Mor or Les

In 1979 Mac McCann opened Mor or Les in the southside Dutchtown neighborhood of St. Louis city.

In some ways it was like the hundreds of other bars found in neighborhoods across St. Louis -- somewhere to get a drink and socialize with friends.

However this was a self-proclaimed “feminist” and lesbian bar. And a bar that was destroyed by arson less than a year after opening.

This question was posed by a coalition of people voicing their outrage after Mor or Les was consumed by a firebomb September 11, 1979. They compared the violence against the bar to other acts of violence against women:

“...if a woman is raped, she is accused of being in the wrong place or wearing provocative clothing. This women’s space was accused of being in the wrong part of the city. Women have always been accused of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” -- Sister Advocate, 25 Oct 1979.

A brief history of Mor or Les shows why this parallel made sense to these activists. From its opening six months earlier, bar management and patrons had been subjected to a gathering storm of opposition and violence:

• a petition drive led by area businesspeople and residents against renewal of Mor or Les's liquor license;
• local men harassing customers;
• windows broken by bricks, snipers who shot at the bar during operating hours, and bomb and death threats.

Then, early in the hours of September 11, 1979, someone emptied two large canisters of gasoline in the building. When firefighters arrived, there was “nothing but a ball of fire.” (“Explosion, Fire Destroy Women’s Bar,” Post-Dispatch 11 Sept 1979, p. 1, 7)

Reflecting on the growing violence before the firebombing, one St. Louis police sergeant voiced the opinion of many who lived in the area. He told the newspaper that Mac McCann, the bar’s manager, had “picked the wrong spot to open her business. South St. Louis just isn’t ready for a lesbian bar.” (Post-Dispatch 9 Sept 1979)

Why was Mor or Les’s 'Dutchtown' neighborhood such a battleground over lesbians’ and feminists’ claims to public space? Perhaps because it was in an area where long-time white residents, contending with the effects of white flight, an aging population and housing stock, and redlining, feared neighborhood “decline.” One of their responses was to defend their turf against “outsiders” of various sorts, most notably African Americans but also, apparently, lesbians.

Neighborhood residents accused bar patrons of creating “turmoil” simply by their presence. A nearby bookstore owner stated that her “elderly lady” customers “tell me they’re afraid they’re going to be dragged inside the bar when they walk by. I know it sounds ridiculous, but to them its [sic] very real.” She shared at least some of their concerns. “It’s a nice area, and I’d like to see it stay that way,” she told a reporter. “Things like that tend to bring it down.” (Post-Dispatch, 9 Sept 1979)

St. Louis police seemed to agree. After the firebombing, they immediately identified McCann as their only suspect, ignoring the considerable history of violence directed against the bar. She was never charged, as there was no evidence against her, but she lost her business and was displaced from her home, on the building’s second floor. This marked the end of McCann’s long career as a proprietor of lesbian bars in the St. Louis region.

Still, the end of Mor or Les did not mean the end of the struggle for lesbian space.

New bars opened, existing bars (which kept a quieter profile) continued, and a variety of progressive groups denounced the violence against the bar.

In April, 1980, just months after the firebombing, St. Louis held its first city-wide pride celebration, the Walk for Charity. This was another claim to space in the city.

Adrienne Rae, one of the organizers of that Pride walk, explained “that first big step out into the streets” stemmed from her regret that in order to keep her job as a school teacher, she had to deny that she visited Mor or Les. (The Gay News-Telegraph, August 1982)

There were, of course, lots of reasons why LGBTQ St. Louisans took “that first big step,” but lesbian-feminists’ refusal to be driven from public view was one of the most important -- and it is a point worth remembering.

Stories like these are explored throughout Mapping LGBTQ St. Louis. They remind us both of the ways that sex and gender have structured LGBTQ life in the St. Louis region, and of the importance activism and resistance to the history of our communities.    

Mac McCann, "The Trouble with Bars...Anywhere" Big Mama Rag, Vol. 8 No. 1 January 1980, page 2, 18. Open Access online: http://voices.revealdigital.com/cgi-bin/independentvoices

Judith Miller, "Firebombing Remains A Rubble" Big Mama Rag, Vol. 7 No. 10 November 1979, page 3. Open Access online: http://voices.revealdigital.com/cgi-bin/independentvoices

“No Man’s Land: Battle Over Women’s Bar,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 9 Sept 1979, page 1, 9.

Adrienne Rae to editor, The Gay News-Telegraph, August 1982, page 21.

"We Are Present as a Group of Persons Responding to This Most Immediate Act of Violence against Women." Sister Advocate, 25 Oct. 1979, page 5. Archives of Sexuality & Gender, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CMWR9X. Accessed 26 Nov. 2019.