My obedience kept me out of handcuffs, and the officers eventually let some of us go. But once outside, we saw that a crowd had started to congregate, clearly agitated by the latest harassment of the LGBT community. As the police started bringing people out in cuffs, the crowd became enraged. The officers were manhandling the drag queens, hitting their backs with billy clubs to force them into the paddy wagons. One drag queen elbowed an officer in the groin while another threw a shoe. That’s when the crowd started retaliating, too. Bottles, garbage can lids, pennies, stones — anything people could get their hands on — started flying in every direction. I sympathized with the crowd’s anger, but my partner and I left before the riot grew to a reported 400 people.

Still, we didn’t escape the police harassment. I drove my partner to a nearby Orange Julius, where we grabbed some hot dogs. While we were sitting in the car, a couple of officers approached us and demanded to see our drivers’ licenses. My partner didn’t have one, so they handcuffed him and forced him to spend the evening in jail. The next morning, a judge threw out his case. But the police had sent a clear message — members of the gay community would continue to be harassed until they stood up for themselves. The Stonewall riot continued for four more days.

The story of that night is strikingly similar to the one we’re hearing today: A marginalized community, tired of unnecessary police harassment and brutality, was pushed to a breaking point. The riot destroyed the Stonewall Inn, and when the police retreated into the bar, some in the crowd tried to set the building on fire. That’s not the last time the gay community lashed out violently at a system that seemed intent on treating them unjustly. In 1979, when the man who killed Harvey Milk — San Francisco’s first openly gay elected official — was sentenced to just seven years in prison, thousands of rioters descended on City Hall, breaking windows and setting police cars aflame.