Black Gay Club celebrates 40 Years in Los Angeles

Catch One is a piece of gay history in LA. The dance club has a rich background and will be celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Frontiers LA did a nice story about the club:

In 1975, Catch One Disco—named for the promise of “catching” a partner or lover—became an “underground” oasis for gays, progressives, artists, and people who appreciated mixed diversity and singers such as Etta James who would perform live. Eventually, she bought the entire building, affording her the opportunity to provide three dance floors, DJ-run disco music, and themed-events in the smaller rooms. And at a time when white gay discos and bars would demand three pieces of identification and other gender and racially-specific restrictions, The Catch was a retreat where LGBT African Americans could feel free, respected, dance and network—and where TV and pop stars from Sammy Davis Jr. to Warren Beatty and Madonna could safely hang out and have fun. Madonna held an album release party at The Catch, and several TV and film scenes have been filmed there, as well.

Catch One also symbolized Black empowerment, especially during the depression of the AIDS crisis when Thais-Williams provided space for different “Houses” of style to stage runway shows and contests in a manner considerably more upbeat—but just as catty—as Paris is Burning. And even though she ran a bar, Thais-Williams always put her patrons, her family, her “kids” first; helping them get clean and sober, helping them deal with their AIDS diagnosis and helping resolve “family” issues.

Indeed, during the AIDS crisis, Thais-Williams co-founded the Minority AIDS Project and the Imani Unidos Food Pantry in South L.A. and she joined the AIDS Project Los Angeles Board of Directors to bring the services they provided “down to the hood.” With her wife Rue, Thais-Williams also founded Rue’s House, the country’s first housing facility for women with AIDS and their children, most of whom were poor and black. During the L.A. Riots in 1991, the neighbors protected Rue’s House, which is located on 39th and Normandie, near the epicenter of the riots. After the life-saving AIDS medications became available in 1996, they transitioned the house into a sober-living facility.

I have been to Catch One and it is truly a place for the fam. This Memorial Day weekend, Catch One will host a four-day 40th anniversary celebration as a fundraiser for the Village Health Foundation.

For more, please go here