Cooper Do-nuts Riot
| Cooper Do-nuts Riot | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of events leading to the Gay liberation movement | |||
A Cooper Do-nuts location in 1961 | |||
| Date | May 1959 | ||
| Location | Cooper Do-nuts, 215 South Main Street, Los Angeles, California, US | ||
| Goals | Gay liberation and LGBTQ rights in the United States | ||
| Parties | |||
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| Part of a series on |
| LGBTQ people |
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The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was an uprising in reaction to police harassment of LGBTQ people at a 24-hour donut cafe in Los Angeles in 1959. Whether the riot actually happened, the date, location and whether or not the cafe was a branch of the Cooper chain are all disputed, and there is a lack of contemporary documentary evidence, with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stating that any records of such event would have been purged years ago.
According to John Rechy, who stated he was at the event, it occurred in 1958 or 1959, about 10 years prior to the better-known Stonewall riots in New York City, and is viewed by some historians: 2 as the first modern LGBTQ uprising in the United States.