Jewel Thais-Williams, the founding father of the pioneering Black lesbian and queer nightclub Jewel’s Catch One in Los Angeles, has died. She was 86.
Thais-Williams’ loss of life on June 7 was confirmed by her sister, Carol Williams. No reason for loss of life was instantly obtainable.
For many years, the Mid-Metropolis nightclub — recognized to regulars as The Catch — was L.A.’s hallowed sanctuary for Black queer girls, and a welcoming dance flooring for trans, homosexual and musically adventurous revelers. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Madonna and Whitney Houston sashayed down Catch One’s winding halls, whereas the indomitable Thais-Williams fended off police harassment and led care packages through the peak of the AIDS disaster.
The Catch was singularly essential to the event of Black and queer nightlife in L.A., and belongs beside New York’s Paradise Storage and Chicago’s Warehouse in any account of a very powerful nightclubs in America.
“It was a community, it was family,” Thais-Williams instructed The Occasions in a 2018 interview. “To be honest myself, I was pretty much a loner too. I always had the fears of coming out, or my family finding out. I found myself there.”
Thais-Williams, born in Indiana in 1939, moved to San Diego together with her household as a baby. Her sister, Carol Williams, stated “she was one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve ever met,” a gifted athlete and a historical past buff who graduated from UCLA. “She always had a sincere interest in what had happened, and how to contribute to making the world a better place.”
Whereas her spiritual father didn’t settle for her sexuality, even into maturity, her mom and siblings had been extra supportive.
“She gave a sense of pride to everyone who was different from the norm. They felt good because she felt good in her own skin,” Carol Williams stated.
Thais-Williams didn’t have ambitions to open a generationally essential nightclub, only a extra resilient enterprise than her earlier gown store. Nonetheless, her expertise of being shunned as a Black girl by different native homosexual golf equipment bolstered her resolve to make the Catch, which opened in 1973, extra welcoming for these omitted of the scene in L.A.
Jewel’s Catch One on West Pico Boulevard.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Occasions)
“I didn’t come into this business with the idea of it becoming a community center,” she stated in 1992. “It started before AIDS and the riots and all that. I got the first sense of the business being more than just a bar and having an obligation to the community years ago when Black gays were carded — requiring several pieces of ID — to get into white clubs. I went to bat for them, though I would love to have them come to my place every night.
“The idea is to have the freedom to go where you want to without being harassed. The predominantly male, white gay community has its set of prejudices. It’s better now, but it still exists.”
Jewel’s Catch One grew to become a form of West Coast Studio 54, with disco-era visionaries like Donna Summer time, Chaka Khan, Sylvester, Rick James and Evelyn “Champagne” King performing to packed rooms. Celebrities like Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg attended the events, glad for wild nights out away from the paparazzi in Hollywood.
“People came from all over the world to party there. Europe, South America — they’d come straight from LAX and leave their bags at coat check,” Carol Williams stated. “The club was universally known for its acceptance.”
Thais-Williams “opened the door for so many people,” stated Nigl “14k,” the Catch’s supervisor, doorperson and limo driver for 27 years up till its sale in 2015. “A lot of people that felt not wanted in West Hollywood had nowhere to go. But people found out who she was and put word out. She was a great friend and a shrewd businessperson who allowed people to just be themselves.”
The membership’s many rooms allowed for a variety of nightlife — strip reveals, card video games and jazz piano units alongside DJ and dwell band performances [along with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings]. The boisterous, accepting ambiance for Black queer partiers contrasted with the fixed surveillance, regulation and harassment exterior of it.
“There was a restriction on same sex dancing, women couldn’t tend bar unless they owned it,” Thais-Williams stated in 2018. “The police were arresting people for anything remotely homosexual. We had them coming in with guns pretending to be looking for someone in a white T-shirt just so they could walk around.”
“When she opened the club, African Americans couldn’t go past Wilshire Boulevard without being stopped and harassed,” Carol Williams stated. “She wanted a club for gay individuals to feel safe and loved and adored just as they are. They didn’t have to do anything, just be themselves.”
