The Gay Bar: Why the gay rights movement was born one.

Contents:

• WHY IS THE MONUMENT OF A HISTORIC LA GAY BAR COVERED SHAKE SHACK SIGNS?
• THE ‘BLACK CAT GAY RT’ IS WELL-KNOWN… ’S ALSO A MYTH
• THE GAY BAR: WHY THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT WAS BORN ONE
• BEFORE STONEWALL: LA POLICE RAID BLACK CAT, GAY BAR

WHY IS THE MONUMENT OF A HISTORIC LA GAY BAR COVERED SHAKE SHACK SIGNS?

Today, peers out om above the kd of gastropub where you n orr a $16 cktail, easily ftg wh this gentrifyg part of Sunset Boulevard, once known as a workg-class Lato neighborhood and gay enclave.

Fifty-five years ago, though, photographs ptured a different Black Cat, a gay bar that spired civilians to gather unr those large fele ey and prott the unfair treatment of LGBTQ people. They anchor the gay bar not only as a place that once sndalized society wh the tenrns patrons showed one another, but also as a se of polil stggle. Police chased two men down the street to New Fac, another popular gay bar, and beat the owner, a woman named Lee Roy.

THE ‘BLACK CAT GAY RT’ IS WELL-KNOWN… ’S ALSO A MYTH

The New Year’s raid on the Black Cat me at a time when every state the untry had anti-sodomy laws and on the heels of anti-gay McCarthyism known as the Lavenr Sre, a wch hunt that had reverberatns the upper echelons of the natn—Print Lyndon B.

What happened at the Black Cat now spired a new aln of gay rights anizatns, helmed by Personal Rights Defense and Edutn (PRIDE), and other groups facg harassment by police—hippi, anti-war activists, club owners targeted by curfews—to jo together prott two months later, on Febary 11, 1967. The gatherg of several hundred people marked a watershed moment for the gay rights movement—one of the first tim LGBTQ people ma such a large public mand for regnn, and a promise to ph back agast police harassment and reprsn.

The monstratn reamed the stggle as a fight for the civil rights of gay people and other mory muni who faced police abe.

THE GAY BAR: WHY THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT WAS BORN ONE

Although gay activists tentnally left the word “homosexual” off of their signage to appease protters who were not prepared to take an explicly gay rights stance, anizer Jim Kepner gave a rog speech that lled for gay people to stand up as gay people. But the histori of this civic prott are largely neglected the mastream orig story of gay rights, which ually starts wh the monstratns that rocked New York Cy’s Stonewall Inn 1969, and fets altogether that took moments like the raid at the Black Cat to make Stonewall happen. ” The group stalled a plaque that sums up the progrs wrought: gay people won the right to patronize bars openly, to no longer suffer legal or labor repercsns for their sexualy, and, eventually, to participate the stutn of marriage.

The plaque also remds that Silver Lake was the “gayborhood” before Wt Hollywood’s “Boystown, ” populated by leather and dance bars, and the us of a good, if unfair, fight. The se’s profile was heightened 2017, when cy officials and gay rights anizers reenacted the historic prott on s 50th anniversary. The rare photos help beg to piece together a longer and more accurate history of the movement for gay civil rights.

The imag mand we thk more eply about what the stggle for gay bars was actually about, and what the stggle to prerve them means. ”A few weeks later on Febary 11, a group of advot anized a gatherg of nearly 600 dividuals outsi of the gay bar, ced by the Cultural Herage Commissn of the Cy of Los Angel as the first documented anized LGBTQ prott the natn. The Black Cat Tavern eventually closed later that year, but the space ntued to host a strg of gay bars cludg Bhwhacker and Le Barco until 2008, when the entire duplex beme a Los Angel Historic-Cultural Monument for s role the LGBTQ civil rights movement as well as a California Historic Landmark earlier this 2012, a gastropub lled The Black Cat opened on one si of the Silver Lake duplex that ed to hoe the origal gay bar.

BEFORE STONEWALL: LA POLICE RAID BLACK CAT, GAY BAR

“Shake Shack is openg this historic LGBTQ buildg while enablg a ndidate that has and will ntue to harm gay and trans people, ” he L. “There would be a huge outrage if somethg like this happened at Stonewall, ” she said to me, llg the move a “secratn of somethg that the gay muny should hold sacred. Dpe Los Angel’ extensive gay history and large queer populatn of over 500, 000 people, only six of the cy’s 1, 266 Cultural-Historic Monuments specifilly pay tribute to historic LGBTQ Griffis“The LGBTQ history of Los Angel is one that is not monly known, but 's really important to regnize the plac that tell their stori, ” Lda Dishman, the CEO and Print of the non-prof The Los Angel Conservancy, which works to prerve historic s and cultural rourc Los Angel County, told Them.

If anythg, there was somethg of a police rt; a smaller versn of the police rt the Castro 1979 after gays rted at San Francis’s Cy Hall rponse to Dan Whe beg found guilty of only manslghter spe his transparent premedated ld-blood murrs of Harvey Milk and Mayor Gee Mosne. Acrdg to the area police manr, his thugs (oh, exce me, “officers of the peace”) were attemptg “to make route arrts at a known ‘gay’ bar...