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The Compton Cafeteria Riot · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
0:13
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
0:15
Speaker 2: should Know. It's one of our overlooked history editions. And Chuck,
0:21
Speaker 2: this is your pick, and hats off to you, Wiggs
0:24
Speaker 2: off to you.
0:24
Speaker 1: Yes, it was my selection to pass along to Livia
0:29
Speaker 1: to help us with. But this is a listener suggestion.
0:32
Speaker 1: This came from gg Cowlin and big thanks to Gigi
0:36
Speaker 1: because I and I'm sure you will agree with me,
0:40
Speaker 1: found that not only is the story of the Compton's
0:44
Speaker 1: Cafeteria Riot interesting in and of itself, but sort of
0:50
Speaker 1: the larger story, or a part of the story, is
0:53
Speaker 1: the fact that how we preserve history because Compton's Cafeteria
0:58
Speaker 1: Riot happened in nineteen sixty six and was almost lost
1:03
Speaker 1: to history.
1:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with all of that, which is.
1:06
Speaker 1: Crazy to think about something that happened in nineteen sixty
1:08
Speaker 1: six in San Francisco could be lost to history. But
1:12
Speaker 1: it almost was if not for the efforts of one
1:14
Speaker 1: Susan Striker, one person like, yeah, this may have really
1:19
Speaker 1: gone away, Oh totally, I mean it had gone away,
1:22
Speaker 1: and she managed to clutch together a bunch of just
1:26
Speaker 1: different tiny little scraps of mentions of it or.
1:30
Speaker 2: Put like the neighborhood and just just over the years
1:33
Speaker 2: cobbled together all this little stuff and finally got an
1:36
Speaker 2: idea of it and was able to corroborate it like
1:39
Speaker 2: it was Gonsville until Susan Striker came along.
1:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll talk about what Susan Striker did with
1:45
Speaker 1: this information. But hats off to you, Susan Striker and Digigi.
1:49
Speaker 1: And here we go with the almost forgotten Compton's Cafeteria
1:54
Speaker 1: riot story.
1:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason why it's significant that it's almost
1:57
Speaker 2: forgotten or it was forgotten for a while, that the
2:01
Speaker 2: Stone Wall Uprising, which was a really great episode we
2:04
Speaker 2: did on that too. That's considered like the watershed moment
2:09
Speaker 2: of gay rights in history, like the riot at the
2:15
Speaker 2: Stone Wall in that was it, that was what started
2:17
Speaker 2: it all. The thing is, when you think of things
2:20
Speaker 2: that way, it erases the stuff that came before that. Yeah,
2:24
Speaker 2: And one of the things that came before Stonewall was
2:27
Speaker 2: the Compton's Cafeteria riot in San Francisco in nineteen sixty six.
2:33
Speaker 2: And there wasn't a lot of difference between the two.
2:36
Speaker 2: It was based on. It was a reaction and a
2:38
Speaker 2: response to police harassment that had been building over the time.
2:42
Speaker 2: It was a multi racial group of LGBTQ people like
2:48
Speaker 2: fighting back against the police that spilled out into the streets.
2:51
Speaker 2: Like it, it bore a striking resemblance to Stonewall. And yet,
2:54
Speaker 2: like you said, there are reasons that we'll talk about
2:57
Speaker 2: that it was just pushed into the dustbin of history.
3:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very interesting. So as way of setting this up,
3:06
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about the area at the
3:08
Speaker 1: time in San Francisco called the Tenderloin. This is in
3:11
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. The Tenderloin has long had a reputation
3:17
Speaker 1: and even still does today in some ways. In the sixties,
3:21
Speaker 1: it was a place where you could go buy drugs
3:25
Speaker 1: or deal drugs. You could go do some illegal gambling,
3:28
Speaker 1: you could get involved in set sex work on either side.
3:33
Speaker 1: It was a neighborhood that didn't have a lot of money,
3:36
Speaker 1: and it was a neighborhood that attracted transience people that teenagers,
3:41
Speaker 1: namely who were either run out of their hometown because
3:46
Speaker 1: they were LGBTQ or maybe even run out of their
3:50
Speaker 1: family or maybe even run out of a different neighborhood
3:53
Speaker 1: in San Francisco to sort of collect in the Tenderloin
3:58
Speaker 1: where they could turn to sex work because they couldn't
4:01
Speaker 1: get other jobs, and they could turn to each other
4:04
Speaker 1: for support in community.
4:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, community developed of essentially what one of the people
4:12
Speaker 2: Susan Striker interviewed described as like the lowest drawing on
4:16
Speaker 2: the ladder of not just society of like including LGBTQ society.
4:21
Speaker 2: At the time, these were unhoused, teenage street trans people
4:29
Speaker 2: and like they had no rights, they had no respect
4:33
Speaker 2: from anybody, and yet they still came together and looked
4:36
Speaker 2: out for another, informed that community you were talking about.
4:39
Speaker 2: But they lived in really dire straits day to day,
4:43
Speaker 2: and yet they still formed that community. And the reason
4:47
Speaker 2: why they all kind of ended up in this the
4:49
Speaker 2: Tenderloin is because there was a few square block section
4:53
Speaker 2: of the Tenderloin that that was the only place they
4:56
Speaker 2: could live. And even there they got harassed. But like
4:59
Speaker 2: if they straight out of it, they were beaten. They
5:03
Speaker 2: were You couldn't leave that area if you were trans
5:08
Speaker 2: in San Francisco at the time, And I think Susan
5:11
Speaker 2: striker compared it to a ghetto, essentially that there was
5:17
Speaker 2: a trans ghetto in San Francisco in the sixties.
