When the representative Maxine Waters learned Jewel Thais-Williams died at 86 on MondayThe politician, who usually has something to say, was silent for a moment or two. Thais-Williams is widely known in the Black and LGBTQ+ communities as the founder of the iconic Jewel's Catch One nightclub.
However, they were not flashbacks of the nightlife scene in the corner of Pico and Norton which caused Waters to stop. The congresswoman was reflecting on the impact that Thais-Williams had in the country.
“Jewel was a warrior, a true warrior,” Waters told me. “Many people talk about helping people. He simply did, again and again, regardless of circumstances. He did not wait for someone more to intensify. He did not ask permission. He simply came out and helped people … so many people. She was a wonderful woman.”
To truly understand Thais-Williams's legacy, you must first remember the moment when he began to build it.
In 1961, a ruling from the Supreme Court restricted the women of Tending Bar unless they were the wife or daughter of the owner. And although the 1964 Civil Rights Law created a legal way to help dismantle sexual discrimination, when Thais-Williams opened its bar less than a decade later, the residue of that ruling of the Supreme Court, and the laws of Jim Crow, was still quite palpable.
In addition to all that, she was a lesbian. In 1973, California, the Employment Law did not protect the Queer community, Criminal Code 647 was used to justify the bumpting bites in public spaces, and the white gays of West Hollywood often asked black customers and brown three identification pieces only to keep them out of the clubs.
Establishing Jewel's capture, becoming the first black lesbian to possess a bar in this country, was not a glass staircase for Thais-Williams.
“When I met Jewel, he was in the backyard of Catch One,” said Waters, who headed the Federal Mining Initiative of AIDS and convinced the black Caucus of the Congress to organize an audience on the disease, which had been killing minorities disproportionately. “I was trying to obtain federal funds to help people who live with AIDS and went to see what I was doing. It was incredible. It was absolutely incredible. I was helping all these men whose families had thrown them out and had no other place where to go. I was feeding them from their restaurant and helping them with treatment. And then he went to school to learn medicine and helped even people.” It was really special. “
Keith Boykin, founder of the National Black Justice Coalition and former assistant of President Clinton, was a friend of Thais-Williams and told me “the most important lesson I learned from Jewel is that building a community in a moment of oppression is an act of resistance.”
In 1993, Boykin helped organize the first sitting meeting between a president and the LGBTQ+community, a surprising fact when it is considered that by then there were almost 400,000 reported cases of AIDS and almost a quarter of millions of Americans, predominantly homosexual men, they had already died. The deafening silence of the federal government through the 80s and early 90s had encountered a strong resistance from organizations such as Act Up and, as Boykin said, the construction of the community.
The work that Waters and Thais-Williams did together is one of the most prominent aspects of the 2016 documentary “Jewel's Catch One”. Its director, C. Fitz, told me that “she prepared to make the film due to the fact that I saw a great need to tell her story for our future.”
“I was forced to make the film shed light on an important hidden hero in our community that changed lives and history impacted,” Fitz said. “He wanted to tell the story about his incredible club he created, but also his life as a whole and everything he achieved, even being a healer with his clinic.”
In 2001, Thais-Williams opened the Village Health Foundation, which offered traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, advice and other holistic approaches to treat ailments that disproportionately impacted the black community.
Fitz took six years to make the movie. As a result, he said, he has numerous life lessons that he learned from Thais-Williams with her every day, as “the importance of laughter.”
“As hard as it was a day, I always saw Jewel laughing,” said Fitz. “We work very hard to make a difference, but we have to take care of ourselves inside and out.”
This week began with about 100 armed federal agents and members of the State National Guard who carry out a “force sample” operation in a relatively empty MacArthur park. Fortunately, there were no mass arrests, only a massive concern for the president's tendency to use our army for political theater. Last month, when Waters tried to verify David Huerta, the president of the International Union of Service Employees, who was being arrested in a federal installation, the door was closed on his face.
There is an obvious thread between the cruelty of the government of the last decades, towards the people LBGTQ+, the women and the people of color, and the performative cruelty today against … well, all those same groups still, and also in recent months, especially against Latinos and immigrants.
Waters had been in meetings most of the day when the news about Thais-Williams reached their ears … and broke his heart.
“She was a fighter; that's what I like most about her,” Waters said. “I am also a fighter. That is one of the reasons why we get along so well.”
With due respect, I would say that “fighting” is not the reason why the two got along so well. Everyone is fighting, one way or another. It is what we fight to keep the united people.
It is what we fight for that, ultimately, defines the meaning of our lives. Thais-Williams can be known for opening a popular nightclub, but for what he fought, people who need a champion most, is what defined his life.
YouTube: @Lzgrandershow
