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Read: President Barack Obama’s Historic Declaration Designating Stonewall Inn a National Monument

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President Obama Has Just Declared Stonewall a National Monument – the First Ever Dedicated to LGBT Civil Rights

President Barack Obama has honored the LGBT community and the nation by designating the Stonewall Inn a national monument dedicated to the LGBT community’s fight for civil rights. 

The White House released a video today honoring Stonewall, with President Obama narrating. 

President Obama’s top aide, Valerie Jarrett, posted this tweet:

And the National Park Service posted this welcome message:

Above, a photo of President Obama meeting in the Oval Office with Gilbert Baker, the creator of the Rainbow Pride flag.

Here is the President’s historic declaration:

 

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

Presidential Proclamation — Establishment of the Stonewall National Monument

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STONEWALL NATIONAL MONUMENT

– – – – – – –

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

 

Christopher Park, a historic community park located immediately across the street from the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City (City), is a place for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community to assemble for marches and parades, expressions of grief and anger, and celebrations of victory and joy.  It played a key role in the events often referred to as the Stonewall Uprising or Rebellion, and has served as an important site for the LGBT community both before and after those events.

As one of the only public open spaces serving Greenwich Village west of 6th Avenue, Christopher Park has long been central to the life of the neighborhood and to its identity as an LGBT-friendly community.  The park was created after a large fire in 1835 devastated an overcrowded tenement on the site.  Neighborhood residents persuaded the City to condemn the approximately 0.12-acre triangle for public open space in 1837.  By the 1960s, Christopher Park had become a popular destination for LGBT youth, many of whom had run away from or been kicked out of their homes.  These youth and others who had been similarly oppressed felt they had little to lose when the community clashed with the police during the Stonewall Uprising.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, a riot broke out in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, at the time one of the City’s best known LGBT bars.  Over the course of the next several days, more demonstrations and riots occurred in the surrounding neighborhood including Christopher Park.  During these days, because of its strategic location across from the bar, Christopher Park served as a gathering place, refuge, and platform for the community to voice its demand for LGBT civil rights.  The Stonewall Uprising is considered by many to be the catalyst that launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement.  From this place and time, building on the work of many before, the Nation started the march — not yet finished — toward securing equality and respect for LGBT people.

Christopher Park and its environs have remained a key gathering place for the LGBT community.  For example, on June 26, 2015, within moments of the issuance of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, LGBT people headed to Christopher Park to celebrate the Court’s recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.  A few days later, Governor Cuomo continued that celebration by officiating at the marriage of two gay men directly outside the Stonewall Inn.  Within minutes of the recent news of the murders of 49 people in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida — one of the most deadly shootings in American history — LGBT people and their  supporters in New York headed again to Christopher Park to mourn, heal, and stand together in unity for the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.

Today, Christopher Park is surrounded by brick sidewalks and a nineteenth century wrought-iron fence with gated openings. Educational signs about the Stonewall Uprising are found near the large arched main entryway.  Divided into two halves, the western side of the park is open to the public on a daily basis and contains a small plaza lined with brick pavers and benches. George Segal’s sculpture, “Gay Liberation,” stands as a focal point of the plaza.  The sculpture was commissioned in 1979 on the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, and its installation in 1992 cemented Christopher Park’s role as a destination for those wishing to understand the significance of the Stonewall Uprising.  The eastern half of the park contains two structures erected in 1936:  a statue of Civil War General Philip Sheridan, and a memorial flagstaff and plaque honoring Colonel Ephraim Elmer Ellsworth, an officer with the New York Fire Zouaves during the Civil War.

Across the street from Christopher Park is the target of the June 28, 1969, police raid, the Stonewall Inn (51-53 Christopher Street), originally built in 1843 and 1846 as two separate two-story horse stables.  In 1930, the two buildings were combined into one commercial space with a new single exterior facade.  In 1934, the first-floor space opened as a restaurant called Bonnie’s Stonewall Inn, which served the neighborhood for over 30 years.  The restaurant closed in 1966, but was reopened in 1967 as an LGBT bar called the Stonewall Inn.

The streets and sidewalks in the neighborhood surrounding Christopher Park and the Stonewall Inn are an integral part of the neighborhood’s historic character and played a significant role in the Stonewall Uprising.  The narrow streets bend, wrap back on themselves, and otherwise create directional havoc.  In the early 1800s, the residents rejected the City’s attempts to enlarge the neighborhood streets and align them with the City’s grid plan, and the extension of Seventh Avenue South through the area in the early 1900s only added confusion.  During the Stonewall Uprising, this labyrinthine street pattern helped the LGBT demonstrators, who knew the neighborhood, to evade riot-control police, who were not from the local precinct.

