Most people know Stonewall. Fewer know about the night in 1959 when queer people in Los Angeles fought back against a police raid with coffee cups and donuts, and sparked one of the earliest known acts of LGBTQ+ resistance in American history.

Cooper's Do-nuts was a 24-hour donut shop on Main Street in Los Angeles, a gathering spot for gay men, transgender women, drag queens, and sex workers who had few other places to go. On a night in May 1959, police moved in to arrest patrons, targeting people for wearing clothes "of the opposite sex" and for simply being present. The community fought back, throwing donuts, coffee cups, and anything else at hand. Some people escaped into the streets. Some police reportedly fled.

The uprising didn't make the mainstream news. No names were recorded. No plaque commemorates the site. But it happened, ten years before Stonewall, in a city that has often been erased from the story of queer resistance.

This episode puts Cooper's Do-nuts back in the history books, alongside the names and stories of the communities who were there, and asks what else we might be missing.

Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/GEOADoxV_Kw
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Website: https://thisweekinqueerhistory.com