The events caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage to City Hall and the surrounding area, as well as injuries to police officers and rioters.

Several hours after the riot had been broken up, police made a retaliatory raid on a gay bar in San Francisco's Castro District.

This led to increased political power in the gay community, which culminated in the election of Mayor Dianne Feinstein to a full term the following November.

[2] As San Francisco was settled the ratio of men to women remained disproportionately high, resulting in the growth of a culture that was more open-minded towards homosexuality.

[7] To assist homosexuals with legal problems, in 1951 labor activist Harry Hay started the Mattachine Foundation from his living room in Los Angeles.

[8] Two years later, the Mattachine Society had expanded to several cities through the organizational skills of Chuck Rowland and under the leadership of less radical leaders Ken Burns in Los Angeles, Hal Call in San Francisco, and Curtis Dewees, Joe McCarthy, and Tony Segura in New York, and Prescott Townsend of Boston.

[9][10] A few years later, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin started the Daughters of Bilitis with six other women in San Francisco, initially to have a place to socialize without fear of harassment or arrest.

[11] Within a few years, both organizations learned of each other and grew to have similar goals: helping assimilate homosexuals into general society, working for legal reform to repeal sodomy laws, and assisting those who were arrested.

Living beyond the mostly white, middle class scope of these groups was an active community of cross-dressers, hustlers, and "street queens" who worked primarily in the Tenderloin district of the city.

North Beach and Polk Street had been quiet neighborhoods each with a large homosexual population, but in the 1960s the growth of the Castro District outpaced either of them.

Thousands of gay men migrated to San Francisco, turning the quiet Irish working-class neighborhood around Castro Street into a bustling center of activity.

[17] On Labor Day of 1974, tensions between the gay community and the SFPD came to a head when a man was beaten and arrested while walking down Castro Street.

Gain, whose conciliatory position towards African Americans had branded him as one of the most liberal law enforcement officers in the country, soon earned the ire of the police force.

[19] Gain implemented policies that proved unpopular with his staff, such as painting police cars powder blue, and barring officers from drinking on the job.

After intense lobbying by Supervisors Milk and Silver, as well as State Assemblyman Willie Brown, Moscone announced on November 26, 1978, that he would not be reappointing Dan White to the seat he had vacated.

[27][36] The protesters were convinced that the police and prosecution had conspired to avoid a severe sentence for White, although Prosecutor Thomas Norman denied this repeatedly until his death.

[33] Members of the crowd tore gilded ornamental work from the building's wrought iron doors and then used it to break first floor windows.

[36] A formation of police appeared on the north side of the Civic Center Plaza, and those attempting to hold back the mob sat down, grateful for the reinforcements.

[36] One young man used a metal signpost to smash the window of a police car, and two of his companions threw burning toilet paper on the upholstery, setting it on fire.

The photo on the front cover of the Dead Kennedys 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, which shows several police cars on fire, was taken that night.

Police were surprised at the resistance they faced from the protesters, who attempted to push them back using tree branches, chrome torn off city buses, and asphalt ripped from the street, as weapons.

[27][37][38] The second stage of the violence was a police raid/riot hours later in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood, which vandalized the Elephant Walk bar and injured many of its occupants.

[38][40][42][43] When Police Chief Charles Gain heard about the unauthorized Elephant Walk raid, he immediately went to the location and ordered his men to leave.

[42][44] A civil grand jury convened to find out who ordered the attack, but it ended inconclusively with a settlement covering personal injury claims and damages.

State authorities reportedly feared an assassination attempt, and in response Scott Smith urged people not to retaliate with violence.

[citation needed] The growing political and economic power of the city's gay community conflicted with the established but dwindling numbers of the conservative institutions, such as the police and fire departments.

[51] When Dan White was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, his successful diminished capacity defense enraged the gay community.

[32] That the police and fire departments had raised money for his defense gave their anger a focus, turning it against the city government and especially the SFPD.

[53] Thirty years after the announcement of Dan White's guilty verdict, the Supreme Court of California prepared their decision on Strauss v. Horton.

In 1981, while working as a consultant to the California State Assembly Health Committee, he became aware of gay men in San Francisco contracting unusual diseases, such as Kaposi's sarcoma.