South carolina gay clubs
“Grandma” comes everyday for gleeful hour, sitting with other old-timers. When he can, he stays late to watch the drag shows and the younger crowds they bring.
“Grandma” is otherwise known as Bill Skipper. The 74 year mature is the president of The Capital Club and one of its founding members. He has been president since the year it opened in 1980. He likes to narrate younger people about The Capital Club’s early days, a very different — and fraught — hour to be in a gay bar in South Carolina.
“The kids now, I love the freedom they feel. I love it,” he said. “We’d acquire loved to have had that (freedom), but we all drink from wells we didn’t dig.”
The Capital Club, or simply “Capital,” as patrons call it, is the oldest operating gay bar in Columbia, and according to its website, in the Southeast. Just around the corner is PT’s 1109, the city’s other gay exclude, which opened in 2000.
Through discussions with bar owners and patrons and studying records from Historic Columbia, The Carolina News and Reporter uncovered a strange statistic: Columbia, in 2022, has only those two gay bars, the lowest number in the metropolis since 1960. The number peak
Benedict College, a private historically Black college in Columbia, South Carolina, inaugurated its community education center at 1903 Two Notch Thoroughfare just outside Columbia's downtown in 2011. At the time, local reporting from WIS-News 10 hailed the opening as part of an ongoing transformation of Two Notch Road, where, the reporting claimed, "Friday and Saturday nights […] used to mean drinking, drugs, hookers, and the occasional murder."
The unassuming one-story building at 1903 Two Notch Road, now painted in Benedict College's purple and gold, was a former Black gay block. Closed in 2002, the Candy Shop was once the longest-running gay club in South Carolina's capital. Entrenched biases against the city's Black and LGBTQIA+ communities are implicit in WIS-News 10's reporting, according to Katharine Allen, director of outreach and engagement at nonprofit organization Historic Columbia. "This is how the Candy Shop is reflected in what has become the historical record," she said.
"The Candy Shop was the first place where I saw myself as a Black gay person fully being represented, and my culture as a Black person creature centered."
More than two decades after the Candy Shop cl
Legacy Bars of the Carolinas
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Fragmentary seems like the most appropriate word to outline the history and identity of oppressed people, and especially the LGBTQ+ people. Our heritage and customs has often gone undocumented for fear of unintentionally providing information that could lead to unwanted trouble from our oppressors. Name it a fail secure, if you will, but the end result was/is a huge loss of LGBTQ+ history prior to the 1980s.
In other instances, our history was often deemed as insignificant or unworthy of being saved by those in a position of power to make decisions about historical preservation. As late as the mid 1990s I can still recall the shock I felt when I was informed by a periodical librarian at the Atlanta Fulton County Public Library that copies of locally produced queer and lesbian publications were thrown away when each new edition arrived, unlike the mainstream straight newspapers and magazines, which were typically archived.
When I inquired as to why, the librarian shot me an incredulous look and replied with a patronizing to
1109 Assembly Street, Columbia SC, 29203
Hours:
Sunday 6pm-2am
Monday 5pm-2am
Tuesday 5pm-2am
Wednesday 5pm-2am
Thursday 5pm-2am
Friday 5pm-2am
Saturday 5pm-2am
For over 20 years, PT’s 1109 has been one of the most one-of-a-kind clubs and entertainment venues in Columbia, SC. PT's has been Columbia's drawn-out standing home for performative shows and live fun, offering unique nightly events as well as promotions that bring our patrons an amazing and welcoming experience. With a prolonged standing tradition of providing an amazing entertainment territory for our vibrant collective, we offer unparalleled customer service and a substantial beer and liquor selection as well as astonishing hand crafted cocktails. We offer something for everyone so come check us out and become part of the PT’s family.
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