Proud Out Loud: Stonewall 50

Fifty years ago this month, a group of people — young and old; men and women; poor and not poor; black, white and Latino; in drag and out — rose up to say ‘No. No More!’ It was a riot. Protesters choked intersections, climbed lamp poles, lit fires and sang in the streets. The immediate cause was the police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York City, but the uprising that followed ended up shaking the world — and shaking history.

We live in the wake of that rebellion. Stonewall is still a place — and still a bar. It’s where LGBTQ folks gathered in 2015 to celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. A year later, it’s where the community met to mourn the shooting at the Pulse nightclub. And today, it’s often the site of demonstrations against the Trump administration's assaults on LGBTQ people.

But Stonewall is more than just a place. It’s a state of mind, a touchstone, one of many, for LGBTQ people around the world who are in the struggle today — whether that’s in India, where the Supreme Court recently struck down sodomy laws, or in Brazil, where LGBTQ people are under fire from the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro.

On this occasion, HuffPost is proud to present a series of profiles that highlight the next generation of LGBTQ change-makers. Our heroes span the globe—from the U.K. to Korea to Canada and beyond — and they cut across identities and professions and passions. But each and every one is engaged in the NOW of it. They’re pushing boundaries and raising a fuss. They are Proud Out Loud, and HuffPost is more than proud to celebrate them.

Pride Month Features

Listen To Firsthand Accounts Of The Stonewall Riots In Augmented Reality

When the NYPD barged into the Stonewall Inn arresting LGBTQ patrons on June 28, 1969, they did not expect the community to fight back. But fed up with years of abuse and oppression, that’s exactly what the community did ― rioting and occupying the streets into the early morning hours.

Today, 50 years later, RYOT creatively reimagines a scene in front of the Stonewall Inn on that fateful night in full augmented reality. The team built a digital Stonewall Inn, complete with five different characters who share their stories, culled from decades’ worth of interviews. As users walk around the space and tap on each “play” icon, they’ll hear the various stories and perspectives from those who were there. These historical figures include Sylvia Rivera, Raymond Castro, Yvonne Ritter, Lucian K. Truscott IV, and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine.

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