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Movements Jun 23, 2023
Cooper Do-Nuts in downtown LA in the 1950s. | Photo courtesy of LEGATO Choirs/Facebook
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An intersection in downtown Los Angeles was dedicated Thursday as Cooper Do-Nuts/Nancy Valverde Square in recognition of the establishment that played a pivotal role in the LGBTQIA+ community’s struggle for equality during the 1950s and the LGBTQIA+ activist.
The 9 a.m. ceremony at the intersection of Second and Main streets included an acknowledgement and apology from Cmdr. Ruby Flores for the Los Angeles Police Department’s harassment of Valverde and the LGBTQIA+ community during the 1950s.
Cooper Do-nuts, which was located at 215 S. Main St., distinguished itself as a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community, according to the motion by City Councilman Kevin de León to name the intersection Cooper Do-nuts/Nancy Valverde Square.
Despite the neighboring businesses, a strip of bars known as “The Run” catering to gay men, gender nonconforming individuals were often excluded from these establishments for fear of the bars losing their liquor licenses as a result of Municipal Ordinance No. 5022, a citywide ban on cross dressing between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Cooper Do-nuts, however, remained a safe haven for all members of the queer community regardless of gender presentation.
Many also claim Cooper Do-nuts was the site of the first LGBT uprising, occurring in May 1959 after LAPD officers attempted to arrest two drag queens and two gay men suspected of sex work and were met with a barrage of spoons, coffee cups, doughnuts and coffee thrown by Cooper Do-nuts patrons, forcing the officers to leave without making the arrests.
News of the incident spread throughout “The Run,” prompting angry Angelenos to fill the streets to protest this particular injustice and the ongoing discrimination endured by the queer community in Los Angeles.
Valverde and her friends Audrey Black and Delores Newton were students at Moler’s Barber College at 265 S. Main St., a few doors south of Cooper Do-nuts which quickly became Valverde and her friends’ regular spot.
As a masculine presenting woman, Valverde was routinely arrested for violating Ordinance No. 5022 and thrown into the Lincoln Heights Jail in a section known derisively as the Daddy Tank, reserved for women suspected of being lesbians.
Determined to address this discrimination, Valverde, with the help of a clerk at the Los Angeles County Law Library, found rulings that supported her defense that wearing men’s clothing was not a crime. Valverde informed her lawyer Arthur Black of what she learned and he was able to use these findings in her defense.
Valverde’s tenacity and perseverance led the way to ending laws targeting LGBTQIA+ individuals, particularly gender nonconforming persons, in Los Angeles.
