# @pinknews on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DR-EfwmD_y-
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/37677810-pinknews-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/abfb48a9cb.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-12-07T17:01:27.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** PinkNews (@pinknews) — https://gondola.cc/pinknews

## Caption

According to legend, it was a piece of brick hurled at police officers outside of the Stonewall Inn that sparked the historic uprising, and with it the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

In the early hours of June 28, 1969, police had raided the New York City bar, harassing and assaulting some 200 queer folk including Stormé DeLarverie, a mixed race butch lesbian.

As DeLarverie was being bundled violently into the back of a police car, she is said to have asked “Aren’t you going to do something?”

Did Marsha P Johnson or Sylvia Rivera throw the first brick?

Two trans women of colour, Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, are names often associated with the first brick thrown at Stonewall, and were both at the forefront of the LGBTQ+ rights movement that was born from the riot.

But neither woman ever took credit for this, or even acknowledged that a brick was thrown.

Johnson denied that she was even present when rioting broke out, explaining in the 1970s that she didn’t arrive until 2am, when “the place was on fire… [and] the #riots had already started”.

In 2001, she added to this: “I have been given the credit for throwing the first Molotov cocktail by many historians but I always like to correct it. I threw the second one, I did not throw the first one!”

Rivera said in 1989 that she had been drinking at the Stonewall when it was raided. After being ejected on to the street, she said, “everybody [was] looking at each other”.

She said they asked: “But why do we have to keep on constantly putting up with this?” before the “nickels, the dimes, the pennies, and the quarters started flying”.

DeLarverie recounted “The cop hit me, and I hit him back. The cops got what they gave,”

It seems that, in all likeliness, there was no “first brick” thrown at Stonewall. At least, not one that singularly ignited the protests that took place that night.

#stonewll #lgbtqrights #lgbtqhistory

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## Tags

stonewll, lgbtqrights, lgbtqhistory, riots

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