5:21
Speaker 1: That's right, and just the mirriad people that were interviewed
5:25
Speaker 1: from the time, it's clear that the cops basically could
5:28
Speaker 1: do whatever they wanted in there. They could arrest someone
5:32
Speaker 1: for quote unquote female impersonation. One was arrested. I believe
5:38
Speaker 1: Amanda Saint James, who was a transforman there ran a
5:41
Speaker 1: residential hotel, was arrested for obstructing the sidewalk I saw
5:46
Speaker 1: in this documentary that we're going to talk about later.
5:50
Speaker 1: You know, any kind of cross dressing or drag. They
5:53
Speaker 1: could arrest you for having the buttons on your shirt on.
5:58
Speaker 1: You know what they deemed the wrongs because you know,
6:02
Speaker 1: traditionally the buttons on like men and women's shirts and
6:06
Speaker 1: clothing is reversed. I never understood why was it to
6:10
Speaker 1: draw a distinction between the two when you're shopping.
6:13
Speaker 2: I think it's just to be difficult.
6:15
Speaker 1: It may be a short step at some point, but
6:17
Speaker 1: they would say like, oh no, your buttons are on
6:19
Speaker 1: the wrong side. You're impersonating a female, so let me
6:22
Speaker 1: crack your skull and throw you in a jail cell
6:25
Speaker 1: where you will be abused more and by fellow inmates
6:30
Speaker 1: and by the people who ran the jail.
6:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the reasons that this group of
6:35
Speaker 2: people were in such a pickle was not just because
6:37
Speaker 2: there was a small area of the world that they
6:40
Speaker 2: could leave. It's that they couldn't even work because they
6:44
Speaker 2: couldn't get id that reflected their gender, the gender they
6:49
Speaker 2: identified with. If they wanted to work as the gender
6:53
Speaker 2: they didn't identify with, they could just go back to
6:56
Speaker 2: their family that kicked them out in the first place.
6:58
Speaker 2: So to be themselves, to live as themselves is the
7:01
Speaker 2: way that they they they were who they were. They
7:05
Speaker 2: really really suffered and paid for it and were very poor.
7:11
Speaker 2: Resorted to sex work almost across the board unless you
7:15
Speaker 2: were really good at singing and dancing and you could
7:17
Speaker 2: make a living that way. And even those people who
7:20
Speaker 2: are successful at entertaining very frequently were stuck in that
7:24
Speaker 2: area of the tenderloin too. So it was a really
7:27
Speaker 2: it was a it was a tough position to be in.
7:29
Speaker 2: And I mean just the fact that they're like, well,
7:31
Speaker 2: if I want to be myself, it sucks that society
7:33
Speaker 2: treats me this way, but I'm going to be myself.
7:37
Speaker 2: You really have to respect that.
7:39
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. Within this community, there was a place
7:43
Speaker 1: called Compton's Cafeteria which provided a haven late at night.
7:49
Speaker 1: So it was at one oh one Taylor Street, right
7:53
Speaker 1: there in the Tenderloin, and it was a restaurant and
7:55
Speaker 1: it was one of quite a few in San Francisco.
7:57
Speaker 1: It is a small chain, local chain started up by
8:00
Speaker 1: a man named Gene Compton in the nineteen forties. This
8:03
Speaker 1: one opened in fifty four, and it became a gathering
8:06
Speaker 1: place for these people late at night who were unwelcomed
8:09
Speaker 1: even at gay bars. It was very centrally located. It
8:12
Speaker 1: was clean, it was open twenty four hours, it was
8:15
Speaker 1: well lit. It was a place where they could go
8:17
Speaker 1: and have coffee after you know, they got done with
8:21
Speaker 1: work or you know, doing whatever they were doing late
8:23
Speaker 1: at night. And what I really wanted more than anything
8:27
Speaker 1: when I was learning about the story was like I
8:30
Speaker 1: wanted to learn that Compton's Cafeteria was a bright spot
8:33
Speaker 1: in a haven where the owners would run the cops
8:35
Speaker 1: off and let these people do as they as they
8:38
Speaker 1: would and live in peace. Sadly, that was not the case.
8:42
Speaker 1: I didn't get the idea that they were just like
8:46
Speaker 1: completely unwelcome there. But they did call the cops here
8:51
Speaker 1: and there over you know, over the years, and like
8:55
Speaker 1: you know, the cops would come down there and run
8:57
Speaker 1: them out. So that was sort of a one discip
9:00
Speaker 1: pointing spot for me. But that's you know, that's what happened.
9:02
Speaker 1: So that's the way we have to report it.
9:04
Speaker 2: So the still I mean, even having to face that,
9:10
Speaker 2: like Compton's was the place you went to because like
9:13
Speaker 2: I was saying, like even in the LGBTQ community, the
9:17
Speaker 2: trans community and the Tenderloin were not well thought of,
9:21
Speaker 2: Like they couldn't even go into the gay bars in
9:23
Speaker 2: the Tenderloin. They were limited also and where they could go.
9:27
Speaker 2: But one of those places they could go was Compton's
9:29
Speaker 2: Cafeteria and go be themselves and like a real like
9:33
Speaker 2: you could check in on one another, you could give
9:36
Speaker 2: each other tips to like steer clear of this guy
9:38
Speaker 2: in this car kind of thing. It was despite the
9:44
Speaker 2: setbacks and drawbacks of going there, it was a place
9:46
Speaker 2: that they could go. Does that make sense?
9:49
Speaker 1: Yeah? And it was also a time, you know, we
9:51
Speaker 1: mentioned that they couldn't even go into certain gay bars.
9:54
Speaker 1: It was a time where the LGBTQ community was starting
9:57
Speaker 1: to organize a little bit, starting to kind of speak
10:00
Speaker 1: up a little bit for like the most basic rights
10:03
Speaker 1: you could imagine. And it was it was through the
10:06
Speaker 1: lens though, of what were called homophile organizations. One was
10:11
Speaker 1: called the Mattachine Society. These organizations where they were gay people,
10:16
Speaker 1: but they were like, hey, listen, I'm middle class, I
10:20
Speaker 1: have a great job, I am gay, and I just
10:24
Speaker 1: I just don't want to be harassed. So they they
10:27
Speaker 1: were organizing, but it wasn't like it wasn't like the
10:30
Speaker 1: kids on the streets, and they weren't They weren't rabbel rising,
10:34
Speaker 1: they weren't radical. In fact, within homophile organizations there were
10:38
Speaker 1: often disputes between some of the sort of you know,
10:41
Speaker 1: middle age more you know, not well healed, but sometimes
10:46
Speaker 1: well healed people sort of disagreeing with people in their
10:49
Speaker 1: own community. Some of these younger kids that were more radical,
10:52
Speaker 1: they're like, we don't even want you in our group anymore, right.
10:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, And those those homophile groups are they were the
10:59
Speaker 2: ones they had the connections to say the press or
11:02
Speaker 2: they had a working relationship with the police, department. They
11:07
Speaker 2: were trying to show the rest of society they were
11:10
Speaker 2: respectable people living respectable lives, and so being inclusive of
11:16
Speaker 2: unhoused teenagers who were also sex workers kind of it
11:22
Speaker 2: didn't really stand up to their argument. So they just
11:25
Speaker 2: pretended they weren't there. They excluded him, they kept him out.
11:28
Speaker 2: But what's cool is those same unhoused teenage trans sex
11:33
Speaker 2: workers they were like, well, we'll go organize ourselves. And
11:37
Speaker 2: they were really, really fortunate to have in the neighborhood.
11:40
Speaker 2: A couple of blocks away from Compton's a place called
11:43
Speaker 2: Glibe Memorial Methodist Church, probably one of the more progressive
11:47
Speaker 2: churches in the United States of all time. There was
11:51
Speaker 2: a reverend named Cecil Williams. He was a Civil rights
11:54
Speaker 2: movement VET and he was very much interested in supporting
11:59
Speaker 2: these trans kids who were just getting abused one way
12:02
Speaker 2: or another by every quarter of society, and he helped
12:06
Speaker 2: them organize. Actually they organized into an organization called Vanguard.
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Speaker 1: That's right, and Ceca Williams is still alive. My friend,
12:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's ninety four years old.
12:17
Speaker 2: I saw footage of him preaching and he looked pretty cool.
12:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that church was there and like you said,
12:25
Speaker 1: just to have any formal organization on your side for
12:29
Speaker 1: these kids who are trying to radicalize the movement was
12:32
Speaker 1: a really really big deal. So Vanguard had formed in
12:35
Speaker 1: sixty five, and through the church and through Ceci Williams
12:40
Speaker 1: and Vanguard, they eventually would help get the Tenderloin recognized
12:44
Speaker 1: as a War on Poverty target district in May of
12:48
Speaker 1: sixty six. Usually when these districts were recognized, it was
12:53
Speaker 1: there were you know, impoverished communities, and usually racism was
12:58
Speaker 1: sort of at the core of what they were facing.
13:00
Speaker 1: But these kids basically stood up with Cecil Williams and
13:04
Speaker 1: they're like, well, no, it's we're suffering the same way,
13:07
Speaker 1: and so we should be recognized thusly, and they were
13:09
Speaker 1: in May of nineteen sixty six.
13:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a big deal to get those kind
13:13
Speaker 2: of grants, and that ended up there was like a
13:16
Speaker 2: center for the kids living on the street. There was
13:19
Speaker 2: a van that doled out medical services like it had
13:23
Speaker 2: a pretty good effect, as we'll see. Yeah, so you
13:27
Speaker 2: said that there were times when Compton's Cafeteria would call
13:32
Speaker 2: the police on their patrons, their trans patrons. Apparently that
13:36
Speaker 2: really picked up after Vanguard. It became clear that these
13:42
Speaker 2: trans kids weren't just like keeping to themselves as much
13:45
Speaker 2: as they could, that they were starting to have a
13:47
Speaker 2: little bit of self respect, that they were organizing, that
13:50
Speaker 2: they were getting political. That's apparently when it really started
13:53
Speaker 2: to step up and the vanguard I think at one
13:58
Speaker 2: point picketed outside of Comptons. That was one of the
14:01
Speaker 2: things that they did. And that was a month or
14:04
Speaker 2: so before the riot happened. So you've got these trans
14:09
Speaker 2: kids organizing, starting to have like a certain amount of
14:13
Speaker 2: self esteem and self respect that's coming out of their community,
14:17
Speaker 2: and that that usually leads to pushback from establishment, and
14:23
Speaker 2: that's what happened.
14:25
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great place for a break, my friend,
14:27
Speaker 1: Thank you all right? Well, Josh sat it up perfectly
14:30
Speaker 1: and will be right back to knock him down right
14:32
Speaker 1: after this. I know why a bowling analogy happened just there,
14:59
Speaker 1: I don't know.
