SHORT FILM PROGRAM
Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis @ 100
FREE
Yvonne Welbon's exceptional documentary reflects an entire century's passing through the eyes of the oldest living "out" African-American lesbian. Interviews and recreations capture the spirit of this indomitable woman whose first crush was on her high-school gym teacher, and whose Detroit home was known as the "Gay Spot" to blacks shouldered-out of the bar scene throughout the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Now an outspoken advocate for senior and lesbian rights, Ellis is a living link to the experience of lesbians throughout the century.
The oldest known “out” African-American lesbian remembers ten colorful decades in this hour-long documentary, which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1999. Born July 23, 1899, in Springfield, IL, Ruth Ellis spent most of her life in Detroit. A pioneering independent black businesswoman, she operated her own print shop until the age of 65. In the home she shared with Cecilene “Babe” Franklin, her partner of more than 30 years, she played host to innumerable gatherings of the city’s African-American gays and lesbians in an age when segregation excluded them from white homosexual society. A participant in the civil rights movement and a witness of the riots that tore Detroit apart in the 1960s, Ellis later became an icon for, and active participant in, the city’s multicultural lesbian and feminist community.
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