History
The bar was established in November 1966, in a two-unit building shared with a laundromat. [4] On January 1, 1967, at the bar's New Year's Eve celebration, several plainclothes Los Angeles Police Department officers infiltrated the tavern. [5]
According to local gay newspaper Tangents, "the Black Cat was happy and hopping" before undercover police arrived and started beating patrons as they were ringing in the New Year: "There were colored balloons covering the ceiling ... and three glittering Christmas trees." [6] Moments later, "all hell broke loose." [6] After arresting several patrons for kissing as they celebrated the occasion, [7] the undercover police officers began beating several of the patrons [8] and ultimately arrested fourteen patrons for "assault and public lewdness". [9] Two bartenders were beaten unconscious. [10] Two patrons fled to another gay bar, New Faces, but they were followed by police and arrested. The officers mistook the manager, a woman named Lee Roy, for a man (named "Leroy") wearing a dress, and beat her severely. [11]
Contrary to popular myth, there was not a riot at the Black Cat, but a civil demonstration of 200 attendees to protest the raids was held on February 11, 1967. Demonstrators used "secret phone trees to organize the event" which led to hundreds of people demonstrating and coming to the event. [12] The demonstration was organized by a group called PRIDE (Personal Rights in Defense and Education), founded by Steve Ginsberg, and the SCCRH (Southern California Council on Religion and Homophile). [9] The protest was met by squadrons of armed policemen. [5] Demonstrators carefully adhered to all laws and ordinances so that the police had no legitimate reasons to make arrests. [11] The event was the first organized public LGBTQ protest in Los Angeles, and one of the earliest and largest in the country. [11] This occurred during the governorship of Ronald Reagan, under which a Law and Order mentality reigned and police brutality was systemic. [11]
Two of the men arrested for kissing were later convicted under California Penal Code Section 647 and registered as sex offenders. [9] The men appealed, asserting their right of equal protection under the law, but the U.S. Supreme Court did not accept their case. [3] However, there were fundraising efforts that reached New York and San Francisco for the six convicted patrons, including Benny Baker and Charles Talley.
The Black Cat's entertainment and liquor licenses were suspended, and the business closed on May 21, 1967 after the state liquor board rejected its appeal. [13]
Legacy
The raid and subsequent protests inspired publication of The Advocate , which began as a newspaper for the group PRIDE. [14] The January 1967 raid on the Black Cat Tavern and the August 1968 raid on The Patch together inspired the formation of the Metropolitan Community Church (led by Pastor Troy Perry). [15] [16]
For some time "the Stonewall riots became central to gay collective memory while other events did not." [17] By pointing to critical moments in LGBT history that took place before 1969, historians continue to challenge the notion that the events at the Stonewall Inn marked the very first time LGBT folks "fought back instead of passively enduring humiliating treatment." [17] Indeed, the 1959 Cooper Donuts Riot [18] and the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria riot predate the incidents at The Black Cat.
On November 7, 2008, the Black Cat site was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. [9] [19]
In 2014, queer Chicana artist Alma López and students in her "Queer Art in LA" class at UCLA painted a mural depicting the protests. The mural is located in the LGBTQ Studies offices in Haines Hall on the UCLA campus. [20]
On November 14, 2017, the KCET documentary series Lost L.A. included interviews, footage, news coverage, and primary documents about the raid and protests in its episode "Coded Geographies", which situates the November 1966 incident and subsequent protests within the broader LGBTQ culture of Los Angeles. [21] In 2017, a reenactment of the original protest took place on the 50th anniversary of the original protest. There were over one hundred participants, including LA mayor Eric Garcetti, and Alexei Ramanoff who was involved in the original organization of the 1967 protests. People brought signs that reproduced the original signs from the protest. [22] The Black Cat Tavern has recently received state recognition as an official cultural history site. [23]
Present day
After the Black Cat's 1967 closure, the location operated as several other gay bars:
- The Bushwacker (1982) [24]
- Tabasco's (1983-1984) [25]
- Basgo’s Disco (1984-1993) [26]
- Le Barcito (1993-2011) [27]
In November 2012 the site became a restaurant and bar named The Black Cat in memory of the earlier establishment. The new Black Cat caters to a general clientele, and there are photographs of the events of 1967 displayed inside. [28] In 2008, the city of LA Cultural Heritage Commission installed a plaque on the building where the original Black Cat Tavern resided, recognizing it as the site of the first LGBTQ civil rights demonstration in the nation. [29] In 2021, the ANSWER Coalition organized a march that started at the original Black Cat Tavern. The march advocated for an end to police brutality, racism, homophobia and transphobia and for gay rights. The Tavern was chosen for the starting point because it is widely considered to be the first site of protest for gay rights. [30] On October 1, 2023, the Black Cat Tavern became California Historical Landmark #1063, with a marker designating it as such being unveiled, which made it the first marker for a California Historical Landmark associated with LGBTQ history. [31]
In 2022, Shake Shack opened a location in the adjoining unit and placed three large signs on the historic duplex, dominating much of the Art Deco building with its branding. As photos of the new restaurant began circulating on social media, many voiced their frustration regarding the tension between queer communities and corporations. Silver Lake Neighborhood Councilmember Maebe A. Girl called the changes "a slap in the face", noting the company's links to anti-LGBT politicians [32] The Silver Lake Shake Shack location ultimately closed in 2024. [33]
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Although the demonstrations were not the first time American homosexuals fought back against government-sponsored persecution of sexual minorities, the Stonewall riots marked a new beginning for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the year 1981.