15:00
Speaker 2: But it was great. I love your sports metaphors.
15:03
Speaker 1: Is bowling a sport?
15:04
Speaker 2: Sure?
15:05
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I'm gonna get in trouble for.
15:06
Speaker 2: That, Yes you are, I said, sure, everybody.
15:10
Speaker 1: So this is how lost to time the Compton Cafeteria
15:15
Speaker 1: riot has been is they're not even positive. Still what
15:19
Speaker 1: the exact date was, Yeah, Striker did a lot of
15:23
Speaker 1: research Susan Striker, who we mentioned and who will talk
15:25
Speaker 1: a lot more about in this segment. Eventually Striker narrowed
15:30
Speaker 1: it down to August twenty seventh, which was a Saturday,
15:33
Speaker 1: the last Saturday of that month. But we can safely
15:36
Speaker 1: say it was in August of nineteen sixty six, probably
15:38
Speaker 1: late August, very early in the morning, as in Saturday
15:42
Speaker 1: leading into Sunday. And the story is a lot like
15:46
Speaker 1: like you said, it's a lot like Stonewall. The police
15:48
Speaker 1: get called in because things are kind of rowdy. The
15:51
Speaker 1: police get there, start being very physically aggressive with these people,
15:56
Speaker 1: and then one of them through coffee in one of
15:59
Speaker 1: the cop faces, and it was on. After that, Basically
16:03
Speaker 1: it went downhill pretty fast. Other patrons joined in, the
16:07
Speaker 1: cops started fighting back. The cops eventually go outside and retreat,
16:12
Speaker 1: wait for reinforcements. The management, you know, close the place up,
16:17
Speaker 1: and the people inside started breaking the windows, They started
16:20
Speaker 1: trashing the place, they flipped the tables over, they started
16:23
Speaker 1: wrecking it, and you know, the cops showed on, showed
16:26
Speaker 1: up en mass to deal with about sixty people or
16:29
Speaker 1: so that fought the police with their purses and throwing
16:33
Speaker 1: high heels, and I think they destroyed a police car
16:36
Speaker 1: by the end of the night and set a news
16:38
Speaker 1: stand on fire.
16:39
Speaker 2: I saw potentially hundreds of people, like the nearby hotels
16:45
Speaker 2: like drained, the bars drained, like it went. It got serious,
16:51
Speaker 2: like after they left Compton's.
16:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, so unsurprisingly some of them were successfully arrested and
16:58
Speaker 1: taking to jail, and Compton's, you know, for their part,
17:03
Speaker 1: basically said from now on, you know, they called them,
17:07
Speaker 1: you know, drag queen patrons at the time said you're
17:10
Speaker 1: not allowed here anymore, no more gay hustlers. Apparently there
17:15
Speaker 1: were there were pickets after that, Like the ensuing days
17:18
Speaker 1: were kind of a mess. They would some people would
17:20
Speaker 1: still go down and picket. They wouldn't be allowed in
17:23
Speaker 1: the restaurant. They started closing at midnight instead of being
17:25
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven and just closed I think like
17:29
Speaker 1: five years after that permanently.
17:31
Speaker 2: Yes, but they they it had immediate effects. First of all,
17:36
Speaker 2: it took that kind of sense of organizing among the
17:39
Speaker 2: trans kids in the Tenderloin. It like bolstered it. It
17:44
Speaker 2: gave them like a feeling like, oh, we actually can
17:46
Speaker 2: make things happen together, even if it was violent in
17:50
Speaker 2: the face of police violence. And apparently it had an
17:53
Speaker 2: effect that they the police kind of stopped so casually
17:58
Speaker 2: harassing or beating or even kidnapping the trans kids in
18:03
Speaker 2: the Tenderloin after that, immediately after that, there was an
18:07
Speaker 2: immediate effect.
18:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. They ended up having an ally in,
18:13
Speaker 1: a community relations cop named Elliott Blackstone, who basically was like,
18:20
Speaker 1: you know, I would like to help you folks out.
18:23
Speaker 1: I'm going to advocate for an end to these anti
18:26
Speaker 1: cross dressing laws. You won't get harassed for dressing how
18:28
Speaker 1: you want to dress. I'm going to help you get
18:31
Speaker 1: the services that you need. Eventually, a public health unit
18:35
Speaker 1: called the Center for Special Problems started offering their support
18:38
Speaker 1: as well, including getting IDs that reflected their gender identities,
18:43
Speaker 1: which is what you were talking about. That kept a
18:45
Speaker 1: lot of them from getting jobs, and that allowed many
18:47
Speaker 1: of them to go get legal work, and you know,
18:50
Speaker 1: they could leave sex work behind.
18:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it had a significant impact, especially considering
18:55
Speaker 2: that it was forgotten really quickly after that. That was
19:00
Speaker 2: also given credit for establishing the National Transsexual Counseling Unit,
19:06
Speaker 2: which is a support group for trans people, probably the
19:09
Speaker 2: first one in history, and it was a place where like,
19:14
Speaker 2: if you needed a place to stay, they could tell
19:16
Speaker 2: you who to go ask. They could help you fill
19:18
Speaker 2: out applications for hormones and tell you what doctor to
19:22
Speaker 2: go to. It was a mail drop for some people
19:25
Speaker 2: who had just showed up and didn't have a place
19:27
Speaker 2: to live yet. Like basically everything that supported unhoused trans
19:32
Speaker 2: kids in Tenderloin. In the Tenderloin in the late sixties,
19:37
Speaker 2: the Canceling Unit did. And again this Compton's Cafeteria riot
19:42
Speaker 2: is directly responsible for not just saying like, hey, we
19:46
Speaker 2: have these needs that are being completely unmet, where the
19:50
Speaker 2: police are beating us with impunity anytime they feel like it.
