On this day in 1888, D.C. police raided a drag ball held for William Dorsey Swann's 30th birthday. While most fled, Swann, the queen of the ball, confronted police while wearing a satin dress, attempting to prevent them from entering.

Swann, enslaved at birth but emancipated after the Civil War, was an early queer liberation activist who was the first American to lead a queer resistance group, to take legal and political action in defense of queer rights (in the form of demanding a Presidential pardon in 1896), and the first known person to self-identify as a "queen of drag".

On April 12th, 1888, Washington D.C. police raided a drag queen ball held in honor of Swann's thirtieth birthday. Many of the guests fled, even jumping from second story windows to escape police.

Swann, however, confronted the police in what was later described as "a gorgeous dress of cream-colored satin", vainly hoping to prevent the cops from entering the residence. Author Adriana Hill claims that this incident "marked one of the earliest documented instances of resistance in the name of queer rights."

In total, thirteen men, including Swann, were arrested and "charged with being suspicious characters", according to queer journalist and historian Channing Joseph.

Years later, when William Swann stopped organizing and participating in drag events, his brother continued to make costumes for the drag community. Swann died in 1925 in Hancock, Maryland. After his death, local officials burned his home.