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities.
The Stonewall Inn is a gay bar and recreational tavern at 53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which led to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. When the riots occurred, Stonewall was one of the relatively few gay bars in New York City. The original gay bar occupied two structures at 51–53 Christopher Street, which were built as horse stables in the 1840s.
The Advocate is an American LGBTQ magazine, printed bi-monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a website. Both magazine and website have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender, and queer people (LGBTQ) people. The magazine, established in 1967, is the oldest and largest LGBTQ publication in the United States and the only surviving one of its kind that was founded before the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, an uprising that was a major milestone in the LGBTQ rights movement. On June 9, 2022, Pride Media was acquired by Equal Entertainment LLC.
Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was the name of several gay liberation groups, the first of which was formed in New York City in 1969, immediately after the Stonewall riots. Similar organizations also formed in the UK, Australia and Canada. The GLF provided a voice for the newly-out and newly radicalized gay community, and a meeting place for a number of activists who would go on to form other groups, such as the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Youth New York, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) in the US. In the UK and Canada, activists also developed a platform for gay liberation and demonstrated for gay rights. Activists from both the US and UK groups would later go on to found or be active in groups including ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and Stonewall.
Sunset Junction is an informal name for a portion of the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, California. It was home to the Sunset Junction Street Fair from 1980 through 2010. It is in the southwestern part of the district along Sunset Boulevard.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s in the Western world, that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
The Compton's Cafeteria riot occurred in August 1966 in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. The riot was a response to the violent and constant police harassment of trans people, particularly trans women, and drag queens. The incident was one of the first LGBTQ-related riots in United States history, preceding the more famous 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City. It marked the beginning of transgender activism in San Francisco.
This is a list of notable events in the history of LGBT rights that took place in the 1960s.
Atlanta Pride, also colloquially called the Atlanta Gay Pride Festival, is a week-long annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBTQ) pride festival held in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1971, it is one of the oldest and largest pride festivals in the United States. According to the Atlanta Pride Committee, as of 2017, attendance had continually grown to around 300,000. Originally held in June, Atlanta Pride has been held in October every year since 2008, typically on a weekend closest to National Coming Out Day.
Queer Liberaction (QL) is a Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas-based grassroots organization advocating for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The group was founded in November 2008 following the international attention surrounding California's Proposition 8, which changed that state's Constitution to deny marriage rights to any LGBT couples who are not defined as "a man and a woman", passed by a slight majority. The organization is a proponent of same-sex marriage rights for LGBT couples, considering civil unions and domestic partnerships as less than full equality.
The Patch was an LGBT bar formerly located at 610 W. Pacific Coast Highway in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Wilmington, California. The Patch, along with the Black Cat Tavern, played a pivotal role in the gay rights movement, when, in August 1968, it was one of the first sites where there was open resistance to the constant police harassment of gay establishments and meeting places in Southern California.
Personal Rights in Defense and Education (PRIDE) was a gay political organization. It was established in 1966 as a radical gay political organization that from its origination set a new tone for gay political groups like the Gay Liberation Front (GLF), ACT UP and the Radical Faeries. PRIDE led aggressive, unapologetic demonstrations against the oppression by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) of gay gatherings or same-sex meetings in the city of Los Angeles. PRIDE's monthly single-page newsletter evolved into The Advocate, the nation's longest running gay news publication.
The Gay Liberation Monument is part of the Stonewall National Monument, which commemorates the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Created in 1980, the Gay Liberation sculpture by American artist George Segal was the first piece of public art dedicated to gay rights and solidarity for LGBTQ individuals, while simultaneously commemorating the ongoing struggles of the community. The monument was dedicated on June 23, 1992, as part of the dedication of the Stonewall National Monument as a whole.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBTQ advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
Although often characterized as apolitical, “Los Angeles has provided the setting for many important chapters in the struggle for gay and lesbian community, visibility, and civil rights." Moreover, Los Angeles' LGBTQ community has historically played a significant role in the development of the entertainment industry.
The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was an alleged uprising in reaction to police harassment of LGBT people at a 24-hour donut cafe in Los Angeles in 1959. Whether the riot actually happened, the date, location and whether or not the cafe was a branch of the Cooper chain are all disputed, and there is a lack of contemporary documentary evidence, with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stating that any records of such event would have been purged years ago.
The Fun Lounge police raid was a 1964 police raid that targeted Louie's Fun Lounge, a gay bar near Chicago, Illinois, United States. The raid led to the arrest of over 100 individuals and is considered a notable moment in the LGBT history of the area.