19:54
Speaker 2: I read. I read one story where this kid had
19:57
Speaker 2: just shown up to San Francisco and one of the
19:59
Speaker 2: first things he's was another kid laying on the street
20:02
Speaker 2: in agony saying his ribs were broken. And the kid
20:05
Speaker 2: who'd just got into San Francisco was like, well, we
20:07
Speaker 2: got to call the police, and the kid with his
20:09
Speaker 2: rib broken said, the police are the ones that did
20:11
Speaker 2: this to me. And that guy, I think he was
20:15
Speaker 2: one of the vanguard founders. He's like that just crystallized
20:18
Speaker 2: the situation for him almost immediately, but in responding to
20:23
Speaker 2: that with violence. It's sad that it took violence, but
20:25
Speaker 2: they finally stood up and said, no, we're done putting
20:29
Speaker 2: up with this, and that actually had a positive impact
20:33
Speaker 2: in drawing attention to their needs and then getting the
20:37
Speaker 2: city to start responding to those things at the very
20:40
Speaker 2: least recognizing that they exist.
20:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, boy, it would be a kettle of fire
20:49
Speaker 1: as an episode. But I wonder if one day we
20:52
Speaker 1: could tackle protests, nonviolent and violent protests, okay, through the years,
20:58
Speaker 1: because it is a fraught topic.
21:00
Speaker 2: Supposedly. I don't know where I saw this, but I
21:03
Speaker 2: think I just saw it today. Something like fifty nine
21:07
Speaker 2: percent of nonviolent organizations are non violent movements succeed in
21:13
Speaker 2: their goals, but only like a quarter of violent movements too.
21:18
Speaker 2: So usually you want to back the non violent ones
21:21
Speaker 2: is if you're betting on it, if you're betting on
21:24
Speaker 2: outcomes of civil movements.
21:26
Speaker 1: So we mentioned forgetting about the riot and how that
21:31
Speaker 1: could happen in nineteen sixty six, not even that long
21:34
Speaker 1: ago relatively speaking, historically speaking, I guess I should say,
21:40
Speaker 1: and how does that happen? And here's how that happens.
21:45
Speaker 1: No one really wrote about it, even in San Francisco.
21:49
Speaker 1: The straight quote unquote straight publications didn't write about it,
21:55
Speaker 1: and largely the gay publications didn't even write about it much.
22:00
Speaker 1: I believe there were a couple of members of the
22:03
Speaker 1: local gay community who wrote about it. A gentleman named
22:06
Speaker 1: Raymond brush Here wrote about it in the nineteen seventy
22:09
Speaker 1: two so this is five years later.
22:11
Speaker 2: He was a local, very very radical reverend who was
22:16
Speaker 2: also gay. I think he was a Vanguard founder too.
22:19
Speaker 1: So he wrote about it in the nineteen seventy two
22:20
Speaker 1: Gay Pride program, so just in a program for a
22:24
Speaker 1: Gay Pride event. And then a drag queen at the
22:28
Speaker 1: time named Sandy Green mentioned it, just mention it in
22:32
Speaker 1: a letter to the editor. Again, this is six years later.
22:36
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, five years later, I guess seven years Wow,
22:40
Speaker 1: we got pretty bad the seventy three issue of Gay
22:43
Speaker 1: Pride Quarterly. But it was not It wasn't even remembered
22:49
Speaker 1: in the LGBTQ community in San Francisco, forget about the
22:54
Speaker 1: rest of San Francisco or America at large. And the
22:58
Speaker 1: question is like, why did own wall become the thing?
23:02
Speaker 1: And there's a few reasons. One is that it was
23:04
Speaker 1: in New York and it was the center of publishing,
23:06
Speaker 1: so that certainly didn't hurt a bit and media. Another
23:11
Speaker 1: is that these homophile groups that we talked about in
23:17
Speaker 1: that kind of short three year span from sixty six
23:19
Speaker 1: to sixty nine started to model themselves a little bit
23:23
Speaker 1: more after things like the Black Power movement and the
23:28
Speaker 1: woman's rights movement, and we're a little more sort of
23:31
Speaker 1: activist and action oriented than they were before when they
23:35
Speaker 1: were just in sixty six saying like, you know, can
23:38
Speaker 1: we just have rights like everyone else? Get a little
23:40
Speaker 1: more aggressive.
23:41
Speaker 2: And I saw it put in that there was more kindling,
23:45
Speaker 2: Like they were just starting to bring the kindling out
23:47
Speaker 2: at the time of the Compton riots, but by the
23:49
Speaker 2: time Stonewall happened, there's a lot more kindling to go.
23:53
Speaker 1: Up, totally okay, And that's you know, that's another really
23:56
Speaker 1: big reason.
23:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty pretty interesting stuff. Also, I think the
24:01
Speaker 2: fact that like it was almost purposefully, if not purposefully
24:06
Speaker 2: ignored or just kind of relegated to the sidelines by
24:10
Speaker 2: the larger LGBTQ community in San Francisco, because you know,
24:14
Speaker 2: it was a riot and that really again doesn't jibe
24:18
Speaker 2: with the idea that hey, we're just respectable, middle class
24:21
Speaker 2: Americans who want to live a quiet, respectable life and
24:24
Speaker 2: be left alone. Rioting doesn't really kind of coincide with that.
