Castro Sweep
Date | October 6, 1989 |
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Location | Castro District, San Francisco, California, United States |
Type | Police riot |
Cause | Police opposition to ACT UP protest |
Non-fatal injuries | 14 (10 protestors, 4 police officers) |
Arrests | 53 |
The Castro Sweep is a
Earlier that day, members of ACT UP had marched from the
In the aftermath of the sweep, LGBT news media coverage compared the event to the 1969
Background
The
ACT UP protest
March through San Francisco
On Friday, October 6, 1989, ACT UP activists in San Francisco organized a march through the city to protest government inaction with regards to the AIDS pandemic.[7][8] It was part of a nationwide day of protest conducted by ACT UP,[9][10][11] and one of several protest activities conducted by the organization that year.[12] In San Francisco, the march was planned to start at the Federal Building in the city's Civic Center and travel to Harvey Milk Plaza at the intersection of Castro and Market Street in the Castro District.[8][11] Along the way, the protestors would make stops at the City Hall and the San Francisco Mint.[8][11] Over one hundred people were present at the beginning of the march,[note 1] which commenced around 5 p.m.[13]
In previous ACT UP demonstrations, the SFPD would typically assign a small number of officers to aid in traffic control and ensure the protestor's safety, but during the October 6 march, the police presence was much greater than it had been at prior events.
Gathering at Castro and Market Streets
The march ended around 7 p.m. as the protestors approached the intersection of Castro and Market streets.[14] During other ACT UP marches, it had been customary for a brief gathering to be held at the intersection, with organizers giving brief speeches and protestors chanting while some police officers would direct traffic on foot.[14] However, when the march finally reached the intersection, there were several hundred police officers present.[8] According to Gerard Koskovich, a journalist present during the march, "When I got there I saw the single largest mass of San Francisco police officers I had ever seen at that point. The entire intersection of Castro and Market streets was filled with officers standing in rank".[8] The police blocked the protestors from assembling at the intersection and redirected them along Castro Street,[14] where about fifty protestors joined hands in a sit-in.[14][12] Additionally, twenty protestors staged a die-in on the street.[14][12] Despite the police presence, Koskovich and many other protestors did not think that there would be a serious confrontation with the police, as there had not been a violent largescale confrontation between police and LGBT individuals in the Castro District since the White Night riots about a decade ago.[10]
As the protesting continued, more onlookers and other participants arrived,[8] with the number of people present swelling to around 500[14][15] or 600.[16] By this time, the focus of the protesting activity had shifted to the intersection of Castro and 17th Street, where several protestors locked arms and waited to be arrested.[16] Additionally, many protestors had begun spray-painting parts of the road with body outlines as an homage to the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt,[9] which, at the time, was headquartered about two blocks away.[14] They also added slogans, such as "Profits=Death" and "Black People Die Faster".[16] During this time, some protestors also began chanting, "SFPD racist, sexist, anti-gay. SFPD go away".[8] According to Koskovich, the point where things turned violent began when someone knocked over a parked police motorcycle.[8][16] Following this, an officer clubbed a protestor on their shoulder,[8] and shortly thereafter other officers joined in and began to club protestors.[16]
Police riot
At around 8 p.m., the police announced that the gathering was an
Aftermath
The incident was the first police riot in the Castro District since the White Night riots of 1979.
Police and city response
Five days after the sweep, ACT UP issued a response in which they called for the resignation of the San Francisco Chief of Police
Later history
Since the event, the GLBT Historical Society has held several panel discussions about the sweep and its aftermath, including one on the 20th anniversary of the sweep in 2009[8] and another on the 30th anniversary in 2019.[7][25] A vigil was held at the site of the sweep on the 25th anniversary in 2014.[22] Speaking about the impact of the sweep in 2019, assistant editor John Ferrannini of the Bay Area Reporter wrote that "The Castro Sweep deepened divisions between the LGBT community and the police, which had already been frayed by decades of harassment in bars, the assassination of gay Supervisor Harvey Milk by former police officer and disgruntled ex-supervisor Dan White in 1978, and the subsequent White Night riots the following year".[26] In 2014, when asked by the Bay Area Reporter if another incident such as the sweep could occur, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr stated, "I would say very, very plainly 'Not on my watch.' That's a phrase we use in the police department when we say we're committed to something just absolutely not happening. ... We're a different police department".[22]
Several historians have theorized about the rationale for the police action on the night of the sweep. According to Hobson, the sweep may have been in retaliation for a September 1989 event held by another AIDS-advocacy group at the
Explanatory notes
- Outweek on October 29, 1989, says, "Several hundred demonstrators gathered" at the Federal Building.[11]
- ^ Several articles published by the Bay Area Reporter state that the city paid out $200,000.[8][22] However, a 2019 article published by the GLBT Historical Society gives the number as "some $250,000 in settlements".[7]
Citations
- ^ a b Owen 2012.
