After a year's absence, Black Pride's seminal 4th of July bash is back

by Christopher Lisotta

Like so many great events in the LGBT community, the annual At the Beach (ATB) Los Angeles Beach Party started as a modest dream.

“It was just us in high school,” explained Ivan Daniel, who now is a major events promoter and one of the architects of this year's ATBLA Beach Party. Daniel and his friend Duane Bremond went to high school in the Valley and would take a drive out to a Malibu beach location and dream about having a beach bash.

“We wanted to have our friends,” Daniel said. “It was the beginning of our alternative lifestyles.”

About a decade later, Daniel and Freemont started making calls, getting more than 500 people to show up for a beach party in July. “It wasn't organized,” he said. “We weren't thinking about a business model. We thought, 'Wow, this might be something here.'”

Within two years there were 2,000 people, and the need to organize became critical. By this time Bremond was working with then-Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, who helped guide the pair into transforming the party from something informal into an official event. “They got together and said ‘This is how you do it,’” Daniel explained.

When ATBLA officially kicked off in 1988, Black Pride events were few and far between. “People just knew on Labor Day, go to Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. you go to for Memorial Day Weekend,” Daniel said. Within a few years ATBLA made Los Angeles a must-visit for July 4 weekend, and helped spur the launch of Black Pride events in a variety of cities across the country.

Freemont passed away in 2003, but Daniel and others continued to organize and run ATBLA Beach Party and the series of events that grew up around it to form several days of celebration. But last year the Beach Party didn't come to fruition, despite the other events that went on as planned. Daniel and other Black LGBT leaders made sure that wasn't going to happen in 2009.

“The perception is things fell apart,” said Jeffrey King, founder of In The Meantime Men’s Group, Inc., a social discussion group for gay, black and same gender-loving men, and one of the various community leaders to get involved in helping to pull off this year's ATBLA Beach Party. “But think about what is happening on a global level and see what is happening to Pride celebrations across the country. Things are changing. I hear Christopher Street West had a successful event—glad to hear, but they had to make adjustments.”

Securing sponsorship and fundraising has been a challenge, but Daniel noted challenging times has allowed for what he calls a “rebirth” of the event. “The community has rallied around to ensure it happened,” he said. “There is a lot more camaraderie.”

Rebirth also means change. For years the party was the first Saturday in July, but moving the event to Friday, July 3 for 2009 helped ease the pressure felt by the City of Malibu, which is inundated for the July 4 holiday.

Daniel and King point to the support of lesbian, bisexual and transgender community organizers, particularly the prominent Jewel's Catch One club owner Jewel Thais-Williams, who has offered support and ensured the organization remains inclusive.

“She is the rock,” King said, noting his group has been leading ATBLA Beach Party's prevention outreach with 14,000 safe sex kits “stuffed and ready to go.”

What excites King and Daniel is ATBLA Beach Party's ability to incorporate the newest batch of twenty-somethings into its planning and celebration. “We are grooming a whole generation to step up and they are stepping up,” Daniel said, noting that many of the Beach Party revelers this year were little more than toddlers when the first event was held. “There is a whole new group coming on.”

Despite all the logistical and fiscal challenges, Daniel notes, at its core, ATBLA Beach Party is about connecting and reconnecting. “It's just friends,” he said. “Jeffrey is a friend that runs In the Meantime. We have grown up and we have expanded and it has that community 'come together and lets celebrate ourselves' feeling. Now I'm feeling that whole thing come back again.”

More info: atbla.com