![two black gay men making out two black gay men making out](https://www.pinknews.co.uk/images/2016/11/Screen-Shot-2016-11-28-at-14.39.35.png)
The Jubilee moved there in the mid-’70s, from its previous location on E. 14th Street (now International Boulevard). It quickly became a second home for a tight-knit community of lesbians, who formed their own softball team. Owned by Betty Arnesen and Velma Souza, The Jubilee was a working-class, no-nonsense establishment where women came to play pool and knock back a few. “You couldn’t just walk into The Jubilee,” recalled Barbara Hoke, an Oakland resident whose social life was centered at the bar for years. The doors stayed locked, and there was a peephole through which prospective customers were eyed warily.
![two black gay men making out two black gay men making out](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kKzw0lfUv3M/hqdefault.jpg)
According to Hoke, that security system was established after an angry husband burst into E. 14th bar and murdered someone after discovering his wife was involved with a woman. “On the other hand, it was just a total place of freedom,” Hoke told The Oaklandside. Longworth and Howard demonstrate “joy collectivators” made by Howard. The first time she stepped foot inside The Jubilee in the ‘70s, she made the faux-pas of ordering a glass of sherry. Nevertheless, the hardened bargoers embraced the newcomer into their world, where women took good care of one another. “They would throw an auction for any type of crisis a lesbian had,” Hoke said, even if someone’s cat needed surgery. That’s how she came into possession of a beautiful old ceiling fan that ran in her Oakland real estate office for decades.
![two black gay men making out two black gay men making out](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/W9eCGgtw__s/hqdefault.jpg)
“It was such a symbol of the community created there,” she said. The Jubilee, like Longworth and Howard’s home, had two levels. Davis, another Jubilee regular, in a 1991 interview conducted for the Wide Open Town History Project.ĭownstairs, older women held court, listening to country-western music, said T. “Upstairs we played Black music so there were a lot of Black girls there.” It was the only bar that somewhat catered to the Bay Area’s large Black lesbian community, said Davis, who added, “I met my last lover at The Jubilee. The denizens of the two floors would sometimes play softball against each other, on teams called the Uppers (upstairs) and Downers, according to Hoke. The Jubilee also played regularly as one team against other lesbian bars. Making these unassuming buildings “monumental” is part of Brooke’s project. In her artist’s statement she notes that lesbian bars are “so often anonymous or mute, and now waning.” Many are “not archived, and not ‘important’ spaces in a mainstream kind of way,” she said. Gay men’s bars have always far outnumbered lesbian bars in most places, Brooke said.
![two black gay men making out two black gay men making out](https://media.giphy.com/media/14isOPBgsN47cc/giphy.gif)
Sometimes there would be a “women’s night” on the least popular evening. “Women thought, ‘We should have something too,’” she said. In Oakland they had a few such places, most active between the 1970s and ‘90s. There was Camilla’s on 13th Avenue and Ollie’s on Telegraph in Temescal. Nearby Albany had The Bacchanal on Solano Avenue, and Hayward had The Driftwood. (Hoke wrote an article honoring these spots, packed with hilarious anecdotes.) In Berkeley, a feminist collective ran the Brick Hut Café. Credit: Kaucyila Brooke, 4712 East International Blvd.
#TWO BLACK GAY MEN MAKING OUT LICENSE#
( Formerly The Jubilee: First Location), The Boy Mechanic/Oakland, chromogenic print, 40”X55”, 2019Īnd before all those places opened, there was Mary’s First and Last Chance in the 1950’s, a Telegraph Avenue bar that had its liquor license revoked after police went undercover “disguised as lesbians.” The bar appealed the decision to the California Supreme Court-and won. Photos of two black gay men making out license#.