Saint Louis Pride Fest 2025

The years leading up to the events at Stonewall were filled with violence, police brutality, discrimination, and hate toward the LGBTQIA+ community. Continued, targeted raids by the New York City police led to tension between the department and the LGBTQIA+ community, specifically the patrons at Stonewall. It wasn’t long before the tension developed into protests, and then riots. Anger toward the injustice experienced by the LGBT community came to a point, and the crowd struggled against the police. One individual who was there, Michael Fader, said the following: “We felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around—it’s like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way, and that’s what caught the police by surprise. There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we’re going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren’t going to go away. And we didn’t.”