Cooper Do-nuts Riot

{{Short description|Alleged 1959 LGBTQ uprising in Los Angeles, California}}

{{Infobox civil conflict

| partof = events leading to the
Gay liberation movement

| image = alt=A black and white photograph of Cooper Donuts, with several men sitting with their back to glass doors. Text painted on the window reads "A cup of delicious coffee and fresh donut, 10 cents"

| caption = A Cooper Do-nuts location in 1961

| date = May 1959

| place = Cooper Do-nuts, 215 South Main Street, Los Angeles, California, US

| goals = Gay liberation and LGBTQ rights in the United States

| side1 = Los Angeles Police Department

| side2 = Patrons of Cooper Do{{nbh}}nuts cafe

| sidebox = {{LGBTQ sidebar|history}}

}}

The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was an uprising in reaction to police harassment of LGBTQ people at a 24-hour donut cafe in Los Angeles in 1959. Whether the riot actually happened, the date, location and whether or not the cafe was a branch of the Cooper chain are all disputed, and there is a lack of contemporary documentary evidence,{{cite news|last=Piepenburg |first=Erik |date=2023-06-05 |title=A Gay Riot at a Doughnut Shop? The Legend Has Some Holes. |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/dining/gay-riot-los-angeles-doughnut-shop.html |access-date=2023-06-06 |issn=0362-4331| archive-date=21 August 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230821190710/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/dining/gay-riot-los-angeles-doughnut-shop.html |url-access=limited |via=Internet Archive}} with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stating that any records of such event would have been purged years ago.

According to John Rechy, who stated he was at the event, it occurred in 1958 or 1959, about 10 years prior to the better-known Stonewall riots in New York City, and is viewed by some historians{{rp|2}} as the first modern LGBTQ uprising in the United States.

Background

Few people lived openly as LGBTQ in the 1950s, and those that did faced both social and legal consequences for doing so. One of the few places they were welcome were gay bars, which themselves often faced legal consequences for serving them, such as the loss of their license. Los Angeles law made it illegal for a person's gender presentation not to match the gender shown on their ID, and this was often used to target and arrest transgender or cross-dressing bar patrons.{{cite web |last1=Avery |first1=Dan |title=5 Pre-Stonewall Events That Shaped the LGBT Community: Trailblazers |url=http://www.newnownext.com/5-pre-stonewall-events-that-shaped-the-lgbt-community-trailblazers/06/2014/ |publisher=Logo TV |website=NewNowNext.com |accessdate=30 June 2017}} For this reason, many gay bars were hostile to transgender patrons and banned or discouraged them from entering.

Novelist John Rechy, who says he was present at the riot, described the routine arrests in his 1963 novel, City of Night: "They interrogate you, fingerprint you without booking you: an illegal L.A. cop-tactic to scare you from hanging around."{{Cite news|last=James|first=Scott|date=2019-06-20|title=What Was Your Stonewall? Pivotal L.G.B.T.Q. Moments Across the U.S.|language=en-US|work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/stonewalls-across-us-lgbtq.html|access-date=2020-07-13|issn=0362-4331 | archive-date=12 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230712203754/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/20/us/stonewalls-across-us-lgbtq.html |url-access=limited |via=Internet Archive}} The names of individuals arrested in a bar raid would routinely be reported by local newspapers, outing them to the community, usually resulting in the loss of jobs and being socially ostracized. Arrests by the LAPD for homosexuality had increased by more than 85% in the previous decade under the police chief William H. Parker. Queer activist Harry Hay later recalled that abuse of LGBTQ people by police was common during this time, and sometimes met resistance.{{Cite magazine |magazine=Out |last=Moffitt |first=Evan |date=2015-05-31 |title=Today in Gay History: 10 Years Before Stonewall, There Was the Cooper's Donuts Riot |url=http://www.out.com/today-gay-history/2015/5/31/today-gay-history-10-years-stonewall-there-was-coopers-donuts-riot |access-date=2022-04-27 |language=en}}

