Feature story on Ruth Ellis for Michigan Radio's Black History Month 2020 series.
Ruth Ellis was one of the oldest openly gay black women in the world when she died at 101 years old in 2000. She was born in 1899, 36 years after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, and 15 years before the First World War started.
This was a time when our country was hostile to women, black people, and gay people. Ellis just happened to be all three.
