When the case came to court in March, attorney Ralla Klepak defended, and charges against patrons and management were dismissed. A plainclothes officer had gained entry by using a membership card obtained illegally during an unrelated arrest and made the charges after observing members dancing together as same-sex couples. One Sunday in January 1968, police raided The Trip, arresting 13 patrons on charges of public indecency and soliciting for prostitution. On the borderline, The Trip became quite gay after the dinner hour, and on Sundays it operated as a private club. The area was undergoing an upswing a few gritty hotels with questionable clientele remained, but new upscale businesses were mediating the fringes of adjacent Rush Street nightlife. At midday, because of its location just west of North Michigan Avenue, the restaurant catered to luncheon crowds of shoppers, often featuring women's fashion shows. The Trip had a main-floor restaurant, a second-floor cabaret and a third-floor playroom with pool table and pinball games. While slower and more low-key than Stonewall, these two cases led Chicago gays to become proactive instead of reactive in their fight against oppression and discrimination.Ĭhicago's equivalent to Stonewall began 40 years ago with a police bust at The Trip, a gay-owned restaurant-bar complex at 27 E. The Trip case, challenging bar closings, went to the Illinois Supreme Court the case of Mattachine Midwest Newsletter editor David Stienecker involved defending him against charges brought by an officer who arrested gays in tearooms ( public washrooms ). In a city coming out of 1968 with a nationwide reputation for police brutality, discretion was indeed the better part of valor. They were against cutting the trees.'Ĭhicago gays chose to challenge the status quo in the courts instead of the streets. Kelley, 'The New York Times ran at least three days of stories, one editorial and one letter on the subject. When word from New York finally reached here, it was recorded in July's Mattachine Midwest Newsletter with the same emphasis as was given to the item on vigilante residents of the borough of Queens who, in a campaign against homosexuals reportedly frequenting a neighborhood park, had cut down dozens of its trees. A few local gay papers existed around the country, but there wasn't any real national gay press. The riot was not immediate national news. īut in Chicago, the events of that June day in 1969 barely made a ripple. It conjures up a vision of bar-raiding Greenwich Village cops terrorized inside the Stonewall Inn by a bunch of angry queens outside, tossing rocks, bottles, a Molotov cocktail and shouts reminiscent of Network ( 'I'm not going to take this anymore!' ). In the 21st century, 'Stonewall' is the accepted buzzword for the beginning of the gay liberation movement in the United States. Pictured: A police arrest during the riots outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention ( photo courtesy of the Chicago History Museum ) and David Stienecker in 2008 ( photo by Tracy Baim ). A companion book, Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City's Gay Movement, edited by Tracy Baim, will be published this summer by Surrey Books.
The following article was written for the Chicago Gay History Project, a Web site launching later this summer.