For others, the unquestioned dominance of Stonewall-as-origin-story unfairly consigns a series of earlier uprisings to historical oblivion. Not everyone is comfortable embracing a Mafia-owned bar that catered explicitly to gay men as the heart of a remarkably diverse political movement. Like any historical symbol that is asked to carry so much significance, Stonewall sometimes bears its weight uneasily. The Stonewall riots lasted six days, but they have reverberated for half a century as the founding moment of the L.G.B.T.Q.-rights movement. Courtesy the New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division

Special Collections Wing and Print Gallery through July 14. All imagesĬredited to the New York Public Library are from its exhibition Love & Resistance: Stonewall 50, which is on view in the Rayner Johnson (seated, left) at Christopher Street Liberation Day, 1971.