Viewed from Christopher Park’s central location, this historic landscape — the park itself, the Stonewall Inn, the streets and sidewalks of the surrounding neighborhood — reveals the story of the Stonewall Uprising, a watershed moment for LGBT civil rights and a transformative event in the Nation’s civil rights movement on par with the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls and the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights in its role in energizing a broader community to demand equal rights.

Although the 1960s were a time of social and political change that brought greater freedom to many segments of society, these new-found freedoms did not extend to members of the LGBT community.  They faced increased oppression and criminal prosecution even for being physically intimate with consensual partners.  In New York City, LGBT people were frequently arrested for acts such as same-sex dancing and kissing and wearing clothes of the perceived opposite gender.  In some States, adults of the same sex caught having consensual sex in  their own home could receive sentences of up to life in prison or be confined to a mental institution, where they faced horrific procedures, such as shock therapy, castration, and lobotomies.  LGBT Americans lived their lives in secrecy for fear of losing their jobs, being evicted from their homes, or being arrested.  For LGBT people of color or living in poverty, life was especially challenging.

For over a century, Greenwich Village has attracted Americans of all kinds with an interest in political activism and nonconformity.  By the 1930s, Greenwich Village was home to a significant LGBT community.  Despite the aggressive anti-LGBT policies and practices that emerged in the City in the 1950s and 60s, a variety of bars, nightclubs, restaurants, hotels, and private clubs catered to an LGBT clientele.  Many establishments lasted only a few months before police raided them and shut them down, a practice that intensified during mayoral election years such as 1969.

The police frequently raided LGBT bars for illegally selling alcoholic drinks to “homosexuals.”  LGBT bars operated by organized crime syndicates often paid off members of the police force and in return received tips about when raids were planned.  As part of a crackdown on LGBT bars in June 1969, the Public Morals squad of Manhattan’s First Police Division raided the Stonewall Inn on June 24, 1969, confiscated its liquor, and arrested its employees.  The Stonewall Inn reopened the next day.  Having made only minimal impact with this raid, the police decided to plan a surprise raid for the following Friday night or Saturday morning, when the bar would be crowded.

On June 28, 1969, undercover police officers raided the Stonewall Inn around 1:15 a.m., after one of them witnessed the illegal sale of alcohol.  Customers resisted the police by refusing to show identification or go into a bathroom so that a police officer could verify their sex.  As police officers began making arrests, the remaining customers gathered outside instead of dispersing as they had in the past.  They cheered when friends emerged from the bar under police escort, and they shouted “Gay Power!” and “We Want Freedom!”.  As word spread, the gathering grew in size and a riot ultimately ensued.  Around 3:00 a.m., the City’s riot-control force appeared, and started to push the crowd away from the Stonewall Inn.  But the crowd refused to disperse.  Groups of demonstrators retreated to nearby streets, only to cut back and regroup near the Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park.  The riot finally abated about 4:30 a.m., but during the next week several more protests formed, and in some cases, led to new riots and confrontations with the police.

The Stonewall Uprising changed the Nation’s history.  After the Stonewall incident, the LGBT community across the Nation realized its power to join together and demand equality and respect.  Within days of the events, Stonewall seemed to galvanize LGBT communities across the country, bringing new supporters and inspiring LGBT activists to organize demonstrations to show support for LGBT rights in several cities.  One year later, the number of LGBT organizations in the country had grown from around 50 to at least 1,500, and Pride Marches were held in a number of large cities to commemorate the Stonewall Uprising.

The quest for LGBT equality after Stonewall evolved from protests and small gatherings into a nationwide movement. Lesbian women, gay men, bisexual and transgender people united to ensure equal rights for all people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Hard-fought civil rights victories in courtrooms and statehouses across the country set the stage for victories in the Supreme Court that would have seemed unthinkable to those who rose up in Greenwich Village in June 1969.  Today, communities, cities, and nations celebrate LGBT Pride Days and Months, and the number of Pride events approaches 1,000.  The New York City Police Department now has an LGBT Liaison Unit to build positive relations with the LGBT community, and provides the community with expert protection when threats are identified.  Most importantly, the Nation’s laws and jurisprudence increasingly reflect the equal treatment that the LGBT community deserves.  There is important distance yet to travel, but through political engagement and litigation, as well as individual acts of courage and acceptance, this movement has made tremendous progress toward securing equal rights and equal dignity.

WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code (known as the “Antiquities Act”), authorizes the President, in the President’s discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected;

WHEREAS, in 2000, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) designated the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and portions of the surrounding neighborhood as a National Historic Landmark for its association with the Stonewall Uprising, a momentous event that inspired a national LGBT civil rights movement;

WHEREAS, for the purpose of establishing a national monument to be administered by the National Park Service, the City of New York has donated to the Federal Government fee title to the approximately 0.12-acre Christopher Park;

WHEREAS, the designation of a national monument at the site of the Stonewall Uprising would elevate its message and story to the national stage and ensure that future generations would learn about this turning point that sparked changes in cultural attitudes and national policy towards LGBT people over the ensuing decades;

WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and protect Christopher Park and the historic objects associated with it in the Stonewall National Historic Landmark;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 320301 of title 54, United States Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that are situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be the Stonewall National Monument (monument) and, for the purpose of protecting those objects, reserve as a part thereof all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government within the boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation.  The reserved Federal lands and interests in lands encompass approximately 0.12 acres.  The boundaries described on  the accompanying map are confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries described on the accompanying map are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, or other disposition under the public land laws, from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing.

The establishment of the monument is subject to valid existing rights.  If the Federal Government acquires any lands or interests in lands not owned or controlled by the Federal Government within the boundaries described on the accompanying map, such lands and interests in lands shall be reserved as a part of the monument, and objects identified above that are situated upon those lands and interests in lands shall be part of the monument, upon acquisition of ownership or control by the Federal Government.

The Secretary shall manage the monument through the National Park Service, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, consistent with the purposes and provisions of this proclamation.  The Secretary shall prepare a management plan, with full public involvement and in coordination with the City, within 3 years of the date of this proclamation.  The management plan shall ensure that the monument fulfills the following purposes for the benefit of present and future generations:  (1) to preserve and protect the objects of historic interest associated with the monument, and (2) to interpret the monument’s objects, resources, and values related to the LGBT civil rights movement.  The management plan shall, among other things, set forth the desired relationship of the monument to other related resources, programs, and organizations, both within and outside the National Park System.

The National Park Service is directed to use applicable authorities to seek to enter into agreements with others, and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation in particular, to enhance public services and promote management efficiencies.

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall be the dominant reservation.

Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fourth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fortieth.

 

BARACK OBAMA 

 

Image by Valerie Jarrett via Twitter

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OPINION

‘Have to Get Back to Law and Order’: Trump Declares at NYPD Officer’s Wake

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Donald Trump attended the wake of the slain New York City police officer who was shot and killed while conducting a traffic stop this week. The four-times indicted ex-president demanded America “get back to law and order,” barely days after a New York judge imposed a gag order in the case where the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces 34 felony counts for “falsifying New York business records in order to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election,” according to the New York District Attorney.

That damaging information included hush money payments to several women including an adult film actress.

“We have to stop it,” Trump said Thursday, speaking before the cameras about crime as he stood under an umbrella in front of police officers. “We have to stop, we have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”

“Police are the greatest people we have. There’s nothing and there’s nobody like them. And this should never happen,” Trump said as he lamented how repeat offenders “don’t learn because they don’t respect.”

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“We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up. It should never be allowed things like they shouldn’t take place and to take place so often,” said Trump, who is out on bail and currently faces 88 felony charges after three were dropped.

The Trump campaign announced that the ex-president had been invited to attend the wake.

“President Trump is moved by the invitation to join NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller’s family and colleagues as they deal with his senseless and tragic death,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said, according to The Daily Beast.

The Associated Press added that “Trump has deplored crime in heavily Democratic cities, called for shoplifters to be shot immediately and wants to immunize police officers from lawsuits for potential misconduct. But he’s also demonized local prosecutors, the FBI and the Department of Justice over the criminal prosecutions he faces and the investigation while he was president into his first campaign’s interactions with Russia.”

“He has also embraced those imprisoned for their roles on the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of his angry supporters overran police lines and Capitol and local police officers were attacked and beaten.”

Earlier on Thursday NBC News reported on Trump’s mischaracterizations of crime.

“Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and ‘migrant crime,'” the network noted. “Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.”

READ MORE: ‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

“But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels,” NBC added. “FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.”

