Taking a Stand at Stonewall

The Homosexual Rights Movement Begins

Bryce Hill

Individual Website

Senior Division

Process Paper

When I discovered the theme for National History Day of 2014, Rights and

Responsibilities, I wanted to research an intriguing topic that fit this theme. I decided to research

the Stonewall Riots, an event that represented the struggle for equal rights by the homosexual

community. I discovered this topic after researching key moments in the struggle for homosexual

rights. I decided to pick a topic from this struggle because it is something that has been in the

news often recently, and I wanted to understand more about the news I so often hear but know

very little about.

I began my research on the topic by finding an overview of the homosexual rights

movement online. From there, I expanded my research to events leading up to the Stonewall

Riots and events following. After finding several articles online about the Stonewall Riots, I

turned to my local library district for books and other resources. I then looked for documentaries

and other sources online. I expanded my research to pictures and newspaper articles to illustrate

my topic. Lastly, I looked to interview people who had extensive knowledge on my topic to get a

more insightful view. My most valuable primary source was my interview with Professor Elvia

Arriola from the Northern Illinois University. My most valuable secondary source was the book

Stonewall: the Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter.

When deciding how to display my topic best, I decided to use a website. By creating a

website I could illustrate my topic to enhance its effect and display facts. I could easily display a

chronological order of my topic, and I could differentiate easily between subtopics within the

areas of my topic. I could create two different main short-term effects and three different long-

term effects. This was advantageous in the fact that it made the story easier to follow, and it was

easier to see what led up to the Stonewall Riots and what came because of them.

This topic clearly relates to this year’s theme, rights and responsibilities. The Stonewall

Riots made evident how the basic human rights of homosexuals were being infringed, and

demonstrated how the homosexuals took responsibility to regain their human rights rather than

letting the heterosexual community further dictate their lives. The homosexuals saw no one else

was going to speak up for their rights being infringed, so they had to take responsibility to speak

for them. The Stonewall Riots changed the rights of homosexuals by creating a unified voice of

the homosexual community. This unified voice continues to advance homosexual rights today.

The song I used on my title screen, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, by Judy Garland

was majorly symbolic to the Stonewall Riots. It was said that on the night of the Stonewall Riots,

the patrons of the Stonewall Inn were drinking to the death of homosexual icon Judy Garland.