Representatives for the Obama Administration and the Stonewall Inn did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News requests for comment Tuesday. The unrest followed a police raid on the site and is widely seen as a spark that ignited the gay rights movement.
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Barring any complications, activists are hoping the site could be declared a national monument as early as June, to coincide with pride month and New York City’s famous parade.
The monument comes at a time when the country has approved equal marriage, yet politicians in selected states are moving legal protections for gay, transgender, lesbian and bisexual residents of the country. The site was dedicated as a New York City landmark past year, and lawmakers have lobbied the Obama administration for national park status.
The monument will actually be the entire section of New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood where six days of gay rights protests in 1969 gave birth to the movement. In what’s believed to be the first reference to gay rights in an inaugural address, Obama said the principle of equality still guides the USA “just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”.
The Post goes on to report that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis and Rep. Jerrold Nadler will be attending a listening session next week, to hear feedback on the proposal.
Still, the White House’s plan to designate a new national monument in the dense urban sprawl of New York City isn’t as simple as it might seem. In a sign of how much has changed since 1969, the three officials who represent the area – City Council member Corey Johnson, state assembly member Deborah Glick and state senator Brad Hoylman – are all openly gay and endorse the idea of making it a monument, as does the local community advisory board. “You don’t have to stay in the closet”, said David Stacy of the Human Rights Campaign.
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“The LGBT civil rights movement launched at Stonewall is woven into American history, and it is time our National Park system reflected that reality”, he added.
