![]() ![]() Suddenly all bets were off, all orbits mixed. Now there was place to cross the class, gender and racial lines that previously had seemed as fixed as the traffic lanes on Broad Street, or as immutable as the laws of physics that kept the planets (and people in Charleston) in their place. The opening of the disco the Garden and Gun Club ushered in a new democratic era in the city beforehand, blue bloods went to the Yacht Club college kids went to noisy bars on George African Americans, navy base employees, and gay men and women all went their separate ways to drink and meet. For on that night and the thousands that followed, folks had too much of a good time to note the fall of the Old Regime. Few of those pouring in, when the doors opened, could have realized they were witnessing a sea change in Charleston’s social history, or that the rush was similar to the storming of the Bastille. Folks in jeans stared at those in black tie jeweled ladies with swept-up hair looked askance at a men with long hair and earrings. On a sultry night in May 1978, people gathered in front of an empty JC Penny Department Store on King Street. This article was written by Harlan Greene and appeared in Charleston Magazine in an edited form.
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