A hearth in 1985 claimed a lot of the venue’s high flooring, closing it for 2 years. Thais-Williams suspected that gentrifiers had their eye on her constructing.
“It’s very important not to give up our institutions — places of business that have been around for years,” she stated. “Having a business that people can see can offer them some incentive to do it for themselves. I’m determined to win, and if I do fail or move on, I want my business to go to Black people who have the same interest that I have to maintain an economic presence in this community.”
Thais-Williams’ AIDS activism was essential through the bleakest eras of the illness, which ravaged queer communities of coloration. She co-founded the Minority AIDS Undertaking and served on the board of the AIDS Undertaking Los Angeles, which offered HIV/AIDS care, prevention packages and public coverage initiatives.
“She was a surrogate mother for anybody with HIV who had been ostracized from their families,” Carol Williams stated. “They knew that with her, they were taken care of.”
Together with her associate, Rue, Thais-Williams co-founded Rue’s Home, one of many first devoted housing amenities within the U.S. for girls residing with HIV. The power later grew to become a sober-living house. In 2001, Thais-Williams based the Village Well being Basis, a healthcare and training group centered on power illnesses that affected the Black group.
Jewel Thais-Williams in 2015.
(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Occasions)
“Jewel is a true symbol of leadership within our community,” stated Marquita Thomas, a Christopher Road West board member who chosen Thais-Williams to steer the town’s Pleasure parade in 2018. “Her tireless efforts have positively affected the lives of countless LGBTQ minorities, [and her] dedication to bettering our community is truly inspiring.”
After a long time in nightlife, dealing with dwindling crowds and excessive overhead for an enormous venue, in 2015 Thais-Williams offered the venue to nightlife entrepreneur Mitch Edelson, who continues to host rock and dance nights within the membership, now referred to as Catch One. (Edelson stated the membership is planning a memorial for Thais-Williams.)
“People in general don’t have appreciation anymore for their own institutions,” Thais-Williams instructed The Occasions in 2015. “All we want is something that’s shiny because our attention span is only going to last for one season and then you want to go somewhere else. The younger kids went to school and associated with both the straight people and non-Blacks, so they feel free to go to those spots. The whole gay scene as it relates to nightclubs has changed — a lot.”
After the sale, the significance of the membership got here into sharper focus. A 2018 Netflix documentary, “Jewel’s Catch One,” produced by Ava DuVernay’s firm Array, highlighted The Catch’s impression on Los Angeles nightlife, and the broader music scene of the period. When Thais-Williams offered it, the Catch was the final Black-owned queer nightclub within the metropolis.
In 2019, the sq. exterior of Jewel’s Catch One was formally named for Thais-Williams.
“With Jewel’s Catch One, she built a home for young, black queer people who were often isolated and shut out at their own homes, and in doing so, changed the lives of so many” stated then-Metropolis Council President Herb Wesson on the ceremony. “Jewel is more than deserving to be the first Black lesbian woman with a dedicated square in the city of Los Angeles for this and so many other reasons.”
L.A.’s queer nightlife scene continues to be reeling from the impression of the pandemic, broader financial forces and altering tastes amongst younger queer audiences. Nonetheless, Thais-Williams’ imaginative and prescient and perseverance to create and maintain a house for her group will resonate for generations to return.
“Multiple generations of Black queer joy, safety, and community exist today because of Jewel Thais-Williams,” stated Jasmyne Cannick, organizer of South L.A. Pleasure. “She didn’t just open doors — she held them open long enough for all of us to walk through, including this Gen-X Black lesbian. There’s a whole generation of younger Black queer folks out here in L.A. living their best life, not even realizing they’re walking through doors Jewel built from the ground up.”
“Long before Pride had corporate sponsors and hashtags, Jewel was out here creating space for us to gather, dance, organize, heal, and simply exist,” Cannick continued. “We owe her more than we could ever repay.”
Thais-Williams is survived by her spouse and associate for 40 years, Rue, and siblings Carol Williams, Lula Washington and Kenneth Williams.
“She was an ear for those who needed to speak,” Carol Williams stated. “And a voice for those who needed to be heard.”