- ^ Clews 2017, p. 35.
- ^ Levin 2019.
- ^ Dowd 2019.
- ^ Latham 2018.
- ^ a b c Fitzsimmons 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g GLBT Historical Society 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae Bajko 2009.
- ^ a b c d e f Hobson 2016, p. 180.
- ^ a b c Riemer & Brown 2019, p. 272.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Hernandez 1989, p. 13.
- ^ a b c d Riemer & Brown 2019, p. 274.
- ^ a b Koskovich 2002, p. 189.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Koskovich 1989, p. 33.
- ^ Koskovich 2002, p. 191.
- ^ a b c d e f Hernandez 1989, p. 15.
- ^ a b Clews 2017, p. 36.
- ^ Bay Area Reporter 2019a.
- ^ a b c d e Hobson 2016, p. 181.
- ^ a b c Koskovich 1989, p. 65.
- ^ Koskovich 2002, p. 194.
- ^ a b c d e Hemmelgarn 2014.
- ^ Koskovich 1989, p. 32.
- ^ a b c Clews 2017, p. 37.
- ^ Bay Area Reporter 2019b.
- ^ Ferrannini 2019.
- ^ Koskovich 2002, p. 196.
General and cited sources
- Bajko, Matthew S. (September 30, 2009). "20 years ago, police shut down the Castro". Bay Area Reporter. Archived from the original on June 6, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- "Editorial: Police and Pride". Bay Area Reporter. June 12, 2019. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- "Arts Events Sept. 26 – Oct. 3, 2019". Bay Area Reporter. September 25, 2019. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- Clews, Colin (2017). Gay in the 80s: From Fighting for our Rights to Fighting for our Lives. San Francisco: Troubador Press. ISBN 978-1-78803-674-0.
- Dowd, Katie (May 21, 2019). "Today marks 40 years since the White Night riots roiled San Francisco". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications. Archived from the original on June 20, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- Ferrannini, John (October 2, 2019). "LGBTQ History Month: Castro Sweep recalled amid police scrutiny". Bay Area Reporter. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- Fitzsimmons, Tim (October 15, 2018). "LGBTQ History Month: The early days of America's AIDS crisis". NBC News. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- "Remembering a Police Riot: The Castro Sweep of 1989". GLBT Historical Society. October 3, 2019. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- Hemmelgarn, Seth (October 1, 2014). "Vigil to mark Castro Sweep 25th anniversary". Bay Area Reporter. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- Hernandez, Lazaro (October 29, 1989). "ACT UP/SF Demo Ends in Police Violence & Arrests" (PDF). OutWeek (19): 13, 15.
- Hobson, Emily K. (2016). Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left. Oakland, California: ISBN 978-0-520-96570-6.
- Koskovich, Gerard (November 5, 1989). "San Francisco Journal: Stonewall for a New Generation" (PDF). OutWeek (20): 32–33, 65.
- Koskovich, Gerard (2002). "Remembering a Police Riot: The Castro Sweep of October 6, 1989". In ISBN 978-0-943-59588-7.
- Latham, Ashley (December 15, 2018). "Looking Back: The AIDS Epidemic". San Francisco LGBT Community Center. Archived from the original on November 19, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- Levin, Sam (June 21, 2019). "Compton's Cafeteria riot: a historic act of trans resistance, three years before Stonewall". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 5, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- Owen, Elliot (October 23, 2012). "History shows San Francisco has long been a gay mecca". Windy City Times. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved June 8, 2022.
- Riemer, Matthew; Brown, Leighton (2019). We Are Everywhere: Protest, Power, and Pride in the History of Queer Liberation. Berkeley, California: ISBN 978-0-399-58182-3.
Further reading
- Gerber, Lynne (2018). "We Who Must Die Demand a Miracle: Christmas 1989 at the Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco". In Frank, Gillian; Moreton, Bethany; White, Heather R. (eds.). Devotions and Desires: Histories of Sexuality and Religion in the Twentieth-Century United States. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: ISBN 978-1-4696-3627-6.
- Laird, Cynthia (March 9, 2022). "Dennis Cunningham, an attorney who represented gays in 'Castro Sweep' lawsuit, dies". Bay Area Reporter. Archivedfrom the original on March 29, 2022. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
External links
Videos of the Castro Sweep | |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy2uLw2sNME | |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyV3tZE_xDg |