The U Street Corridor Fally Has a Gay Club Aga - Eater DC

Contents:

• MEET KIKI, AN EXCG NEW GAY BAR REPLACG A PAIR OF SHUTTERED SHAW DIV
• AT THE CLUB: LOTG EARLY BLACK GAY AIDS ACTIVISM WASHGTON, D.C.
• D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS
• LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• D.C. GAY UPLE ROBBED, PISTOL WHIPPED BUT U.S. ATTORNEY HAS YET TO PROSECUTE
• THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

MEET KIKI, AN EXCG NEW GAY BAR REPLACG A PAIR OF SHUTTERED SHAW DIV

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AT THE CLUB: LOTG EARLY BLACK GAY AIDS ACTIVISM WASHGTON, D.C.

When the DC Coaln of Black Gays anized an AIDS Fom for Black and Third World Gays njunctn wh Whman Walker Clic September 1983, the ClubHoe hosted the fom—the first signifint outreach om the public health muny to the Black LGBTQ muny. Even though the broar ClubHoe muny rallied to support their club, and Black gay social clubs, Bt of Washgton and the Associat among others, raised money to help keep the doors open, the club’s managers realized s n as a premier nightspot was g to an end.

D.C.'S BT GAY BARS AND HANGOUTS

Though the lights went out after Children’s Hour on Memorial Day weekend 1990, the followg Memorial Day, the first DC Black Gay Pri celebratn opened at Banneker Field down the road om the ClubHoe. This historic event was a llaboratn among many anizers and anizatns cludg the DC Coaln of Black Lbians and Gay Men and the Inner Cy AIDS Network, and ntued the tradn of the Children’s Hour, while also raisg funds for the HIV/AIDS anizatns that served the Ain- Amerin muny Washgton and the surroundg area.

Today, more than 500, 000 members of the lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr muny of Ain scent and their alli e to Washgton DC on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the bety of a shared muny and raise awarens and fundg for HIV/AIDS the name and spir of Black Pri. While much progrs has been ma across the globe sce 1991, there remas a need to te the muny about HIV/AIDS and stand agast homophobia spired vlence and bigotry that remas prevalent throughout society. This say asks, how did black gay men who were disloted om the center of AIDS service and public-health outreach (by discrimatn or by choice) the early years of the epimic receive rmatn about the vis’s impact?

Drawg on archival materials, oral-history narrativ, and close textual analysis, I show how racial and class stratifitn stctured Washgton’s gay nightlife scene the 1970s and early 1980s.

LICHT CAFé, D.C.’S NEWT GAY BAR, IS A COZY, ART-FILLED U STREET HIAWAY

Communy-based narrativ about the vis’s transmissn through terracial sex, upled wh public-health officials’ neglect of black gay neighborhoods AIDS outreach, stctured the black gay muny’s belief that the vis was a whe gay disease that would not affect them as long as they mataed separate social and sexual works anized around shared geographic lotns. The ClubHoe—DC’s most famo black gay and lbian nightclub—beme a key se of AIDS activism bee of s prr visibily as the center of Ain Amerin lbian and gay nightlife and as a lol venue for black lbian and gay activist efforts.

And although natnal media attentn ntued to foc on the impact of AIDS on whe gay men, the ClubHoe emerged as a lol se where the vastatg impact of the vis on black same-sex-sirg men was both regnized and felt. On several ocsns sce whe gay-owned bars like the Pier, the Way Off Broadway, and the Lost and Found opened the 1970s, DC’s Commissn for Human Rights ced them for discrimatn agast women and blacks. ” Many black gay men wnsed whe patrons walk to the tablishments whout showg ID, while black patrons were asked to show multiple piec of ID, only to be told that the intifitn was unacceptable for admissn.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

DC’s leadg LGBT-themed newspaper, the Washgton Bla, reported the mayor’s reactn upon learng about the black gay muny’s experienc of racial discrimatn whe gay-owned tablishments: “Barry, who had not prevly met wh Black Gay lears, seemed surprised to hear about discrimatn by Whe Gay tablishments. ”[4] In an edorial the DC-based, black, LGBT-themed magaze Blacklight, Sidney Brkley, the magaze’s publisher and founr of the first LGBT anizatn at Howard Universy, noted how equently this had been happeng whe gay bars particular, “As Black Gay people, we know all too well about discrimatn ‘whe’ Gay bars. In the feature story of the December 1980 issue of Blacklight, tled “Cliqu, ” the thor, who chose to rema anonymo, explaed how black gay muny formatn Washgton, DC, shifted om private social clubs the mid- to late ’60s to more public venu the mid-’70s and early ’80s, g “cliqu” to emerge based on shared social spac like church, bars, neighborhoods, and apartment plex.

