The Cooper Do-nuts Foundation
Preserve the story.
Continue the work.
Cooper Do-nuts was more than a donut shop. For over four decades it was a place of access, dignity, and belonging for people the city pushed to its margins. The Foundation exists to make sure that history — and the values behind it — are not forgotten.
Mission
What we exist to do.
The Cooper Do-nuts Foundation preserves and activates the legacy of Cooper Do-nuts — an early safe haven for marginalized communities in Los Angeles — by combining cultural preservation with community action. Through oral histories, archival research, public programming, and direct support, the Foundation amplifies underrepresented voices and continues a legacy rooted in dignity, access, and belonging.
Cooper Do-nuts operated from the 1940s through the mid-1990s. It served veterans, transients, working people, and those the city’s other establishments turned away. It was a place where, in the words of those who were there, you could be exactly who you were for as long as your coffee held out.
The Foundation was established by the Evans family — the family that built and ran the chain — to ensure that this history is documented, honored, and carried forward. We are not only preserving the past. We are continuing what Cooper Do-nuts actually was: a force for good.
Our work
What we actually do.
01
Historical Research & Documentation
The evidentiary record of Cooper Do-nuts — and of the 1959 events on Main Street — is incomplete. The Foundation is actively working to expand it. This includes:
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Reviewing the contemporary newspaper archive — including non-English-language Los Angeles press — for coverage of police activity on Main Street in the late 1950s. Nancy Valverde has stated she read about the 1959 events in the paper the next morning. That paper has not yet been found.
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Conducting location-by-location research into every known Cooper Do-nuts address — building permits, city directories, court records — to establish the full footprint of the chain and the evidence that places it on the 500 block of South Main Street during the period in question.
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Making the Evans family’s own archive — documents, photographs, records, and firsthand accounts — available to researchers and the public for the first time.
02
Oral History Collection
Cooper Do-nuts was full of people. Many of them came back night after night. Most of their stories have never been written down. The Foundation is collecting oral histories from people who were part of the Main Street community in this period — including those who may not have been connected to LGBTQ organizing but who have memories of the shop and the neighborhood.
We are also collecting memories from former employees, from people who grew up with Cooper Do-nuts as a neighborhood institution, and from anyone whose life intersected with the chain across its four-decade run.
03
The Living Archive
The Foundation is building a public-facing archive of photographs, documents, oral histories, and ephemera related to Cooper Do-nuts. This site is part of that archive. The goal is not only to preserve what exists, but to make it accessible — to researchers, journalists, historians, and anyone who wants to understand what Cooper Do-nuts was and why it matters.
We are also working to make the archive findable and citable — with proper sourcing, documentation, and attribution — so that it can be used by scholars, writers, and institutions working on LGBTQ history, Los Angeles history, and the history of community spaces.
04
Community Activation
Preserving history is not enough. Cooper Do-nuts mattered because it was a place — a physical space where people gathered, were welcomed, and found community. The Foundation intends to continue that function: creating spaces and programming that reflect the same values of inclusion and access that defined the shop.
Community events, storytelling gatherings, paid opportunities for community contributors, and partnerships with organizations serving the same communities Cooper Do-nuts once served — this is what “activating” the legacy means in practice. Programming details will be announced as they develop.
Who we are
This is a family project. That is not a limitation.
The Cooper Do-nuts Foundation was established by the Evans family — the people who built the chain and who have spent years gathering the documents, photographs, and testimony that make this archive possible. Keith Evans, grandson of founder Jack Evans, is the family’s primary voice on this history.
“My grandfather always thought that basically everyone was the same. People are people regardless. And if you want to come in, he thought everyone should have a donut regardless of who you are.”
Keith Evans — grandson of founder Jack Evans
We are not historians by training. We are a family that kept things, listened to stories, and decided those stories were worth preserving. We are doing this work seriously — with citations, with honest acknowledgment of what we don’t know, and with genuine openness to evidence that challenges the narrative we started with.
The Foundation is currently in its early development phase, establishing programs, building partnerships, and working toward formal nonprofit status. We will share information about formal structure and support opportunities as they become available.
Get involved
Three ways to contribute right now.
01
Share a memory or document
If you have a personal memory, a photograph, a document, or any evidence connected to Cooper Do-nuts, submit it through our memory form. Every fragment helps build the record.
Share a memory →02
Follow the work
Sign up to receive updates as new materials are added to the archive, new research findings are published, and new events and programs are announced. We write when we have something worth saying.
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Get in touch
For research inquiries, media requests, partnership conversations, or anything else — reach us directly.
Contact us →Stay in the story.
Follow the Foundation’s work as the archive grows, research develops, and programming launches.
We’ll only write when we have something worth saying.