During the time of segregation in the Spokane area, one club owned and operated by an African American wrote their own history one dance and one meal at a time.

In the 1920s, Ernest James Brown (E.J. for short) settled in Spokane with his wife Myrtle (known as Theo). After opening a successful restaurant in 1927 called the Sawdust Trail on Sprague Avenue and Havana Street, E.J. and his wife embarked on a new business venture.

Beneath a marquee sign flashing “Dine-Dance, Dine-Dance” just off the old Sunset Highway (which later became Sprague Avenue), the Pirates Den became the hippest most hoppinest joint just outside the city limits of Spokane. Opened in 1929, it offered a dining room with enough seating for 350 people and a dance floor. Customers such as Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, and Louis Armstrong stopped by for food and a little jazz music when traveling through Spokane.

At some point in the 1930s, E.J. changed the name from the Pirates Den to the Harlem Club after it was said by some that it reminded them of the Cotton Club in Harlem. Like most such businesses during this period, the clientele of the Harlem Club was predominantly white. However, one night a week E.J. would open the club to the black community for special dance events.

In 1951, faulty electrical wiring caused a fire that destroyed the building entirely. It was a tremendous loss to both the white and black communities of Spokane. Brown and his family who had been living in apartments above the building moved just down the road, and many of his children were able to go to college because of the success of the Harlem Club.

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Opened in 1973, Spokane’s first feminist bookstore provided a safe place for women

The year is 1973 and upon a shelf in a local bookstore you come across The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. You have just taken your first step into the world of Second Wave Feminism.

The 1960s were a turbulent time and here in Spokane. Marion Moos had joined the United Methodist Women (UMW) whose purpose was to “lead the struggle for human rights and social justice.” Through her involvement in the UMW, she became a leading local activist and founded a Spokane chapter of the newly formed National Organization for Women (NOW).

Moos and NOW championed what came to be called "second wave" feminism. The first wave of feminists, prominent in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, worked for the right to vote and to own property. Building on their success, feminists of the 1960s expanded the fight to include reproductive rights, equal pay, and protection from domestic violence.

In 1973, Moos opened the Past-Time Feminist Bookstore and Resource Center as her response to the UMW calling for their members to “go home and do something” to advance the empowerment of women. Located on South Lincoln St., the bookstore and resource center provided a safe place for women to ask questions and receive feminist support material. At this time, there were no women’s studies programs or women’s resource centers in Spokane. Women were given access to books like The Feminine Mystique, posters, pamphlets, feminist newspapers, and non-sexist children’s literature. “This is Insulting to Women” stickers could be used as political statements by slapping them on sexist materials.

Open for only 4 years, the bookstore closed its doors in 1977. The impact that Moos and her Past-Time Feminist Bookstore and Resource Center made on the lives of Spokane women can still be seen today. As part of the Marion Moos Papers Collection at the Joel E Ferris Research Library & Archives, you can find handwritten letters extending gratitude to Moos and the bookstore on promoting and forwarding the women’s cause.

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