Highly Favored 2026

Highly Favored, the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s annual Black History Month celebration, is a bold spotlight on everything Black and queer in Los Angeles.This year, Highly Favored returns to The Village at Ed Gould Plaza as a two-part cultural program inspired by the legacy of Jewel’s Catch One, honoring nightlife as a vital force in shaping Black queer community and culture. Across visual art and music, Highly Favored explores nightlife as an intersection of joy, resistance, and collective care for Black queer communities in Los Angeles. The program includes a gallery exhibition by artist Nikko LaMere, founder of In The Night, whose work draws on the visual language of nightlife to center identity and lived experience. The exhibition opens with a special reception on Friday, Feb. 13—RSVP here. Join us Saturday, Feb. 21, as the celebration culminates in a joyous outdoor dance party in the Village courtyard. Black queer DJs will soundtrack the evening, inviting guests to gather, dance, and celebrate these spaces as acts of both affirmation and resistance. Attendance is FREE and open to the community with RSVP.