{"id":43542,"date":"2025-08-29T13:12:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=43542"},"modified":"2025-08-29T13:12:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T20:12:03","slug":"date-of-comptons-riot-remains-elusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/date-of-comptons-riot-remains-elusive\/","title":{"rendered":"Date of Compton\u2019s riot remains elusive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li>by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/search?author=1&amp;searchBox=Cynthia+Laird&amp;advancedSearch=1&amp;submit=search&amp;search_for=exact+phrase\">Cynthia Laird<\/a>, News Editor&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:%20c.laird@ebar.com\"><\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Monday, August 25, 2025 (ebar.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Share this Post:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/image\/stories\/3570\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>111 Taylor Street once housed Gene Compton\u2019s Cafeteria, the site of an August 1966 riot by drag queens and trans people against the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Photo: Cynthia Laird<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>San Francisco\u2019s Transgender History Month, observed in August for the past several years, often brings attention to the fact that an exact date of the 1966 riot at Gene Compton\u2019s Cafeteria in the Tenderloin remains elusive. The former eatery, which was frequented by drag queens and trans people, among others, has been in the news this year, as activists work to reclaim the historic site that is now a reentry facility for formerly incarcerated people.<br>&nbsp;<br>The ground floor commercial space at 111 Taylor Street had housed Gene Compton\u2019s Cafeteria, where one night in August 1966 a drag queen reportedly threw a cup of hot coffee in the face of a police officer who tried to arrest her without a warrant. The exact date of the altercation has been lost to time. But the incident sparked a riot by trans and queer patrons of the 24-hour diner and cops, as detailed in the 2005 documentary &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=G-WASW9dRBU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Screaming Queens<\/a>&#8221; by transgender scholar and historian Susan Stryker, Ph.D. .<br>&nbsp;<br>The property earlier this year became the first one of its kind granted federal landmark status specifically for its connection to the transgender movement in the U.S. It is also now on the California Register of Historical Resources.<br>&nbsp;<br>In 2022, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors declared the intersection in front of Compton\u2019s and the exterior walls of 111 Taylor Street as the city\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/sfplanninggis.org\/docs\/landmarks_and_districts\/LM307.pdf#page=9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>&nbsp;307th landmark<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;. It provides some level of protection to the building facade from being altered.<br>&nbsp;<br>Today, 111 Taylor Street houses the facility operated by GEO Reentry Services, a subsidiary of GEO Group Inc. Activists with the Compton\u2019s x Coalition want to reclaim the site and have tried to get GEO Group\u2019s zoning determination revoked, which would require it to vacate the premises. Thus far, they have been unsuccessful, as the Bay Area Reporter has noted. https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/story\/155930<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read the rest of this story below<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>and never miss another!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sign up today&nbsp;to receive trusted LGBTQ news in your inbox.Please select the newsletters you&#8217;d like to subscribe to:Bay Area Reporter newsletterNews is Out weekly newsletterBay Area Reporter health newsletterSubmit<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/image\/stories\/3571\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Susan Stryker, Ph.D., is known as an expert on the Compton\u2019s Cafeteria riots.&nbsp;&nbsp; Photo: Courtesy Susan Stryker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Several dates offered<\/strong><br>Dates for when the Compton\u2019s riot occurred that the Bay Area Reporter have heard about or seen recently range from August 12, to the 14th, to later in the month. Stryker, an academic and professor emerita at University of Arizona, is now a visiting professor at Stanford\u2019s Clayman Institute. She is credited with being an expert on the riot, even as she has been unable to find the date of it.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI have no question that it did happen,\u201d Stryker said in a recent phone interview. \u201cThe date thing is curious.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>She\u2019s convinced the demonstration occurred August 21 or 28, both of which would have been Sunday nights, based on conversations she\u2019s had with people around at the time. One was with a guy whose birthday was the first week of September and he\u2019d have to report for the draft. Additionally, the Tenderloin became more racially mixed later in the month, when \u201cthe Brown girls would go to the Tenderloin to hustle at the end of the month,\u201d Stryker said.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cWe also know a more racially mixed spot is more likely to be raided,\u201d she added.<br>&nbsp;<br>Another thing, said Stryker, is the absence of evidence. At the time, KGO-TV had its studios right down the street from Compton\u2019s. The station filmed a picket outside of Compton\u2019s on July 17. \u201cIt\u2019s recorded in the handwritten logs for July 17, 1966,\u201d said Stryker.<br>&nbsp;<br>But the TV station didn\u2019t film news on Sundays back then, she explained.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cThat, to me, suggests the wee hours of the morning on a Sunday at the end of the month,\u201d said Stryker. \u201cAugust 21 or 28, probably the 28th.