Contents:
- BLACK-OWNED GAY BARS ARE DWDLG. CAN THEY SURVIVE COVID?
- HARLEM’S BLACK, GAY BARS ARE THRIVG THE MIDDLE OF A PANMIC
BLACK-OWNED GAY BARS ARE DWDLG. CAN THEY SURVIVE COVID?
When Charl Hugh and Richard Solomon began makg plans 2018 to open their own gay bar New York’s historic Harlem neighborhood, they had no ia a panmic would shut them down before they even opened. “The first thg we thought was, ‘Oh, my gosh, we’re gog to be out of bs before we started this bs, ’” Hugh, 39, told NBC a global health crisis is not the only headwd their bar, Lambda Lounge, and the few remag Black-owned gay bars the Uned Stat are facg. Charl Hugh, left, and Richard Solomon, owners of Lambda Lounge, one of two Black-owned gay bars remag BrandsFor more than two s, gay bars, pecially those owned by people of lor, have been disappearg.
Though the reasons are not entirely clear, experts spect the overall cle gay bars is related to s of skyrocketg rents and gentrifitn, which have disproportnately impacted small, Black-owned bs; the emergence of onle datg s and apps; and circu parti that rotate among venu, which have bee creasgly popular among younger crowds. Of the cy’s dozens of remag gay bars, jt two — Lambda Lounge and Alibi Lounge, both Harlem — are known to be Black owned.
While Mko eventually received a small loan through the ernment’s emergency relief program, he said the donatns “absolutely saved my bs, ” as well as the ia that ’s possible for a Black gay man to open his own bar. We’re Black and gay, ’s jt gog to fail anyway, ’” said Mko, who has sce reopened his bar outsi at limed pacy pliance wh New York Cy’s l. ‘Envy of the wir gay muny’Scholars who study LGBTQ nightlife say the loss of Black-owned gay bars would be vastatg.
HARLEM’S BLACK, GAY BARS ARE THRIVG THE MIDDLE OF A PANMIC
Historilly, the bars have been havens for people of lor, who have experienced discrimatn whe-owned bars for generatns, acrdg to Eric Gonzaba, an assistant profsor of Amerin Studi at California State Universy, Fullerton, who is wrg a book about the history of gay the 1960s, gay bars began to sprout metropolan areas across the U.
At the time, closeted whe people didn’t want to be seen enterg a gay bar where someone they knew might regnize them, so owners had a tenncy to open the bars predomantly Black neighborhoods. He said even the Stonewall Inn, the once mafia-owned New York Cy gay bar that has bee a symbol of the LGBTQ rights movement, “didn’t let a lot of people of lor to the doors” ( has long sce operated unr new owners who do not engage such discrimatn).
Sce many gay bars the ‘80s and ‘90s were where gay activists gathered to te the muny about HIV and AIDS, he said lifavg rmatn about the vis often didn’t reach the Black up, the Black LGBTQ muny began to form s own hoe parti and unique social clubs ci wh large Black populatns. Black gay activist groups ed the spac to te patrons about HIV and AIDs and to anize around issu for racial jtice. “This is mic that's found by Ain Amerin and Latx people ner ci, parts of Chigo and Philalphia and Washgton, and dancg be normalized … and this kd of style of mic and this kd of style of dancg that's highly sexualized be the envy of the wir gay muny, ” Gonzaba said of this early dis era that would later give rise to hoe and electronic dance mic.