24:28
Speaker 2: So when you put all those things together, it definitely
24:31
Speaker 2: makes sense that the Compton's Cafeteria riot kind of was
24:35
Speaker 2: lost to history. And the fact that it was written
24:38
Speaker 2: about in just two places or it was mentioned directly
24:44
Speaker 2: is really significant. Like it really underscores what Susan Striker
24:49
Speaker 2: did when she came up with the I guess the
24:53
Speaker 2: detective work of putting the whole thing together.
24:56
Speaker 1: I think that's another great spot for a break.
24:59
Speaker 2: Oh man, I didn't even mean to do that. You're
25:02
Speaker 2: just so good.
25:03
Speaker 3: We'll be right back everybody.
25:28
Speaker 2: So, back in I think the early nineties, maybe even
25:31
Speaker 2: ninety one, Susan Striker was she was wrapping up her PhD.
25:36
Speaker 2: At UC Berkeley. She was a trained historian. At the
25:39
Speaker 2: same time, she was also transitioning to a woman, and
25:43
Speaker 2: this is nineteen ninety one, so she's basically like, I
25:46
Speaker 2: might as well not even apply for jobs in academia
25:49
Speaker 2: because I'm not going to get one because I'm trans
25:53
Speaker 2: so instead she started volunteering. She wanted to put her
25:57
Speaker 2: historian chops to work, and she decided to volunteer at
26:00
Speaker 2: the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society in San Francisco and
26:03
Speaker 2: the Castro And it was there that I think she
26:08
Speaker 2: first came across that nineteen seventy two Gay Pride Parade
26:11
Speaker 2: program that Ray bro Shears wrote that mentioned the Compton's riot,
26:17
Speaker 2: and she's like, what is this guy even talking about
26:20
Speaker 2: six years later? I think I said, four eight ninety.
26:24
Speaker 1: Two just terrible. Yeah, And you know, when you see
26:28
Speaker 1: this documentary that I promised you were about to name it,
26:32
Speaker 1: you can like Susan Striker is struck by the fact that,
26:38
Speaker 1: like she was just like I couldn't believe what I
26:39
Speaker 1: was reading, almost like how did I not know about this?
26:43
Speaker 1: Like I'm an active member of this community and everyone
26:47
Speaker 1: knows about Stonewall, Like, how did I not even know this?
26:49
Speaker 2: Well? She questioned that it might not have even been
26:52
Speaker 2: a thing, or if it was a thing, that Bruce
26:54
Speaker 2: Ears was maybe blowing it up out of proportion.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, if you know, obviously way pre Internet,
27:02
Speaker 1: there's traditional media, and if traditional media didn't cover it
27:06
Speaker 1: at all, the only thing you're left with is people
27:08
Speaker 1: in oral history. So that's what Striker did. She at
27:12
Speaker 1: first tried to go to the city archive is to look
27:14
Speaker 1: for police records and arrest records, and the archives said,
27:18
Speaker 1: you know, in the sixteen seventies they basically shredded and
27:21
Speaker 1: burned a lot of stuff because of police misconduct, so
27:25
Speaker 1: we don't have anything for that period or that event
27:27
Speaker 1: at least, And so Susan Striker was like, all right,
27:30
Speaker 1: I guess I got to start finding people, like literal
27:33
Speaker 1: humans who were either there or were nearby and knew
27:38
Speaker 1: about it firsthand. And that was really hard to do.
27:41
Speaker 1: I mean, all of a sudden, it's like real detective
27:43
Speaker 1: work going on because Susan Striker is having to track
27:45
Speaker 1: these people down, these people that were living on the margins,
27:49
Speaker 1: you know, fifty years ago I guess at the time
27:51
Speaker 1: about forty years ago. So oh no, lessen that thirty
27:54
Speaker 1: something years. I'm trying to think something like that. And
27:59
Speaker 1: there were there are plenty of different stories, like in
28:01
Speaker 1: one story, she found a trans woman who was a
28:04
Speaker 1: cook at Compton's but was put in a men's prison,
28:08
Speaker 1: was not allowed in interview, and ended up dying before
28:11
Speaker 1: Susan Striker could speak to her, she thought about writing
28:15
Speaker 1: a book and ultimately said, you know what I think
28:17
Speaker 1: this should be. It'll get to more people if I
28:19
Speaker 1: make a documentary out of this. So at long last,
28:22
Speaker 1: we can say that the name of the documentary that
28:25
Speaker 1: Susan Striker along with Victor Silverman made was called Screaming
28:29
Speaker 1: Queen's colon the Riot at Compton's Cafeteria in two thousand
28:33
Speaker 1: and five, which I watched on YouTube. That's great in
28:37
Speaker 1: full under an hour's like fifty five fifty six minutes,
28:40
Speaker 1: but it's also dramatized, which I have not seen, but
28:44
Speaker 1: I'm going to check it out tonight. And Netflix's showed
28:46
Speaker 1: Tales of the City in twenty nineteen that I believe
28:50
Speaker 1: Elliott Page stars in.
28:53
Speaker 2: Oh, is that right?
28:54
Speaker 1: I think I saw Elliott Page in the cast, but
28:57
Speaker 1: I didn't dive too deeply yet.
