This is Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014). Nobody knows for sure who threw the first punch at the Stonewall Uprising in New York City in 1969, but many eyewitnesses claimed it was Stormé DeLarverie. 
Stormé was born in 1920 in New Orleans. She didn’t have a birth certificate, so didn’t know the day she was born, but she celebrated her birthday on Dec. 24.
Her mother was black and was a servant in the house of her father, who was white. At some point they married and made sure Stormé got an education, but growing up was tough & she was bullied horrendously.
In one attack, she was hung by her legs from a fence post. She needed to wear leg braces for several years afterwards. As an adult, she couldn’t stand what she called “ugly”, by which she meant any kind of cruelty or abuse, especially towards the LGBT community.
She started singing in jazz clubs as a teenager, first as a woman and then dressed as a man. She realised she was gay at 18 and moved to Chicago - where she later claimed she worked as a bodyguard for mob bosses. She met a dancer named Diana, who became the love of her life.
n the 1950s, Stormé began performing in drag as the M.C. in the pioneering Jewel Box Revue, a touring drag show that was the first in the country to be integrated. The show was billed as “25 Men and a Girl” (Stormé was revealed as the ‘girl’ at the end)
The Jewel Box performed throughout the U.S. and in Europe. In 1957, the show was performed twice a week at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Stormé stayed with them for 15 years.
She was photographed by renowned artist Diane Arbus, who took this image in 1961.
In the 60s, The Stonewall Inn was owned and operated by the Mafia. There was a lot of money to be made from people who couldn’t get served anywhere else. The Stonewall Inn catered to the most marginalised people in the gay community.
In 1960s New York, ppl were arrested and fined for not wearing “gender appropriate” clothing. Police raids were so common that the Stonewall Inn would had a system of flashing lights to warn patrons a raid was coming.
Stormé later recounted what happened at The Stonewall Inn in early morning hours of June 28, 1969.
“The cops were parading patrons out of the front door of The Stonewall at about two o’ clock in the morning. I saw this one boy being taken out by three cops, only one in uniform. Three to one! I told my pals, ‘I know him! That’s Williamson, my friend Sonia Jane’s friend.’”
“Williamson briefly broke loose but they grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him right down on the cement street. One of them did a drop kick on him. Another cop senselessly hit him from the back. Right after that, a cop said to me:”
“Move faggot’, thinking that I was a Gay guy. I said, ‘I will not! And, don’t you dare touch me.” With that, the cop shoved me and I instinctively punched him right in his face. He bled! He was then dropping to the ground — not me!” back2stonewall.com/2014/05/lesbia…
It took 4 officers to get the handcuffs on Stormé snd drag her to the police van. When she complained her cuffs were on too tightly, an officer hit her head with a club. Battered and bleeding, Stormé turned to the crowd and shouted, “Why don’t you guys do something?”
At this point, all hell broke loose. Stormé recalled...
“Stonewall was just the flip side of the black revolt when Rosa Parks took a stand. Finally, the kids down there took a stand. But it was peaceful. I mean, they said it was a riot; it was more like a civil disobedience.”
“Noses got broken, there were bruises and banged-up knuckles and things like that, but no one was seriously injured. The police got the shock of their lives when those queens care out of that bar and pulled off their wigs and went after them went after them.”
“I knew sooner or later people were going to get the same attitude that I had. They had just pushed once too often.”
google.co.uk/amp/s/www.wash…
google.co.uk/amp/s/www.wash…
After the Stonewall Riots and death of her partner Diana, Stormé gave up performing as a drag king & started working as a bouncer around Greenwich Village. She voluntarily patrolled the streets for the next 30 years, making sure her her ‘baby girls’ were safe.
She kept bouncing and watching after her ‘baby girls’ into her 80s. In her final years, she suffered from dementia and lived in a nursing home in Brooklyn. By all accounts, her memories of singing & Stonewall stayed with her until the end. She died in her sleep on May 24, 2014.
Her obituary in the New York Times remembered her this:
“Tall, androgynous and armed – she held a state gun permit – Ms. DeLarverie roamed lower Seventh and Eighth Avenues and points between into her 80s, patrolling the sidewalks and checking in at lesbian bars.”
“Tall, androgynous and armed – she held a state gun permit – Ms. DeLarverie roamed lower Seventh and Eighth Avenues and points between into her 80s, patrolling the sidewalks and checking in at lesbian bars.”
“She was on the lookout for what she called "ugliness": any form of intolerance, bullying or abuse of her "baby girls." ... "She literally walked the streets of downtown Manhattan like a gay superhero. ... She was not to be messed with by any stretch of the imagination.”
Apologies for all the spelling mistakes in that thread! I am using a very old phone without speak back function, so my dyslexic brain is working without a net. X
