Liberty, equality, fraternity, & pride

On July 14th, 1789 at approximately 5:30pm, Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay would exit the front gates of the Bastille de Saint Antione for the last time. A group of local revolutionaries had started as a small crowd in the early afternoon and then grew to even include members of the French guard by 3pm. By 5pm, at least 954 revolutionaries and mutineers had surrounded the Bastille itself, and de Launay was then admitting defeat. Exchanging notes with the mob through the front gate, de Luanay was promised that he and his men would not be harmed upon leaving. By 6pm, de Luanay’s unrecognizable body could be found outside of the Hôtel de Ville tangled in stab wounds, his head carried off some distance away on a bayonet.

One year later at the Champ des Mars, a crowd of over 100 thousand gathered with 14 thousand federalists and the hero of the American Revolution, Marquis de Lafayette, who would lead the national assembly in an oath to the new constitution. During this event, the Fête de la Fédération, the King of France, Louis XVI would set aside his title by accepting the same constitution. Thereafter, becoming a constitutional monarchy, Louis XVI would be beholden to the people of France and not in control of the country itself. This was the start of a new nation and also a celebration of what had happened a year prior at the Bastille. During a speech that same day, Camille Desmoulins pridefully spoke of citizens and soldiers rushing the Bastille and uniting in the promise liberty, equality, and fraternity.

One year after, the French had turned on their king and confined him after Louis had attempted to flee. Three days later on July 17th of 1791, a new mob assembled on the Champ des Mars, calling for the end of the constitutional monarchy and reframing as a republic. Led by Camille Desmoulins, the crowd turned riotous by the afternoon and began pelting stones at soldiers who had assembled in opposition. Still sympathetic to the king who had helped him win the American Revolution, Lafayette would then instruct the soldiers to open fire on the crowd.

Within a year, Layfayette would be exiled. About a year after that, Louis XVI would be arrested and beheaded. Then around a year later, Camille Desmoulins’ head would also find itself landing in the basket beneath a guillotine. ”Liberté, égalité, fraternité” would go on as a lasting motto for the French Republic. Revolutionaries, soldiers, and royals alike found themselves united in the liberty, equality, and brotherhood afforded by exile or execution.

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‍ ‍179 years, 11 months, and 14 days after Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay had been considering how he may find his way out of the Bastille alive, deputy police inspector Seymour Pine was barricaded in the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street of Greenwich Village, New York. Outside the bar, an angry mob had gathered after an attempted police raid earlier in the morning. About 600 had gathered after trans women, lesbians, and gay men had resisted arrest by inspector Pine. It started when a trans woman threw a bottle at Pine. It escalated when Pine’s officers tried to force a lesbian into a paddy wagon and she yelled "Why don't you guys do something?" It got violent, as the crowd pelted officers with stones and garbage, forcing them back into the bar for safety. As the crowd outside began a broadway style kick-line, singing songs of revolution, inspector Pine and nine other police officers wondered how they would get back out as the Stonewall Inn started to burn. The riots would last several nights.

A year later, June 28th 1970 would be named the Christopher Street Liberation Day and celebrated with a march from outside of the Stonewall Inn to Central Park. The size of this first march is hard to estimate, with numbers between 3 and 20 thousand particpants being recorded.

A year later, similar parades would be held around the world. The first gay couple was legally married in Minnesota. Sodomy laws would be repealed in Colorado and Oregon.

A year later, San Francisco would have the first gay bar to have clear windows.

Several years later, pride parades would be sponsored by banks, retailers, and energy conglomerates.

In 2004 David Carter said in his book on the Stonewall Riots that they were "to the gay movement what the fall of the Bastille is to the unleashing of the French Revolution."

In 2025, the government would remove references to trans people on the plaques outside of the the Stonewall Inn, and the library of Congress would state that the initial Stonewall uprising was “not a riot”.

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Revolutions, riots, and mobs don’t end with liberty, equality, fraternity, & pride. They begin again.