28:59
Speaker 2: So there's an Unsung History podcast episode that interviews Susan
29:04
Speaker 2: Striker and that she kind of goes into detail about
29:07
Speaker 2: putting this whole history together and it's kind of thrilling actually,
29:11
Speaker 2: Like it turns out one of her cohorts at the
29:15
Speaker 2: Gain Lesbian Historical Society was a geographer and helped put
29:21
Speaker 2: the like create a map of this vanished area in
29:24
Speaker 2: the tender Loin together, so she started to have like visual,
29:28
Speaker 2: like a visual idea of where these things were happening.
29:31
Speaker 2: And when she was able to finally talk to people
29:32
Speaker 2: who were there, she knew that this thing actually had happened,
29:36
Speaker 2: because she didn't she didn't say, hey, here's all the
29:38
Speaker 2: stuff I found out. Is this right? She was like,
29:41
Speaker 2: have you ever heard of this? And then they would
29:43
Speaker 2: give her all the same information that she already had.
29:45
Speaker 2: She knew that she was definitely onto something. So it's
29:49
Speaker 2: definitely worth checking out. It's a great, great episode. And
29:53
Speaker 2: definitely watched Screaming Queen's too. And the name I think
29:56
Speaker 2: Chuck was in that there's an initial newsreel about the
30:01
Speaker 2: tenderloin the red light district down there. Yeah, and they
30:04
Speaker 2: mentioned how Compton's Cafeteria recently had to start closing at
30:08
Speaker 2: midnight and they chalked it up to a sidewalk fight
30:10
Speaker 2: between screaming queens as how they put it like they
30:13
Speaker 2: just basically made it sound like it was a cat
30:15
Speaker 2: fight that got out of hand. The police weren't even involved. Wow,
30:18
Speaker 2: And and That's how they explained how Compton started closing
30:21
Speaker 2: at midnight. So even then, like this is an old newsreel,
30:25
Speaker 2: even when like right after it happened, it was being ignored.
30:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, like yeah, that's really hard to believe, but also
30:32
Speaker 1: easy to believe in some ways, sadly, So these days
30:36
Speaker 1: you can you can still go over to one on
30:39
Speaker 1: one Taylor Street. That building is still there. It is
30:42
Speaker 1: obviously not the restaurant any longer. It is still a
30:46
Speaker 1: home for many trans people, and the tenderloin itself is
30:49
Speaker 1: still still has that sort of that sort of spirit
30:53
Speaker 1: and undercurrent there people are. You know, it's sort of
30:58
Speaker 1: how San Francisco is treated. Both this area and this
31:02
Speaker 1: riot is really interesting for a progressive city because they
31:06
Speaker 1: haven't done the right thing in many cases over the years.
31:10
Speaker 1: Some people have tried. In twenty fifteen, there was a
31:12
Speaker 1: developer name called Group I that proposed building a hotel
31:17
Speaker 1: and retail project there with a nonprofit space a couple
31:23
Speaker 1: of blocks away from the location at Compton's, and you know,
31:27
Speaker 1: different people were on board and then like within the
31:31
Speaker 1: gay community and then we're like, no, I don't think
31:33
Speaker 1: we should do this here because it's a historical area
31:38
Speaker 1: and we should just preserve it as that. And I
31:41
Speaker 1: think that's just sort of like a lot of people
31:42
Speaker 1: are fighting back against that in general in San Francisco
31:45
Speaker 1: kind of no matter what the cause.
31:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So they finally, I guess they went
31:50
Speaker 2: along with it, or it just was going to happen
31:52
Speaker 2: one way or another, but they got some concessions out
31:54
Speaker 2: of the developer and the city, and one of the
31:58
Speaker 2: things that was that came out of it was that
32:01
Speaker 2: the area Taylor Street that Compton's Cafeteria used to be along,
32:06
Speaker 2: they renamed it Gene Compton's Cafeteria Way. And at first
32:12
Speaker 2: everybody was like, Okay, that's a compromise because we wanted
32:15
Speaker 2: it called Compton's Cafeteria Riot I guess way, and the
32:19
Speaker 2: city was like, no, we're not putting Riot on an
32:21
Speaker 2: actual official street sign. So they said, well, we'll call
32:23
Speaker 2: it Gene Compton's Cafeteria Way. And then later on they're like, no, actually,
32:26
Speaker 2: that's a terrible name for it because it commemorates one
32:30
Speaker 2: of the people who was anti trance, who like got us,
32:33
Speaker 2: who kicked us out of his cafeteria routinely. Why would
32:37
Speaker 2: we want to commemorate him. We wanted to commemorate this
32:39
Speaker 2: uprising instead, and they finally changed it to what did
32:45
Speaker 2: they change.
32:46
Speaker 1: It to, Well, they dropped the name Compton's because they
32:51
Speaker 1: didn't want to honor someone who they said, you know,
32:54
Speaker 1: would frequently call the cops on them.
32:55
Speaker 2: Right, So, I can't remember what they named it. I
32:58
Speaker 2: think it might be like trans under Corridor Way or
33:01
Speaker 2: something like that. And the reason why is because there's
33:04
Speaker 2: a transgender cultural district there now. And do you remember
33:09
Speaker 2: our colleague, she was a trans woman, Raquel Willis.
33:14
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, sure.
33:15
Speaker 2: I read an article about this new cultural district that
33:18
Speaker 2: she wrote in I Think Out magazine. It's pretty good.
33:21
Speaker 2: That's yeah, it was great too. So it's probably the
33:25
Speaker 2: first transgender cultural district in the entire world, and it's
33:29
Speaker 2: very appropriately in the Tenderloin because this is like kind
33:32
Speaker 2: of like where a lot of the ground zero was
33:36
Speaker 2: for the trans community in America. And this this cultural
33:41
Speaker 2: district has like a I think an entrepreneurial incubator. It
33:46
Speaker 2: helps people looking for housing and jobs. It's it's everything
33:50
Speaker 2: that you would kind of want as a start for
33:54
Speaker 2: a community that's just now starting to have its needs met.
