Transforming Spaces, Creating Sanctuaries: Jewel Thais-Williams

Shereá Denise
Jul 19
2 min read

Earlier this month I saw a Facebook post about the passing of Jewel Thais-Williams. I was not familiar with Jewel's name, but the snapshot of her life that was detailed in the post was enough to make me dig deeper. What I learned needed to be shared. What I learned reminded me of how Black women continue to transform so many spaces, to heal so many people, to create so many sanctuaries just by being who we are where we are...

Jewel Thais-Williams was a visionary, healer, and community matriarch who dedicated her life to creating refuge for those pushed to the margins—especially Black LGBTQ+ people. Born in Gary, Indiana in 1939 and later settling in Los Angeles, Jewel responded to the exclusion she faced in white-dominated gay clubs by founding her own space of belonging. In 1973, she opened Jewel’s Catch One, the first Black-owned LGBTQ+

nightclub in the United States. More than just a nightclub, Catch One became a sanctuary—a vibrant, affirming hub where queer and trans people of color could dance, be seen, and be safe. It was a radical act of love and defiance in a time when such spaces were nearly nonexistent.

As the AIDS crisis devastated communities in the 1980s, Jewel again stepped up, transforming her grief into action. Alongside her wife, Rue, she opened Rue’s House—a shelter for women and children living with HIV/AIDS—and helped found the Minority AIDS Project. She later established the Village Health Foundation to provide holistic health services, continuing to center the needs of those often overlooked by mainstream systems. Even after earning a Master’s in Oriental Medicine, Jewel offered affordable care right from the Catch One building, extending her legacy of healing far beyond nightlife.

For 42 years, Jewel’s Catch One pulsed with music, resistance, and love. Celebrities like Madonna passed through its doors, but its true power was the way it held space for those who had nowhere else to go. Jewel’s influence lives on through the 2016 documentary Jewel’s Catch One, a street named in her honor, and the generations of queer people of color she empowered simply by giving them room to breathe. She passed away on July 7, 2025, at the age of 86, having spent her life turning exclusion into sanctuary and silence into song.

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