Riots

At times, Rechy has said that the shop was located on the 500 block of South Main Street and did not belong to the Cooper chain, but that donut shops were referred to by that name generically. A common version of the story says that Cooper Do-nuts was a café at 215 South Main Street in downtown Los Angeles' Skid Row neighborhood. Located near two gay bars—Harold's, at 555 South Main Street, and The Waldorf, at 521 South Main Street—and open all night, it was a popular hangout for gay people, and welcomed them.{{rp|1–8}} One evening in May 1959 (Rechy once wrote 1958), two police officers reportedly entered the cafe and asked for IDs from several patrons, a typical form of harassment. The officers are said to have attempted to arrest two drag queens, two male sex workers, and a young man cruising for a date.{{cite book|last1=Springate|first1=Megan E.|title=LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History|date=2016|publisher=National Park Foundation |page=18:29|url=https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lgbtqheritage/upload/lgbtqtheme-civilrights.pdf#page=32|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161024191718/https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lgbtqheritage/upload/lgbtqtheme-civilrights.pdf#page=32|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 24, 2016|accessdate=9 July 2017}} Rechy said they attempted to arrest him, and described the LAPD's abuse on this night as a culmination of routine targeting of the LGBTQ community.{{Cite news|url=https://qvoicenews.com/2018/05/03/queer-history-was-made-at-coopers-donuts-in-los-angeles/ |last1=Zonkel |first=Phillip |title=Queer history was made at Cooper's Donuts in Los Angeles |date=May 3, 2018|work=Q Voice News |location=Los Angeles|access-date=April 11, 2025|language=en-US}}

The report continues that one of those arrested protested the lack of room in the police car for all five of them, and onlookers began throwing assorted coffee, donuts, cups, and trash at the police until they fled in their car without making the arrests.{{cite news|url=https://thepridela.com/2016/09/los-angeles-cooper-donuts-gay-riots-sparked-revolution-10-years-stonewall/|title=Los Angeles' Cooper Donuts gay riots sparked a revolution 10 years before Stonewall|last1=Lilly|first1=Christiana|date=30 September 2016|work=The Pride LA |location=Los Angeles |accessdate=30 June 2017}} People then reportedly took to rioting and celebrating in the streets, as a larger crowd grew as patrons of surrounding gay bars and others in the area heard about it. The story continues that police backup arrived, blocking off the street for the entire night, and that police beat or arrested several people.{{cite book|last1=Faderman|first1=Lillian|title=The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle|date=27 September 2016|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=978-1451694123|pages=115–116|edition=Reprint|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=398bDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA115|accessdate=30 June 2017 |via=Google Books}} Rechy said he was still slated for arrest, but escaped.{{Cite web| publisher=ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives |via= University of Southern California |title=Cooper Do-nuts |url=https://one.usc.edu/archive-location/cooper-do-nuts |access-date=2022-04-27 |location=Los Angeles}}

Legacy

The Cooper Do-nuts uprising is often cited as the first gay uprising in the United States.{{Cite book |last1=Faderman|first1=Lillian |url= https://archive.org/details/gaylahistoryofse00lill/ |title=Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians |last2=Timmons |first2=Stuart |publisher=Basic Books |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-465-02288-5 |location=New York, NY |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archives}}{{rp|2}} Hay identified it as the first specifically against police treatment of LGBTQ people. Some historians contest the significance, claiming that anyone who was openly gay at the time was already in rebellion and risking arrest and imprisonment.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}} Mark Thompson, a historian who lived in the same area as Rechy, wrote: "I would not describe it as a riot but more like an isolated patch of local social unrest that had lasting repercussions. I think less in its day, more as a lesson for us today."

In 2020 the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council considered making Cooper Do-nuts a historical site and requested police records to corroborate Rechy's account of the riots. The LAPD revealed that there were no records from that time, because they were either "purged or destroyed".{{Cite web |title=LGBTQ History in Los Angeles: Cooper Do-Nuts and Black Cat Tavern |url=http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi712.php |access-date=13 October 2023 |publisher=Los Angeles Almanac |location=Los Angeles}} Nancy Valverde stated she had heard about the event right away from a friend.{{Cite magazine |last=Stuart |first=Gwynedd |date=2019-05-29 |title=Before Stonewall, the Queer Revolution Started Right Here in Los Angeles |url=https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/before-stonewall-gay-pride-history/ |access-date=2022-04-27 |magazine=Los Angeles Magazine |language=en-US}}

On June 22, 2023, as the City of Los Angeles erected a ceremonial Cooper Do-nuts Square sign at 2nd and Main Streets, the LAPD made a formal apology for its harassment of gay citizens. Commander Ruby Flores said, "I deeply apologize on behalf of the men and women of the LAPD. This mistreatment and harassment of our citizens was wrong. It should have never happened."{{Cite news |publisher=KABC-TV |location=Los Angeles |date=22 June 2023 |title=LAPD issues apology to LGBTQ+ community during ceremony honoring activists |url=https://abc7.com/lgbtq-cooper-do-nuts-nancy-valverde-los-angeles/13416664/ |language=en-US}}