Stories of Pride: Three Years Before Stonewall, There Was Compton's Cafeteria

In the LGBTQ community, Stonewall is often seen as the turning point in the fight for LGBTQ rights. But, actually, there was another riot, on the other coast, about three years earlier. It was known as the Compton's Cafeteria Riot and it occurred in the summer of 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco.

George Compton owned several cafeterias in San Francisco from the 1940s through the 1970s, but it was the Compton’s in the Tenderloin where many transgendered people would gather. In those days—the 40s, 50s, and 60s—transgendered people were unwelcomed in gay bars, so they began to meet at other places throughout the city and since the cafeteria was open 24-hours, it was the perfect spot.

At that time, transgendered people were commonly referred to by themselves, other gays, and non-gays, as Hair Fairies, and because cross-dressing was illegal in those days, police could use the mere presence of transgender people in a bar as a pretext for making a raid and closing the bar down. However, like Stonewall, this hot summer night in 1966 would prove to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

That night, police were called to Compton’s because, allegedly, a group of transgendered people were being especially boisterous. The management felt they needed to go and called the police. One officer, accustomed to manhandling transgendered people, attempted to arrest a transgendered woman, and she was not having it; she threw her coffee in the officer's face. It was on. Dishes and food were thrown; furniture was upended. The large plate glass window that fronted Taylor Street was shattered. As police called for reinforcements, the riot spilled out into the street where a newsstand was set on fire and a police car had all its windows broken. Many were arrested that night, but like Stonewall, it wasn't over.

The next evening more transgendered people showed up at Compton’s, along with many men and women from the gay community. Militant hustlers and street queens, members of Vanguard, the first known gay youth organization in the United States, which had been organized with the help of radical ministers at Glide Memorial Church, came along as well. A lesbian group of street people, the Street Orphans, was also at Compton’s that night.

It was a more civil demonstration that second night, with the community simply picketing the cafeteria whose new policy was not to allow transgendered people to be served. As it became apparent that their quiet march was getting them nowhere, the group, before disbanding, shattered the newly installed plate-glass windows again.

The Compton Cafeteria riots were a big deal in San Francisco in the 60s but have been largely forgotten over these last forty years. It wasn't until a documentary, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria, that the story was reborn, and retold. On June 22, 2006, a memorial plaque was placed in the sidewalk in front of the cafeteria site, which is now the Oshun Center, a free clinic for women.

It may not have been as big as Stonewall, but it was just as important. It was another step in a march that still goes on ….