16 - Monday Women’s Club 1209 6th Avenue @ San Juan Street

16 - Monday Women’s Club

1209 6th Avenue @ San Juan Street

The Monday Women’s Club, a one-story institutional building, is a rare example of an African American women’s clubhouse building in Venice, important for its role in the social history of the African American community in Oakwood.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Los Angeles has had a large women’s club movement. Following a nationwide trend, the organization of clubs grew to cope with community problems. Local African American women’s organizations grew out of churches, mutual aid societies, and literary clubs. As in the case of the Monday Women’s Club, many of these organizations were affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women, which formed in response to heightened racism, a need for social services within the African American community, and exclusionary policies of many white-run organizations. While African American and white women’s clubs had similar missions and activities, they operated separately. It is estimated that approximately 20 African American women’s clubhouses once existed in Los Angeles; however, the subject property appears to be one of only two buildings remaining.

The club was located at this site from the 1920s until approximately 1947. While the club and their trustees held the property until 1971, in 1947, Bethel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ moved into the space, which they purchased nearly 30 years later. In 2014, the property was sold to a private entity and is currently vacant.

The Monday’s Women’s Club became Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #1203 on 1/14/2020.