Bartender Explains Why The First National Gay Rights Monument Should Be At Stonewall

Published May 9, 2016 at 12:40 PM CDT

Statues decorated with signs in favor of gay rights mix with a crowd in front of the Stonewall Inn during a rally in support of the Supreme Court's landmark decision guaranteeing nationwide gay marriage rights on June 26, 2015 in New York City. Today the high court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage in all 50 states. (Yana Paskova/Getty Images)

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell is scheduled to attend a listening session in New York this week to hear activists and local officials make the case for the first national monument to the gay rights movement. The Obama administration is weighing a proposal that would have the monument on a small piece of land across the street from the historic bar, the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, which was the site of the 1969 riots that helped catalyze the fight for equality and acceptance of the LGBT community.

Fredd E. Tree, Stonewall’s longtime bartender, was there the night the riots began and says he will be at the public session to support the monument this week. Speaking with Here & Now’s Robin Young, he remembers the demonstrations and the movement that followed.

Guest

Fredd E. Tree, longtime bartender at the Stonewall Inn. He was at the bar the night the 1969 Stonewall riots began.