DICK LEITSCH (Former Chairman, Mattachine Society New York): It's a pleasure. He joins us from our studios in New York. Dick Leitsch was then head of the New York Mattachine Society. Today, the bar called Julius(ph) welcomes gays and commemorated the sip-in on Thursday as part of Pride Week in New York. And on April 21 of 1966 the society decided to take inspiration from the civil rights sit-ins that integrated so many lunch counters in restaurants and stage a "sip-in": go into a tavern, declared that were gay, order a drink, then wait to be served or turned away, and then sue. The Mattachine Society was one of the first gay rights groups in the country. Before Stonewall, there was the "Sip-In." In 1966, gay bars were technically legal in New York but they were often raided by agents of the State Liquor Authority, which had a regulation against serving homosexuals in bars on the idea that they were disorderly.
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