Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.), 03 Oct. 1955. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1955-10-03/ed-1/seq-25/>
According to a survey by GLSEN, in 2018, “only 19.8 percent of students had been taught a positive representation of LGBTQ people or history in the past year. More than 60 percent didn’t hear about LGBTQ issues at all” (Kosciw)
Stonewall is often treated as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement, but LGBTQ+ people and their communities were organizing and resisting oppression long before Stonewall. For example, students can look at the Cooper Do-nuts Riot, Los Angeles (1959); Whitehall Street Induction Center, New York (1964); ECHO White House Demonstration, DC (1965); Council on Religion and the Homosexual Ball, San Francisco (1965)—all of which occurred before Stonewall. Reading and learning about the Pepper Hill Club Raid is useful because it helps to situate Stonewall as part of a larger history of LGBTQ+ activism.
The Crucible is also commonly taught in grade 11 American literature courses, and understanding the Red Scare is an important part of contextualizing that text. However, bringing in texts about the Lavender Scare can first provide further nuance to students learning about the government’s history of persecuting and repressing “subversive” voices, and second, can help to resolve the silence and erasure of LGBTQ+ history from the classroom.
Reference
Kosciw, J. G., Clark, C. M., & Menard, L. (2022). The 2021 National School Climate Survey: The experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in our nation's schools. New York: GLSEN.
From the LoC website:
“Newspapers describe the police raid on the Pepper Hill Club, which began late on Saturday October 1, 1955. The Pepper Hill Club was known as a gay bar, and newspapers reported that the police had previously issued a warning to the bar about allowing homosexuals to congregate there. Newspapers provide details to the public about the Pepper Hill Club raid and the subsequent trial-providing evidence of LGBTQIA+ resistance in the years leading up to Stonewall that may otherwise have been lost.”
The Pepper Hill Club raid was a police raid on a gay bar in 1955 that resulted in 162 arrests, the largest raid of a nightclub in Baltimore history. Students should know first about the Lavender Scare because the Pepper Hill Club Raid occurs in the context of the Lavender Scare, where thousands of government employees were targeted and fired (or forced to resign) for being suspected of being LGBTQ+. Students should also know about the connections between the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare, that queer people and Communists were linked together, and that both were pathologized as having “peculiar mental twists,” according to Joseph McCarthy. Finally, students should also be provided with context about the Stonewall Riots in 1969, in order to make connections between the Pepper Hill Club raid and Stonewall.
- What happened during the Pepper Hill Club Raid?
- How did LGBTQIA+ people respond? How can you tell?
- How does the Pepper Hill Club Raid provide evidence of LGBTQIA+ resistance?
- What laws protect LGBTQIA+ people today (in housing, in employment, in schools)? What laws harm LGBTQIA+ people today? How have LGBTQIA+ people organized in response?
Common Core State Standards
RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- Students will use textual evidence to analyze the representation of LGBTQ+ people in this text. For example, they can focus on language like “notorious,” “a wild climax to a wild night,” “a human wall,” “complete disorder,” and “no control” in order to determine that LGBTQ+ patrons of the Pepper Hill Club are being represented as socially deviant.
RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
- Students will use textual evidence to analyze the representation of LGBTQ+ people in this text. For example, they can focus on language like “notorious,” “a wild climax to a wild night,” “a human wall,” “complete disorder,” “no control” in order to determine that LGBTQ+ patrons of the Pepper Hill Club are being represented as socially deviant. By comparing the earliest accounts in October 1955 to the ones published in November 1955, students can analyze what led to Judge Cullen’s ruling that the defendants were innocent.
NPR has an episode from Throughline called “Before Stonewall.” First, introduce students to “Before Stonewall,” and ask students to do research into some of the postwar LGBTQ organizations mentioned in the podcast. (For example, what was the Mattachine Society? Who were the Daughters of Bilitis? ONE Magazine Inc? What was the Council on Religion and the Homosexual?) Then, ask students to do brief research into these groups (i.e., how they were organized, who was part of them, what issues they were responding to, what did members risk, and how they took action). The Zinn Education Project also has a great lesson plan called “Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare” that would be helpful in establishing context for this piece.
Ask students to look at the first article from the Library of Congress on the Pepper Hill Club raid, paying specific attention to the language that that article uses (“notorious,” “a wild climax to a wild night,” “a human wall,” “complete disorder,” “no control”). How does this article describe the LGBTQ patrons of the Pepper Hill Club?
If time permits, have them look at the other three articles on the same event and track whether perspectives toward the event shift:
- "The Block Hires Publicity Expert After Police Raid." Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), October 13, 1955. Image 39, col. 4.
- "Judge Criticizes Baltimore Police for Mass Arrest." Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), November 23, 1955, Image 21, col. 3.
- "Legislature Probe of Mass Arrests in Baltimore Urged." Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), November 25, 1955. Image 18, col. 2.
Also see the Library of Congress resource guide to Stonewall. Most importantly, make connections between the moral panic of this 1950s–1960s and attempts to suppress LGBTQ+ histories and voices today.
- Teaching about the persecution of LGBTQ+ people and the strategies used by LGBTQ+ activists will be an issue for parents/guardians who don’t want their children to learn about LGBTQ+ history.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- Students could read “Senator Hill Proposes Complete Inquiry into Hiring of Undesirables,” May 20, 1950. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), Page B-12, Image 35. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
- This cartoon from the Red Scare Collection at the Library of Congress gives context for the Red Scare and lets students see what society/newspapers were thinking at the time.
- On the Pepper Hill Club Raid specifically: Autostraddle, “6 Pre-Stonewall Uprisings History Tried to Hide.”
- On the Lavender Scare
- Adkins, “These People Are Frightened to Death: Congressional Investigations and the Lavender Scare.”
- Queer America Podcast, Episode 6, The Lavender Scare.
- Facing History, “The Lavender Scare: Gay and Lesbian Life in Post WWII America.”
- Complementary: Students could learn about the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot instead (there’s a short excerpt from a film linked here) - also see Ellison’s Teachable Trans History on the event
3. On the Red Scare: Zinn Education Project, “Subversives: Stories from the Red Scare.”