Early in the morning on Friday, September 24, FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota's Twin Cities kicked in the doors of anti-war activists, brandishing guns, spending hours rifling through their homes. The FBI took away computers, photos, notebooks and other personal property. Residents were issued subpoenas to appear before a grand jury in Chicago. It was just the latest in the ongoing crackdown on dissent in the U.S., targeting peace organizers as supporters of "foreign terrorist organizations."
raids
The radical roots of Pride
Marxism 2010: As Pride Toronto bans the term "Israeli Apartheid" from this year's march, Christine Beckermann looks back on the radical roots of the gay liberation movement, and how the rights we have today didn't come without a fight -- or without radical politics.
This summer will mark the 30th anniversary of the Pride Day celebrations in Toronto. For young people who may be heading out to their first Pride, it would be easy to think that the history of the struggle for LGBT rights has been an onward and upward advance of rational ideas over bigotry and hatred; that through reasoned argument, society and the state have come to accept the case for equal rights.
Toronto Bathhouse Raids
On February 5, 1981, 286 men were arrested in a series of raids on Toronto area bathhouses, the largest mass arrest since the October Crisis, sparking outrage in the Gay and Lesbian community.
The Raids
At approximately 11 p.m. on the night of February 5, Police raided four bathhouses: Club Baths, Romans II Health and Recreation Spa, Richmond Street Health Emporium and the Barracks. The owners were charged with 'keeping a common bawdy-house', and 286 occupants were arrested.
Aftermath
Stonewall
The Stonewall Uprising was a series of actions that took place in response to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. The commemoration of the actions the following year was the first incarnation of Gay Pride marches.