Watch Trump’s remarks below or at this link.

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OPINION

‘Hunger Games at NBC News’: New McDaniel Revelations Have ‘Enraged’ Staffers, Report Says

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The backlash from NBC News’ hiring of Ronna McDaniel is not over. New reporting from Puck, CNN, and The Washington Post reveals the considerable efforts from top NBC and MSNBC brass to recruit, hire, and support the former RNC chair who promoted false election claims, was allegedly involved in helping Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and refused to say Joe Biden had been elected fairly.

Staffers at NBC News and MSNBC were outraged at McDaniel’s hiring, but new details about behind-the-scenes efforts reportedly have increased that outrage.

Some critics are either calling for resignations of NBC News and MSNBC  leadership, or questioning how long they can ride out the mess.

“What is Brian Roberts going to do?” CNN‘s Oliver Darcy asks. “The Comcast boss is watching an unceasing five-alarm fire rage at 30 Rock, scarring the reputation of NBC News and threatening to consume multiple parts of the Cesar Conde-run NBC Universal News Group.”

“Conde has lost control of his organization, prompting industry insiders to wonder how he continues to remain in his role as chairman of the NBC News Group. In the words of one veteran media executive I spoke to Wednesday, ‘It’s inconceivable that he should,'” Darcy writes, saying Conde’s actions and those of his top executives have “hosed gasoline” on the scandal.

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That scandal involves these revelations from Puck’s Dylan Byers, who reports, “bringing McDaniel to 30 Rock had been part of a nearly two-month-long effort that was spearheaded by Budoff Brown and her boss, NBC News President Rebecca Blumenstein, with buy-in from Conde and his deputies at both NBC News and MSNBC.”

“Rashida Jones,” he adds, “the president of MSNBC, was very interested in having McDaniel appear as a contributor on her network, as well.”

But this bombshell has drawn a good deal of attention. Noting how Chuck Todd led off the very public pushback against the hiring of McDaniel, Byers reports, “On Sunday, Budoff Brown reached out to McDaniel’s aide and former chief of staff at the R.N.C., Richard Walters, to see if there were any friends or colleagues who could speak up on her behalf.”

“The two sides also discussed having these folks call attention to what they saw as a double standard—after all, this was the same network that was turning Psaki, a former Biden White House Press Secretary, into a Maddow-adjacent prime time star. Walters later assured Budoff Brown that they’d been able to advance conservative pushback on social media against Todd, specifically, and that this might give NBC News some cover, for which Budoff Brown thanked him.”

CNN, pointing to those details, adds, “staffers inside NBC News are enraged at the fact an executive would have engaged in such behavior.”

Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacobs, who now writes about politics and the media, called for the firing of Jones, Blumenstein, and Budoff Brown.

Other critics are expressing concerns on multiple fronts.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“It’s like the hunger games at @NBCNews. Every day new, horrible stories of journalism & corporate malpractice. Every single one of these managers must go,” observed Jennifer Schulze, a media critic who was a Chicago Sun-Times executive producer, WGN news director, and adjunct college professor of journalism.

She also highlights a Washington Post report that ropes NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt into the mess.

“Every @NBCNews exec who thought hiring a reputed liar & phony elector co-[conspirator] needs to resign or be fired,” Schulze says.

“The @NBCNews managers who recruited & signed an election denier should be out the door, too,” she adds. “Not only was it downright offensive to hire Ronna, it was journalism AND corporate malpractice.”

Pointing to his newsletter, former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer writes, “NBC’s ill-fated decision to hire Ronna McDaniel is a story of a media outlet unwilling to accept the ways Trump changed politics, but it’s also one of the best arguments for Dems need to build our media ecosystem ASAP.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

He calls McDaniel’s hiring “evidence” the media has “yet to accept the reality that this is not a normal election between a Republican and a Democrat.” And adds, “An [industry] that prizes objectivity above all else, is incapable of accurately covering an election where one candidate is a normal politician and the other is an insurrectionist. Many in the media would rather stumble into autocracy than take a side.”

Veteran journalist and Sirius XM host Michelangelo Signorile observes, “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation to shine a bright light on the corruption of the corporate media—and its impulse to legitimize MAGA extremism and lawbreakers for profit—than NBC’s hiring former RNC chair, election denier, and Trump enabler Ronna McDaniel.”

And he warns, “The forces that made the coup-plotting former RNC chair a paid contributor are still shaping news and information about this pivotal election.”

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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