33:59
Speaker 3: That's great.
34:00
Speaker 2: I think so too.
34:01
Speaker 1: What if when they when the city said, oh we
34:04
Speaker 1: can't have the name right on a street sign, what
34:06
Speaker 1: if they were like, what about quiet right boulevard on
34:09
Speaker 1: Russian Hill? You're awfully quiet about that one.
34:12
Speaker 2: Is there really a quiet right boulevard? I got you
34:15
Speaker 2: for okay, and the fact that you placed it in
34:17
Speaker 2: Russian Hill is what got me. That was well done. Oh,
34:21
Speaker 2: thank you, very well done.
34:22
Speaker 1: All right?
34:24
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, if you want to know more about the
34:26
Speaker 2: Comptence CAF tier, you're right. Definitely go watch Screaming Queens
34:31
Speaker 2: and go listen to that episode of Unsung History. And
34:33
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, Gigi for the idea, great one, And
34:36
Speaker 2: since I thank gg, that means it's time for listener mail.
34:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know that makes the overall gullible score
34:45
Speaker 1: Josh four hundred and sixty three. Chuck one.
34:49
Speaker 2: Hey, at least it's not a big goose egg for you.
34:52
Speaker 1: I got points on the board.
34:54
Speaker 2: That was a sports metaphor, right.
34:57
Speaker 1: That's right, followed by a following a quiet riot shout,
35:02
Speaker 1: which is probably not something you expected to hear in
35:04
Speaker 1: this podcast.
35:05
Speaker 2: No, but they hold up.
35:07
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna call this Handburger. Then, quite frankly,
35:11
Speaker 1: the only reason I'm reading it is because of that word,
35:13
Speaker 1: because I think it's hysterical what this guy says. This
35:16
Speaker 1: from Danny. Hey, guys, just finish to the latest episode,
35:20
Speaker 1: and the listener mail Sam mentioned he was hesitant to
35:23
Speaker 1: try the show because the title of the show sounded condescending,
35:25
Speaker 1: as if it was suggesting that he should already know
35:28
Speaker 1: certain things at this point in his life. I've heard
35:30
Speaker 1: you mention this about other people. It always cracks me up,
35:32
Speaker 1: because that's exactly why I started listening. It started about
35:36
Speaker 1: seven years ago. The person I was dating at the
35:37
Speaker 1: time would constantly hooke fun and belittle me for not
35:40
Speaker 1: knowing certain things. So one day I, huh, that's abuse.
35:45
Speaker 1: It is abuse. So one day I literally typed stuff
35:48
Speaker 1: you should know into Google, hoping to find a list
35:51
Speaker 1: of things that I ought to know. Awesome, true story
35:54
Speaker 1: is what this guy says. What I found instead, Thank God,
35:57
Speaker 1: was your show. Admittedly, it took me a while to
36:00
Speaker 1: realize you two weren't simply performing a public service to
36:02
Speaker 1: the world informing idiot boyfriends of their obvious knowledge gaps
36:06
Speaker 1: and remedying the situation. It probably wasn't until the Jackhammer's
36:09
Speaker 1: episode that I asked myself, should I really know this?
36:13
Speaker 2: That's an abuse too?
36:15
Speaker 1: That it's Danny. Uh. This is the best part though,
36:17
Speaker 1: needless to say, but I'm gonna say it anyways. The
36:19
Speaker 1: relationship did not work out. What I learned, though, is
36:22
Speaker 1: that everyone has some knowledge gaps. So what if I
36:25
Speaker 1: thought it was a handburger rather than a hamburger.
36:29
Speaker 2: I think that's important.
36:31
Speaker 1: There's no ham and you eat it with your hands.
36:33
Speaker 1: That's what Danny says.
36:34
Speaker 2: It makes sense, but everyone else calls it a hamburger
36:37
Speaker 2: so or a steam tam is steamedam right?
36:42
Speaker 1: I'm only going to call them handburgers from now on, though.
36:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it makes a really love peace for why
36:47
Speaker 2: you would call it a handburger.
36:50
Speaker 1: Or that I didn't know IV stood for intravenous? What
36:53
Speaker 1: am I a doctor who gives a rip?
36:56
Speaker 2: I like Danny.
36:58
Speaker 1: All that to say, thanks for doing what you do, guys,
37:00
Speaker 1: for teaching me stuff I want to know, as well
37:01
Speaker 1: as some things I probably should know. Keep it up
37:03
Speaker 1: until the bitter end, Danny.
37:05
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Danny, that was an excellent email and
37:09
Speaker 2: we're glad that you're on board.
37:10
Speaker 1: I wonder what Danny thought i'veys did for I don't know,
37:13
Speaker 1: or if it was like ivy or something. Right, He's
37:16
Speaker 1: like four, like, why are you gonna put ivy in
37:18
Speaker 1: my arm?
37:20
Speaker 2: Uh? Where was I? Oh? Yeah? If you want to
37:22
Speaker 2: be like Danny and send us a rock and email,
37:25
Speaker 2: we would love to hear from you, wrap it up,
37:27
Speaker 2: spank it on the bottom, send it off to stuff
37:29
Speaker 2: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
37:35
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
37:38
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
37:40
Speaker 1: The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
37:43
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.