Fifty years ago on Friday, a police raid on a New York City gay bar called the Stonewall Inn led to riots that have become synonymous with the start of the LGBTQ rights movement.

Paul Glass and Charles Evans — now married — were both there separately when the riots broke out in 1969. But they didn't know it until recently.

Glass was a teenager living in Boston at the time, and decided to take a trip to New York to explore "more of what the gay life had to offer" in Greenwich Village. He and Evans, both African American, had met the previous year and dated long distance. Things didn't work out.

"I kind of sneaked in town without telling him," Glass says. "I was on the opposite end of Christopher Street down near the piers and was working my way back up towards Sheridan Square when folks were kind of running down the street and sending out word almost like the town crier that there was a commotion going on up in Sheridan Square, so everybody kind of ran in that direction."

Evans was coming from a club on the opposite end of Christopher Street, Glass says, "so we never really saw one another." Both men tell Here & Now they weren't afraid as the riots unfolded. They say they were accustomed to police raids on gay clubs in the city, and that they remember feeling power in numbers.

New York City's police commissioner recently apologized for the raid on behalf of the department.

Evans and Glass eventually reconnected and got together for good. Now, as the country commemorates the riots' 50th anniversary, Glass says he remembers them for the way LGBTQ people stepped up and forcefully fought back against oppression.

Rainbow pride flags fly outside the Stonewall Inn as crowds begin to gather to celebrate Pride Month in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

"It was one of the first times that the gays ... felt as though they were no longer subhuman. They felt that they should be respected, and they had rights," Glass says. "For a long time, certainly from my perspective, being the time that I had been out in gay life, the attitude was pretty much you didn't have any rights. So you just had to go along and comply with whatever was the order of the day."

"Folks began to feel as though when they come together, they had power, and that power was evident at Stonewall," he says.

Interview Highlights

On being in New York when the riots took place

Charles Evans: "I was raised down South by my aunt, so I was up visiting my parents for the summer, and as usual, you just hang out. It was one of those days I wanted to go out, and I ended up going to the Village, and there was this club called the Bon Soir that I would always frequent. And then it just happened to be that Friday after leaving the club, I came down West 4th Street, and as I approached West 4th Street, I saw a crowd. Normally after we left the club, we always go to Sheridan Square and just hang out, because young kids — like I said I was … between my freshman and sophomore year in college — so we just went to hang out. And as we get close to Sheridan Square, we saw this crowd.

"And next thing we knew, we were joining into the crowd. Now to others, it was kind of interesting because I was still in a riot mode, because the month before we had had a big riot at my college. And I guess by getting into this crowd, it just made the adrenaline even higher. And the next thing I know, it's 50 years later and here we are."

On if they felt worried for their safety

Evans: "I didn't even think about that, because when by the time we got there, I guess all the screaming and the hollering, and then we kind of found out what was going on. So we kind of joined in, and it got to be the point to if you had lived in New York during that time and going to the clubs, you would be in the club, and then all at once the music would stop. They would unplug the jukebox and the cops would come and they would walk around. So it got be a point [where] you were tired of being tired. So when we found out exactly what was going on, we felt good. So there was no danger, I felt. No danger at all."