Today's Out Spotlight is thought to be the oldest "out" African American lesbian known. She is GLBT and civil rights activist Ruth Ellis.
Ruth Ellis was born in Springfield, Illinois, on July 23, 1899, the youngest of four children and the only girl to Charlie Ellis and Carrie Farro Ellis. Her parents were born in Tennessee during the last years of slavery. Her father was the first African-American mail carrier in Springfield. Ellis' mother passed away when she was a teenager.
Ruth learned she could do anything. And she learned to stand up for herself.
When a race riot erupted in Springfield in 1908 after a black man was accused--falsely, as it turned out--of raping a white woman, many black families fled under the threat of having their homes burned down. Not so with the Ellis family with her father standing guard with a sword he owned as a member of the Knights of Pythias. Though the violence raged for two days before the National Guard could end it, the family and their home were safe.
Ellis attended Springfield High School at a time when very few African-Americans enrolled in secondary education. It was during high school when she became aware of her sexual orientation remembering her high school gym teacher as her first female crush around 1915. She was to say that she never had to come out because she was always out from the beginning. She graduated from Springfield High School in 1919, at a time when fewer than seven percent of African Americans graduated from secondary school.
She believed her eldest brother, Charles, Jr, was gay though he never said anything to her about it. Homosexuality was not the kind of issue families discussed at that time, but looking she believed her father knew she was a lesbian and accepted it.
"I think [my father] was kind of glad that I had a woman instead of a man because he was afraid I'd come home with a baby. If you had a baby in those days, you'd have to leave home. And he wanted me home."
After high school, Ruth worked as a nursemaid and cook for a local family before finding a job in a print shop, where she learned how to set type and operate the presses. During that time in the early 1920’s, she met Ceciline “Babe” Franklin, the only woman she ever lived with. They became friends and lovers for more than 35 years. They moved to Detroit in 1937, after the encouragement of Ellis' brother Ray, buying a home and Ellis starting her printing business. She was the first woman in Michigan to own and operate a printing company. She made a living printing stationery, fliers, and posters out of her house.
From 1946 to 1971, their home became the local hangout for African-American gays and lesbians. Known as the “gay spot,”. They opened their home for parties and dances, and never turned down a gay or lesbian friend who needed a place to stay. For generations of African American gays and lesbians in the Midwest, it was an alternative to the bar scene that discriminated against blacks and refuge to African Americans who came "out" before the civil rights movement and Stonewall. They also offered lodging to black gay
men newly arrived from the South and helped many of the young people through college.
In the 70s, Babe Franklin left Detroit for the suburbs so she could be close to her job; Ruth stayed in the city, but they remained a couple, staying the night in each other's homes until Franklin died in 1975.
At age seventy-nine, Ellis enrolled in a self-defense class taught by a woman, Jay Spiro, who she correctly suspected was a lesbian. Spiro was the first white lesbian Ellis had ever met. Spiro introduced her to a community of younger gay women, who immediately embraced her and took Ellis to lesbian bars, something the church goer had had never done, and she began to meet more lesbians, openly out lesbians, who loved to hear her story. Soon she became an icon in the Detroit LGBT community. She than became know in the GLBT community, nationally, attending events and programs across the country, often as a speaker or special guest.
In 1999, her life was made the subject of the documentary “Living With Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100,” directed by Yvonne Welbon. The film was screened at film festivals worldwide, and won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1999.
Ellis remained in Detroit and lived to 101, passing away on October 5, 2000. Her life spanned three centuries touching countless lives.
The Ruth Ellis Center honors her life and is dedicated to serving homeless GLBT youth and young adults. It is one of only four agencies in the United States dedicated to homeless LGBT youth and young adults. Among their services are a drop-in center, street outreach program, transitional living programs, and emergency housing shelter.
"The only way we can get anyplace is by being together....Gay people have to get in there just like anybody else. We have to work. We need more businesses. Scientists, chemists, things like that. If we could get more gay people in our politics, I think it would help a lot....And be honest and caring. Try to love people. Have a happy life if you can in this crazy world."
The Ruth Ellis CenterLiving with Pride: Ruth Ellis @ 100
Sisters in Cinema - Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis @ 100
