GOOGLE pledges $1 Million for Stonewall Project

GOOGLE to spend $1 Million on 50th Anniversary Stonewall project!

NY POST reported – Google pledged $1 million on Sunday to help record the stories of anyone and everyone involved in the Stonewall riots, a landmark moment in the battle for gay rights.

The Web giant’s “digital experience” will be an oral history featuring interviews with New Yorkers who were on the front lines in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1969.

The project is aimed for completion by June 28, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the riots.

The impromptu uprising outside the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street against police harassment is remembered as a watershed moment in the push for LGBTQ equality.

“I remember the Stonewall riot — whatever you want to call it — I remember the debate, I remember the time, and it’s hard to go back there. I can tell you, you don’t want to go back there either.” said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Artist and Stonewall veteran Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt said he’ll tell his story, in honor of activists who have since died.

“What sticks in my mind most is all the people who aren’t here to talk about it,” he told reporters at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center on West 13th Street. “Most of the people — I knew because I was one of the street kids — didn’t live to be 22 years old. I’m lucky to be alive.”

He added, “If the smell of lighter fluid is in the air, I think of Stonewall.”

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