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>Stryker said that there are no city archives of police records for that time, and there was no coverage in the San Francisco Examiner or San Francisco Chronicle.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cAt the time, the gay press did not cover trans people in the Tenderloin,\u201d Stryker said. (The B.A.R. didn\u2019t begin publishing until April 1971.)<br>&nbsp;<br>Another interesting tidbit Stryker came across is that the KGO-TV reporter who covered the July 1966 pickets at Compton\u2019s was Dick Carlson, a transphobe who later outed Ren\u00e9e Richards, the trans tennis star. He also outed Liz Carmichael, a trans woman who created the Dale, a three-wheeled, low-cost, high-efficiency car she was convinced would upend the auto industry. (HBO aired a documentary, \u201cThe Lady and the Dale,\u201d about Carmichael\u2019s life.) Dick Carlson, who died in March, was the father of conservative anti-LGBTQ media figure Tucker Carlson.<br>&nbsp;<br>Adrian Ravarour, Ph.D., a gay man and former San Francisco resident, told the B.A.R. that the riot happened August 12 \u201cto the best of my knowledge.\u201d He based that on the Vanguard organization holding its first dance the following day, he said in a phone interview this spring. Vanguard was an early LGBTQ organization based in the Tenderloin. It operated from 1965-67 and focused on social justice and trying to gain acceptance for LGBTQ people. Keith St Clare, a gay man who published the Vanguard magazine even after the organization ended, died earlier this year. https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/story\/154014<br>&nbsp;<br>Joseph Plaster, a queer academic and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, told the B.A.R. he has done quite a bit of research on the Vanguard organization. He noted Vanguard held a picket outside Compton\u2019s in July 1966, before the riot. And he said the organization held a dance that month as well.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cA dance on Saturday, July 23, a few days after Vanguard picketed Compton\u2019s Cafeteria, attracted \u2018over 100 young people,\u2019 Glide\u2019s Ed Hansen wrote a few days later. \u2018The kids all had a good time, and no one caused any trouble. Channel 7 \u2013 T.V. \u2013 had been there taking pictures and interviewing some of the TL kids.\u2019 Unearthed Channel 7 footage from that dance shows a barebones basement, crowded with roughly 50 people,\u201d Plaster wrote in an email. \u201cThis is all to say that the first dance would not have been held in mid-August.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cIn the wake of the riots, Vanguard appeared to gain traction in its efforts to curb police harassment and exclusion,\u201d Plaster wrote. \u201cIn late 1966, a reporter noted that Vanguard worked with a police [official], likely Elliott Blackstone, to \u2018act as an intermediary between Vanguard and Compton\u2019s.\u2019 Raymond Broshears also recalled that Blackstone and cafeteria management negotiated \u2018a settlement\u2019 at Glide Methodist Church.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>Blackstone, who is featured in Stryker\u2019s documentary, was a straight ally who worked with the trans community. He was a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department and its first liaison to the LGBTQ community when he was named to the position in 1962.<br>&nbsp;<br>After the Compton&#8217;s riot, he helped organize the first U.S. transsexual support group, Conversion Our Goal, at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church and, with funding from transgender philanthropist Reed Erickson, established the National Transsexual Counseling Unit, the first-ever peer-staffed transgender social services agency, as the B.A.R.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/story\/152923\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>&nbsp;in June 2006 when Blackstone was honored by the trans community. (Blackstone died that October.)<br>&nbsp;<br>Things appeared to change at Compton\u2019s after the riot, according to Plaster\u2019s research.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cAt a Vanguard organizational meeting in late 1966, Vice President John Colvin explained that Compton\u2019s \u2018had agreed to end discrimination, more or less,\u2019 according to a reporter,\u201d Plaster stated. \u201c\u2018The kids would not be specifically harassed, but, if they lingered an hour over a cup of coffee or invited non-paying friends to the tables, they would be \u2013 well, pushing their luck.\u2019 Meanwhile, the policemen \u2018who had been roughing the kids up had been removed, and the new ones had orders not to use force.\u2019\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>Ravarour was reached last week and told of Plaster\u2019s research. He continues to maintain the August 12 date for the riot.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI am 100% confident that the Compton&#8217;s Cafeteria Riot occurred on Friday night, August 12, 1966,\u201d he wrote in an email. \u201cAround 1:45 a.m. Saturday morning after the riot, after leaving the Vanguard dance, my boyfriend and I stood outside Compton&#8217;s assessing the damage.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cLate Saturday afternoon, Dixie Russo, who had been a participant inside the riot, met with me and disclosed further details,\u201d Ravarour added.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/image\/stories\/3572\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Reverend Raymond Broshears wrote about the 1966 Compton\u2019s riot in his 1972 San Francisco Pride magazine. &nbsp;&nbsp; Photo: Cynthia Laird, from the GLBT Historical Society Archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Broshears, a gay man who published the Gay Crusader newspaper, also published a San Francisco Pride Guide, the first one of which was June 25, 1972. There was a parade that year, and in the guide, Broshears writes about the 1966 Compton\u2019s riot, six years after the fact.