[6] While the persistence of facto forms of segregatn DC’s gay scene and the cultural stigma attached to homosexualy wh black muni did shape the formatn of discrete social and sexual works among black gay men DC, many of the men preferred to socialize based upon shared geographic spac and mon racial and class inti.

In the mid-1970s, Washgton, DC, veloped a vibrant black gay nightlife scene, wh nightclubs and bars such as the ClubHoe, Delta Ele, Brass Rail, and La Zambra emergg var bs and rintial districts throughout the cy. ”[7] The bar’s uptown lotn the middle-e, black rintial area of Columbia Heights distguished om more workg-class black gay tablishments, like the Brass Rail, which was loted downtown the “htler sectn near 13th Street and New York Ave. [9] The rrelatn between the geographic lotn of black gay bars and the class of their clientele further reflected the racial and class stratifitn of DC’s gay public culture the 1970s and early ’80s.

D.C. GAY UPLE ROBBED, PISTOL WHIPPED BUT U.S. ATTORNEY HAS YET TO PROSECUTE

In 1987 the Washgton Post reported that AIDS s Washgton, DC, were distct om those plac like New York Cy that the majory were black homosexual and bisexual men: “In the district, half of the 693 reported s are black, while only 3 percent are Hispanic. But unlike New York Cy, where the vast majory of black and Hispanic victims are traveno dg ers or their sexual partners, 70 percent of black AIDS patients the District are homosexual or bisexual men, acrdg to statistics piled by cy health officials. When media reprentatns of AIDS appeared 1981, black gay activists DC were already embroiled polil battl over racism the lol whe gay prs and over black gay excln om the black popular prs.

[11] Given the dual forms of excln, black gay and lbian activists DC the late ’70s and early ’80s were tasked wh both challengg the tegory of gay as “whe” and makg black bodi telligible to the state as sexual mori. The story, tled “The File on AIDS, ” gave an overview of the disease and s impact, terviewed a Howard Universy physician about the racial polics of AIDS, and clud three op-ed piec by black gay activists the muny on their var rpons to the vis. ”[13] In his oral-history narrative for the Rabow History Project, Courtney Williams, the former chair of the DC Coaln of Black Gays also mentned the popular belief that black men were dyg of AIDS bee they were “alg wh wh.

Ined, several lol black gay activists relled their oral-history narrativ to the Rabow History Project how many black gay men totally dismissed the possibily that the disease might impact their muny, bee they unrstood as a “whe disease. In his study of black gay men Harlem, William Hawkwood not how the muny of men that he studied New York remaed ee of AIDS the early years of the epimic by limg their social and sexual liv to Harlem. [16] That DC’s black gay muni formed along socenomic l and acrdg to shared lotn suggts that they, too, believed that managg the threat of AIDS the early years of the epimic was a matter of matag the racial, class, and spatial boundari that were already stcturg Washgton’s gay scene.

THE U STREET CORRIDOR FALLY HAS A GAY CLUB AGA

[18] In 1983 Mayor Barry reported to the Washgton Bla that he pledged his ntued support for AIDS fundg through lol stutns like the Department of Health and the Whman-Walker Clic, an outgrowth of the Gay Men’s V. Jam “Juicy” Coleman, founr of one of the olst social clubs for black gay men, at Howard Universy 1968, discsed his oral-history narrative for the Rabow History Project how hard was for black men who had venereal disease to fd racially and sexually sensive doctors and how Howard Universy Hospal discrimated agast black AIDS patients. Coleman, who later voted his life to AIDS tn and preventn, also discsed how the Whman-Walker Clic was labeled “Whe Man Walker” by the lol black gay muny bee of s lack of culturally appropriate programmg and bee s outreach occurred primarily whe gay neighborhoods.

[19] Public-health officials ially neglected other gay areas of the cy such as “Homo Heights, ” the name black gay wrer and activist Essex Hemphill gave to the ncentratn of black gay men ridg the Columbia Heights neighborhood of northwt Washgton, directly adjacent to Meridian Hill/Mallm X Park. This lack of attentn to the impact of AIDS black Washgton, DC, shifted between 1982 and 1983 when the DC Coaln of Black Gays and the Whman-Walker Clic noticed alarmg numbers of black gay men wh the disease. [21] If “the clubs” were a source of misrmatn, as Williams claimed, the fom utilized a predomantly black gay club as a se of redrs: to dissemate accurate rmatn, facilate muny outreach, and rpond to the prr neglect of black muni by the public-health apparat.