Since its inception, Catch One has served as a safe space for Los Angeles‘ LGBTQ+ and African American communities. For over 50 years, this music venue catered to LA’s disenfranchised misfits, first for the city’s queer community of color and decades later for a diverse cross-section of nightlife that includes every race, gender, and sexual orientation. Ironically, the site where this haven of inclusion currently stands originated as the Diana Club, a notorious hotbed of racial exclusion widely known for barring People of Color from its premises.
The bigotry of the Diana Club was a reflection of the rabid discrimination against both the Black and queer communities of Los Angeles during the 1960’s. During this time, the Los Angeles Police Department was helmed by Police Chief William H Parker, a virulent bigot who refused to hire Black police officers and, according to a Los Angeles Times article penned by journalist David Shaw, referred to African Americans as “monkeys in a zoo.” It was his policies that ignited the infamous Watts Riots of 1965, where 34 citizens were killed, 21 of which were Black, by the LAPD and National Guard.
At the beginning of 1967, the LGBTQ+ community in LA’s east side neighborhood of Silver Lake experienced its own scuffle with the LAPD. At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, the police raided the prominent queer bar, The Black Cat Tavern, beating patrons and dragging them from the premises. Fourteen people were arrested and charged with assault and public lewdness.
Pack your bags, we’re going on an adventure
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for the best LGBTQ+ travel guides, stories, and more.
“There was absolute chaos,” described activist Wes Joe of this precursor to the more prominent Stonewall Riots of 1969. “There was real panic over what people saw was an assault by the LAPD.”
This overt racism and homophobia within Los Angeles at the time motivated Catch One’s founder, Jewel Thais-Williams, to open arguably the most enduring oasis of diversity in the city. In the late 60’s, Thais-Williams, a queer woman of color, worked in the same Arlington Heights neighborhood as the Diana Club.
“The dream first came to me when I was working as a checker at a supermarket across the street,” said Jewel during a 1995 interview, “It was known to all the African Americans that they weren’t welcome at the Diana club. I said to myself, ‘One day I’ll own that club and everyone will be welcome.’”
In 1973, she purchased the Diana Club and rechristened it Jewel’s Catch One, notable as one of the first and longest-running queer Black discos in the country.
A haven for LA’s disenfranchised LGBTQ+ club kids of color, the venue showcased powerhouse diva talent such as Donna Summers, Madonna, and Whitney Houston, as well as queer Black disco pioneer the Fabulous Sylvester.
Born in Watts, Sylvester (neé Sylvester James Jr) experienced the eponymous riots firsthand. By 1970, he relocated to San Francisco, where he joined the acid-fueled gender-bending performance troupe The Cockettes and later formed his musical group, Sylvester and His Hot Band. In 1974, the androgynous “Queen of Disco,” best known for his single “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” pivoted into a solo career and first performed at Jewel’s Catch One, joining the ranks of other African American stars that performed there like Janet Jackson and James Brown. Unfortunately, Sylvester’s prominent career was cut short in 1988 when he passed away as a victim of the AIDS epidemic.
In the same year of Sylvester’s death, the CDC reported that African Americans constituted half of all AIDS cases recorded among women. To support her disproportionately affected community, Jewel and her wife Rue began operating Rue’s House, a home for women and children with AIDS that primarily raised funds through Catch One.
“We would not be in existence if it were not for Catch One,” said Rue during a 1995 interview. “The Catch has held numerous fundraisers, and they more or less keep the word out that we exist, and we are in need, and we can use all the help we can get.”
Jewel continued to address the dearth of affordable quality health care available to Los Angeles’ African American community when, in 2001, they opened the Village Health Foundation, a non-profit operating on a donation-based or sliding-pay scale. Specializing in diseases with high incidents among the African American community, including HIV/AIDS, hypertension, and obesity. Jewel was motivated to launch the medical center after a toxic experience with what she described as a “culturally incompetent” doctor. This negative incident led her to earn a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine from Samra University in 1998.
“So many of the illnesses African Americans get – like hypertension and diabetes – are preventable. But instead of helping us with prevention education, the medical profession treats us with pills and cuts us open.”
In 2015, Catch One itself faced its own mortality. After several years of plummeting attendance, Jewels began renting out the venue for non-LGBTQ+ events. She eventually chose to sell the space to Steve and Mitch Edelson, the father-son team behind Silver Lake’s Los Globos, who rechristened it Union. Though the club continued to host some LGBTQ+ events like Banjee Ball, a showcase of voguing presented by the music duo Purple Crush, most of its calendar featured hip-hop, EDM, and industrial nights that catered primarily to straight audiences. Its days of regularly hosting club nights for gay and lesbian African Americans appear to be a thing of the past.
Fortunately, the Catch One brand was resuscitated by the premiere of the 2016 documentary Jewel’s Catch One. Directed by C. Fitz, this exploration of the iconic nightclub and its titular founder featured interviews with Thelma Houston, Maxine Waters, Bonnie Pointer, and Jenifer Lewis, among others. The film’s popularity led to the adoption of its original name, now officially shortened to Catch One.
Today, Catch One’s legacy of inclusion has expanded to embrace the racial diversity of the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Catch One currently houses five venues, each hosting different simultaneous events every night. Returning to its homocentric roots, it regularly features LGBTQ+ parties like female-focused Preciosa, Asian-centric Dragon Fruit, and this weekend’s premier Los Angeles Pride’s annual bacchanal Hard Candy.
“We have spaces for all ethnic backgrounds,” said Catch One’s interim booking manager, Legacy Chang-Santos. “We’re definitely tapping into all that LA has to offer.”
Five decades after it first opened its doors to LA’s queer African American community, Catch One continues Jewel’s dream of a club where “everyone will be welcome.”
Don't forget to share:
