When the Enik Alley Coffeehouse opened in a brick-lined carriage house near H Street in the early 1980s, the crack epidemic was ravaging the surrounding communities, and AIDS had left so many dead that the pages of the Washington Blade were filled with obituaries. Across the city, Black gay people were harassed and denied entry at predominantly White gay clubs.
But inside the coffeehouse — named for the streets that border it: Eighth, Ninth, I and K — Black LGBTQ artists and activists found a haven unlike any other in the District then or since. Until it closed in 1989, it was an integral part of a scene that gave rise to some of the most prolific Black LGBTQ artists of a generation and saw the likes of Audre Lorde and Essex Hemphill perform on its modest stage.
In the decades since, Enik Alley was often overlooked in the telling of LGBTQ history in the District, but now in an effort to preserve and promote that history, the surviving members of that cohort have come together to produce a documentary about the coffeehouse. The film, “Fierceness Served!,” will debut in a virtual screening in late August.
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The documentary is as much a eulogy as it is a plea to today’s Black LGBTQ people to remember their history and create their own spaces.
“In the ’80s when AIDS was coming to its fullness and destroying our LGBTQ community, art was a way to create spaces that we could own and we could control and we could say that were our own,” said Rayceen Pendarvis, a longtime activist for gay and transgender rights and host of the radio show “Ask Rayceen.” “We were free in those spaces. We were not confined by how society saw us. Or how it tried to destroy us. In those spaces, we were kings, we were queens, we were creators. We were free to tell our stories without anyone editing our truth.”
Today, the boxy two-story building in the rapidly gentrifying Northeast quadrant of the city has transformed into a rental unit with a bright turquoise door and a flower box. Where a strip mall once stood, hawking cheap clothes and greasy foods, there is now a luxury apartment complex.
The family living in the I Street rowhouse had no idea about the history of the space they were inhabiting until a handful of artists approached them about the film.
Christopher Prince, a performance artist and member of the documentary’s steering committee, slipped a note into the mail slot of the rowhouse explaining to the new owners what the building had once been. He asked if the filmmakers could come back to shoot their documentary inside the old performance space. The owners agreed.
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The coffeehouse was opened in 1982 by Ray Melrose, a nightclub manager and patron of the arts, who became the president of the D.C. Coalition of Black Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals — the nation’s first Black LGBTQ political organization. He lived in the main house with his partner and offered the space to artists and activists free of charge.
Those who visited the coffeehouse would hasten from the main street down the alley and bang on the door until someone let them in. It didn’t look like much from the outside, said Prince, 65. Or the inside, added Pamela Jafari, an actor and member of the documentary’s steering committee.
But despite its musty appearance, it was an oasis.
“You could take off whatever mask you wore during the week and just relax into yourself at the coffeehouse,” Jafari said. “We were safe in the coffeehouse. There were government workers, closeted government workers who couldn’t live their lives openly, and they could be themselves at the coffeehouse.”
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Artists like Hemphill, Prince and Wayson Jones performed experimental works on the coffeehouse stage, incorporating music and sound with poetry performances.
Sharon Farmer, 70, a photojournalist who became the first Black woman to be director of photography for the White House, displayed her first works there — a collection of photos of LGBTQ people living “real lives.” Prince performed poetry and other works. Jones showcased his music and frequently performed with Hemphill.
Visiting LGBTQ artists from New York and other cities would stop by the coffeehouse on their way through D.C. Soon, it amassed a small following.
At the time, Prince said, the artists didn’t realize they were building a legacy or works that would endure for decades. They were just hanging out with their friends, experimenting with their art.
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“This project has made clear to me the potency of the exchange of art and ideas that we were engaged in back then,” Prince said. “You can’t see it when you’re in the middle of it. But now, it’s like, wow. Did we do all that?”
These days, the inside of the carriage house is unrecognizable, Prince said.
Standing on the stoop of the home brought memories rushing back — of Melrose, of Hemphill, of other old friends lost to AIDS and time — but while filming inside, Prince said, he didn’t feel the nostalgia he had expected.
“It’s changed so much,” he said. “What hit me more than anything was this feeling of loss. Like, everything we knew is gone.”
The H Street corridor, a vibrant shopping district that was hit hard by the 1968 riots and the disinvestment that followed, has once again become a hub of activity and commerce.
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But Sabiyha Prince, a cultural anthropologist who studies gentrification — and who is the sister of Christopher Prince — said what the area has lost in its transformation into a safer and more desirable part of the city are spaces like the coffeehouse, places for artists and marginalized communities to gather. LGBTQ gathering spaces, including bars like the Brass Rail and the ClubHouse that catered to the Black community, have likewise vanished.
The idea to make a film about the coffeehouse and the culture created within its walls came from Jones, 64, an artist who specializes in abstract art.
Jones was approached by an archivist who was putting together an exhibit about D.C. Space, a venue that hosted art and musical performances throughout the 1980s. Melrose worked there as a manager, and Jones explained the deep significance of D.C. Space to the District’s Black LGBTQ community of the time.
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But none of these details made it into the final presentation, Jones said.
“I thought to myself, ‘Why are you waiting for this guy, a White guy, to tell your story?’” he said.
He called Prince and other members of the coffeehouse cohort. Soon, they had an idea: Tell their own story in the way they wanted it to be told.
Michelle Parkerson, a Black lesbian who frequented the coffeehouse and went on to become an award-winning filmmaker, volunteered to direct the project.
The group began getting to work on the film in February 2020. A month later, the coronavirus pandemic shut nearly everything down.
The pandemic’s impact on the film was huge. Parkerson said the group originally envisioned a feature-length documentary but has had to whittle it down to less than an hour.
Finances they had hoped to secure through grants and nonprofit programs were stalled. People who had agreed to sit for interviews were suddenly wary of being in a roomful of crew members. Some asked to film their interviews outside. Others would meet only over Zoom.
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“Suddenly it was a whole different environment,” Parkerson said. “Offices or places we’d be doing business or making contacts were totally shut down. The art scene and the artist community was hit. Everyone was in a tight financial situation. Funding was tight for anything that was not going full-bore into fighting covid, and on top of that, we had to figure out how to film these virtual conversations.”
Several artists involved expressed frustration that the pandemic hit when it did, presenting yet another obstacle to telling their story.
Jones and Prince said they see the August launch of “Fierceness Served!” as a starting point and hope a longer feature film is on the horizon.
Others said what happens with the film itself is less important than the change it may inspire.
Prince said he hopes there can be a new coffeehouse someday — not a bar or a club, not an office, but a place where Black LGBTQ people from different backgrounds and generations can exchange ideas and collaborate on projects.
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Jones, who decried the gentrification that has displaced countless Black families from D.C., said a return to the coffeehouse model may be needed amid soaring rents and real estate prices.
“Working on this project has shown me just how necessary these spaces are, how there are groups of younger people who are eager, if not hungry, for the knowledge of what their forebearers did,” Jones said. “But today if you can’t afford the real estate, you’re out of luck. Maybe we’ll go back to gathering in someone’s carriage house. Maybe that’s what it will take to create a new home for D.C.’s Black LGBTQ people.”
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