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cIn the streets of the Tenderloin, at Turk and Taylor on a hot August night in 1966, Gays rose up angry at the constant police harassment of the drag-queens by police,\u201d Broshears wrote. \u201cIt had to be the first ever recorded violence by Gays against the police anywhere. For on that evening, when the SFPD paddy wagon drove up to make their \u2018usual\u2019 sweeps of the streets, Gays this time did not go willingly.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>Broshears wrote that the dispute did begin once they entered the cafeteria.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cBut when the police grabbed the arm of one of the transvestites, he threw his hot coffee in the cop\u2019s face, and with that, cups, saucers, and trays began flying around the place and all directed at the police,\u201d he wrote.<br>&nbsp;<br>He reported that a police car \u201chad every window broken,\u201d a newspaper shack outside the cafeteria \u201cwas burned to the ground and general havoc raised that night in the Tenderloin.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>Greg Pennington, a co-founder with the late Willie Walker of the GLBT Historical Society, told the B.A.R. that as an amateur historian he compiled a chronology of early gay history. It is now in the archives of the historical society. The B.A.R. was unable to locate it while visiting the archives recently, likely due to it being combined with other documents, according to archivists.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI never had any formal training in archives,\u201d Pennington said in a recent phone interview. But he recalled that his timeline indicates August 1966 for the Compton\u2019s riot, though without an exact date. His chronology also cited Broshears\u2019 Gay Crusader newspaper, he said, adding that Broshears mentioned the riot \u201cafter the fact.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>The Reverend Dr. Megan Rohrer, a transgender man whose&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/story\/157294\/News\/New%20book%20documents%20SF%E2%80%99s%20trans%20history\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">book<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cImages of America: San Francisco\u2019s Transgender District\u201d was published this month, was also unable to find a date for the Compton\u2019s riot, Rohrer told the B.A.R.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI went through the police records at the library for that full year surrounding it \u2013 it is not listed in the police report. I think the only mention of it is from the Reverend Ray Broshears in his Gay Crusader paper,\u201d Rohrer stated.<br>&nbsp;<br>Stryker said that SFPD\u2019s records from that time \u201cdisappeared.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cThere are no files for Central Station,\u201d she said, referring to the police station that oversees the Tenderloin. \u201cNothing in newspapers.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ebar.com\/image\/stories\/3573\" alt=\"\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The Reverend Raymond Broshears published his San Francisco Pride magazine in June 1972. &nbsp;&nbsp; Photo: Cynthia Laird, from the GLBT Historical Society Archives<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>An outlier<\/strong><br>Adding to the hunt for a date, Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, sent out an email two weeks ago indicating the riot occurred on August 14.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201c59 years ago today, in a San Francisco diner, a hot cup of coffee ignited a revolution,\u201d the email stated. \u201cThree years before Stonewall, drag queens and transgender women stood up against police harassment \u2013 and refused to back down. That August night in 1966 was loud, unapologetic, and the beginning of the movement we&#8217;re still fighting for today.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>The fundraising message was signed by Tom Temprano, a gay man who is EQCA\u2019s managing director and a San Francisco resident. He was asked how EQCA determined the date.<br>&nbsp;<br>In response, Jorge Reyes Salinas, a gay man who is communications director for the organization, clarified the date issue in a message to the B.A.R.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cTo clarify, we meant \u2018today\u2019 as in \u2018at this moment,\u2019 not specifically August 14. Our social media also does the same,\u201d Reyes Salinas stated. \u201cSaying \u2018today\u2019 was to uplift this moment and event in history, was not meant to be specific. Hope that clarifies since there is no specific date of when the Compton Cafeteria took place.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>As for Stryker, she said that she would like to solve this puzzle.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI would love to find a date,\u201d she said, adding that its absence allows others to question whether the Compton\u2019s riot happened.<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI do see right-wing chatter that it\u2019s all made up,\u201d she said, but she added, \u201cthe Compton\u2019s story has been told for a very, very long time.\u201d<br>&nbsp;<br>\u201cI\u2019ve got all these stories about why it\u2019s forgotten and why it\u2019s not recorded,\u201d she said. \u201cI wish I could find the one definitive date.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Share this Post: 111 Taylor Street once housed Gene Compton\u2019s Cafeteria, the site of an August 1966 riot by drag queens and trans people against the police. Photo: Cynthia Laird San Francisco\u2019s Transgender History Month, observed in August for the past several years, often brings attention to the fact that&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/29\/date-of-comptons-riot-remains-elusive\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43543,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43542\/revisions\/43543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}