Ahead of the grand opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, activists from ACT UP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) dropped two banners at the New York City AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village, calling on President Biden to stop funding Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza.
The event takes place in the early morning hours of June 28, during which Biden will visit the Lower Manhattan neighborhood, where he and other administration officials will inaugurate the new visitor center. The center, a collaboration between Pride Live and the National Park Service (NPS), has been six years in the making since President Obama designated the site of the 1969 Stonewall Riots as a national monument in 2016. Located at 51 Christopher Street, in a previously vacant storefront, the new visitor center will be the first LGBTQIA+ visitor center in the National Park System.
Ahead of the president’s arrival, activists hung two white banners at the triangular AIDS memorial in St. Vincent’s Triangle around 5 a.m. The fabric signs, printed with black, red and pink text, read “Gays to Biden: Stop Arming Israel” and “From NY to Gaza/Stonewall is an Intifada,” a reference to the Arabic word for “to get rid of,” historically used to describe Palestinian uprisings against Israeli occupation. The latter sign was accompanied by a graphic of manicured hands pulling back a brick with a slingshot — a reference to the legend of the first brick thrown at police outside the Stonewall Inn during the historic uprising.
“55 years ago today, our LGBTQ forefathers made history when they threw the first brick at the Stonewall Inn, kicking off the gay liberation movement,” JVP and ACT UP said in a collective text posted on Instagram.
“While President Biden’s speech today erased this radical history, protesters sought to reclaim the legacy of Stonewall as a resistance to the state violence and police brutality faced by LGBTQ+ people.”
In addition to the banners, activists also put up posters made of wheat paste with pink watermelon triangles, inspired by Gran Fury’s iconic “Silence = Death” slogan, and bricks wrapped in a fisherman’s net pattern, also with scarfsuggesting the overlap between the Palestinian liberation movement and the LGBTQ+ rights movement. There is also a new version of Gran Fury’s “AIDS-gate” (1987) poster, replacing Ronald Reagan’s image with Biden’s, calling on the president to take action against Israel’s destruction of Gaza and to stop the delivery of American weapons.
Allergic The New York City AIDS Memorial and Stonewall National Monument have been contacted for comment.
Longtime ACT UP member and JVP activist BC Craig said in a statement that she refuses to allow her identity as a queer, Jewish person to be “weaponized to justify acts of genocide,” and she condemned Israel’s “whitewashing,” a term that describes Israel’s alleged use of LGBTQ+ rights to distract from human rights violations by its military.
“Our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters in Gaza are not getting as much shelter from Israeli bombs as other Palestinians,” Craig said.
According to the latest UN report, Israel’s air strikes and multi-layered siege on the Gaza Strip have killed 37,396 Palestinians and injured more than 85,523 since Hamas launched its attack in October. Tens of thousands more are missing and are expected to be buried under the rubble of collapsed infrastructure.
Miss Major, a veteran transgender activist who took part in the 1969 Stonewall Riots, criticized the president’s support for Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza in a public statement, saying: “The purpose of the Stonewall Riots was to remove the police from our lives.”
“Girls and boys will continue to fight, chant and march until everyone is free, including the Palestinians.”
