For 101 years, Ruth Ellis forged a path for people in Detroit’s LGBTQ+ community during a time when many stayed in the closet. Ellis’ home was known as the ‘Gay Spot,’ a haven for African Americans who came out before the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall. Ruth Ellis passed in 2000, but her legacy lives on at the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit, a safe space for runaway, homeless, and at-risk LGBTQ youth, and in her photographs, letters, and journals, now open to the public at the Bentley Library.
