Attend the ceremony on Monday, June 27, officially designating the Stonewall Inn and Christopher Park as a National Monument, the first National Park Service unit dedicated to the gay rights movement.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis and White House Senior Advisor to the President Valerie Jarrett join federal, state and NYC officials and LGBT leaders in the ceremony designating the Greenwich Village site as the Stonewall National Monument.
The ceremony is at noon Monday, at Stonewall National Monument (also known as Christopher Park), Greenwich Village at Christopher Street, West 4th and Grove Street. Eventually, where will be a Park Ranger station, visitor center and exhibits at the site.
Stonewall Inn National Monument is one of several national monument sites in NYC. Another is
Hamilton Grange National Monument,
home of Alexander Hamilton.
President Obama made the announcement on Friday, at the start of NYC Pride Week, using his authority under the Antiquities Act to create the Stonewall National Monument.
The Stonewall Inn and Christoper Park are widely regarded as the spot where the gay rights movement was born, in 1969, in what has been called the Stonewall Uprising.
It followed an NYPD police raid on the Stonewall Inn that targeted the bar’s LGBT patrons, a clash occurred that is now understood to have launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement.
Each June, during LGBT Pride Month, these historic events are remembered nationwide with Pride festivals, parades and other celebratory, historical and educational activities, especially in NYC, where it all started.
The Stonewall Inn site was designated a National Historic Landmark and a National Park Service affiliated area in 2000, and now becomes a National Monument.
The monument’s boundary includes the Stonewall Inn, a seminal location in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) history, as well as the surrounding streets and sidewalks integral to the Stonewall Uprising.
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