Although Gay Pride Month is observed for the entire month of June, we wish to make note of the specific date and events during the nighttime hours on June 27-28, 1969, when a series of riots and demonstrations against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn tavern in the Greenwich Village section of New York City launched the modern-day gay rights movement.

This was not the first time that the gay community had fought back against repression and persecution, but the Stonewall riots marked a turning point for the modern gay rights movement both in the United States and around the world.

The riot was precipitated when New York City police officers with the NYPD’s Public Morals Division (yes, that actually was its name) sought to conduct one of its usual raids at the Stonewall Tavern, a gay bar. At that time, men even seen holding hands with each other could be arrested on charges of violating public morality.

Almost all of the gay bars in New York City in that era were operated by organized crime. The police typically would give the owners a heads-up about impending raids, which usually took place on quiet weeknights and resulted in the arrests of a few of their customers.

However, on the night of June 27-28, the police uncharacteristically conducted a raid on a weekend night when there were more than 200 patrons in the Stonewall.

As the police began to make arrests, crowds from the surrounding community gathered outside in support of those being arrested. The ensuing pitched battle between the outnumbered police and the hundreds of area residents carried on for the next two nights.

For the first time, persons who did not conform to society’s sexual norms had made it clear that they no longer would be treated like second-class citizens.

Although the Stonewall Tavern itself was set on fire during the riots and never reopened, President Barack Obama designated the area as a national monument on June 24, 2016, thus ensuring its legacy as the spot that marked the beginning of a new day of freedom for Americans of the LGBTQIA+ community.

To be sure, tremendous strides have been made over the past 57 years for the gay community. But there is still much work to be done to ensure that those in our society, including federal and state government officials who are seeking to turn back the clock, do not succeed.

Five years ago this week….

Five years ago this week, an unspeakable act of violence, motivated solely by racial hatred, shattered the peace and calm of an early-summer Saturday afternoon in the community of Winthrop.

A 28 year-old white man, a native of Wareham who had been living in Winthrop for a short time with his wife, shot two Black persons, 60 year-old Ramona Cooper, a retired Air Force veteran who only recently had moved to Winthrop, and 68 year-old David Green, a Winthrop native and retired State Trooper who was beloved in the Winthrop community, in cold blood when they crossed paths on Shirley St. near Cross St.

Thanks to the quick response of Winthrop police and the heroism of Sgt. Nicholas Bettano, the suspect himself was shot in the street when he refused to put down his weapons (he was armed with two handguns).

It is believed that the shooter, whose belongings later were found to contain white supremacist and anti-Semitic literature, may have been en route to the nearby local temple and synagogue with the intent of perpetrating a mass shooting incident before he was stopped by Sgt. Bettano.

To be sure, both Ramona Cooper and David Green happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, given that the shooter did not fire his weapon at white passers-by, his intent to shoot his victims solely because they were Black is undeniable.

Those of us who live in the Boston area like to think that we are immune from the sort of racial and religious bigotry-inspired acts of violence that make the headlines in other states. However, the Anti-Defamation League reported that acts of anti-Semtiism have spiked in Massachusetts and for the first time in state history, antisemitic incidents surpassed all other bias categories (including race) to become the most common hate crime reported in Massachusetts.

The sad fact is that no place in America today is immune from the virus of prejudice, including our own community.

The best way that we can honor the memories of Ramona Cooper and David Green is never to forget that tragic and horrible day — and to resolve to do whatever we can to end the evils of racism and all other forms of prejudice that are far too prevalent throughout our society.