The protest outside the Black Cat Tavern
Two and a half years before Stonewall, hundreds took to the streets of Los Angeles for queer rights.
On 11 February 1967, several hundred people gathered outside an inconspicuous bar on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. They carried placards, they stayed peaceful, and they dared to do something hardly anyone did at the time: they protested publicly, as gay men and lesbians, against the police.
The trigger had been New Year's Eve. Shortly after midnight, as patrons of the Black Cat Tavern in the Silver Lake neighbourhood were kissing to welcome the new year, undercover officers of the Los Angeles Police Department struck. Patrons were beaten and dragged into the street, and fourteen men were arrested. The charges included lewd conduct. A kiss was enough.
The consequences were drastic. Six men were convicted, and two of them had to register as sex offenders.
This time, people did not simply endure it in silence. The young group PRIDE and a church-related association organised the resistance with leaflets and phone trees: one person called ten others, each of whom called ten more. They demanded an end to police entrapment and harassment. Armed police were present, but the protesters followed every regulation meticulously so as not to provide a pretext for arrests.
New ground was also broken in court. Two of those convicted took their case all the way to the Supreme Court. Their lawyer did not hide their homosexuality, but invoked the right to equal protection. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case. But the argument was out in the world, decades before courts recognised it.
The protest took place two and a half years before Stonewall and is considered one of the first organised queer civil rights demonstrations in the United States. PRIDE's newsletter later became the magazine "The Advocate". Since 2008 the building has been a city landmark, and in 2023 it became the first California landmark with queer history to receive a state commemorative plaque.