Vaginal Davis and Platinum Oasis

Vaginal “Creme” Davis is a black genderqueer drag queen and performance artist who became largely popular and recognizable for performing at various clubs in the Los Angeles underground performance scene. She created and performed with many different bands including Pedro Muriel and Esther, Cholia! The Female Menudo, black fag, and the Afro Sisters. Later in her artistic career, Vaginal Davis hosted Platinum Oasis, a queer performance and art installation festival installed in the Coral Sands Motel. Her work is meant to be a loud, unapologetic, celebration of uniqueness that encourages creative expression in members of LGBTQ+, black and Hispanic, and underprivileged communities.

BLK Publications is located at PO Box 83912, Los Angeles, CA 90083. BLK Magazine was a magazine designed to educate and inform the Black LGBTQ community in Los Angeles that hadn’t yet been informed about issues that related to their community, particularly during the height of the AIDS crisis. Created by Alan Bell in 1988, BLK Magazine aimed to not only be the best black gay news publication, but the best magazine altogether. Designed in the vein of Newsweek and TIME, BLK Magazine aimed to be a source of mainstream news for everyone to enjoy as well as provide a safe methods for the Black LGBTQ community to communicate. At the time, the community had only limited ways of interacting or learning from one another, so the purpose of BLK transcended just news to be an avenue for the community to flourish.

Formed in 1986 by Alan Bell, Black Jack was a club that regularly met for safe sex parties. At the time of its founding, AIDS ran rampant throughout the United States and many gay men scoffed at the idea of using a condom. Bell wanted a place where there was no questioning or judgement of safe sex, and due to his efforts, the queer black men of his club were educated about using protection and formed a community of like-minded people. 

Catch One was one of the most prominent discos in Los Angeles. Located at 4067 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, not far from many of the other discos and gay clubs populating West Hollywood, Catch One was an institution for black people and other people of color at a time when they were often unwelcome at other places — such as Studio One, a prominent disco with problematic ID policies. The club was owned by a black lesbian named Jewel, and as such it was sometimes referred to as Jewel’s Catch One. Clientele engagement was big at Catch One; they had their own magazine that included lists of popular music, matchmaking services, classifieds, and a myriad of events, which included happy hours, theme parties, boys’ nights, girls’ nights, fundraisers and pageants, among other things. The legacy of Catch One suggests its importance as a socially-conscious institution with something for everyone.