathering crowds to do the same. The crowds quickly overtook the police, using a parking meter as a battering ram to drive them off, until stunned police retreated back into the Stonewall.

“It was a hot night and people just got fed up with being pushed around,” says Suki de La Croix who has written extensively on gay Chicago history. “There was that whole thing of rebellion going on. You had Vietnam, women’s liberation, everyone was rebelling against everything.”

A year after the raid on the Stonewall Inn, gays and lesbians in cities throughout the country organized anniversary observances. Chicago’s gay and lesbian community declared June 21-28 Gay Pride Week, with the first gay pride march taking place on June 29, 1970. Some 200 people gathered in Bughouse Square across from the Newberry Library, carrying signs proclaiming “Gay Power.”

“After listening to speeches, the group marched along the sidewalks down Dearborn Street to Chicago Avenue, then east to the Water Tower, then down Michigan Avenue to the Civic Center (Richard J. Daley Plaza), where there were more speeches and some dancing,” de La Croix says.

The second anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Chicago’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community held a parade instead of a march, comprised of various GLBT-oriented civic and political groups, and a marching kazoo band.

This year, while you’re watching your own city's pride parade, you may want to think back on those brave drag queens and lesbians at the Stonewall Inn who might not have had the courage to stand up for their rights, had it not been for a little girl who sang “Over the Rainbow.”