How a Police Raid Shuttered a Haven for Gay Men
Italian band Equipe 84 above at a bar in 1968, the same time period police were raiding bars that gay and bi+ men frequented in LA.
Photo by Mondadori Portfolio by Getty Images.The police raid at the Black Cat in Los Angeles, a pre-Stonewall gay landmark, is often cited as the catalyst that led Dick Michaels (real name Richard Mitch), Bill Rand (Bill Rau), and Sam Winston (John Sam Allen) to found The Advocate, but it was not the first raid where Michaels was present.
He was also at the equally important Yukon Bar at a raid that occurred almost a year earlier and at which Michaels was arrested on charges for which he later faced trial.
Protests followed.The Yukon, at 3977 Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles, was a mere 1.8 miles from the Black Cat. Before becoming the Yukon Bar, the building had been a malt shop, a cleaning supplies store, a candy, tobacco, and food delivery store, a fixture store, and a Safeco Insurance office.
