Ruth Schack, who as a new commissioner in Florida's Dade County in 1977 championed America's first local ordinance protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination, only to see it overturned after a high-profile campaign by conservative activist Anita Bryant, died on May 23 in Cumming, Georgia. She was 94 years old.
His daughter Barbara Shuck said his death at the hospital was due to a short respiratory illness. Shaq had moved to Cumming during the pandemic to be closer to family.
Dade County, home to Miami, is a bustling global metropolis with a vibrant gay community. In 1976, when Ms. Schack was elected to a two-year term on the County Commission, things were very different. Seven years had passed since the Stonewall uprisings in New York launched the modern gay rights movement, but homosexuality remained stigmatized in places like Miami.
Mr. Shaq, a liberal Democrat, was running with the support of a coalition of gay rights activists. Weeks after her victory, she introduced an amendment that would add “sexual orientation” to the list of characteristics protected from discrimination in housing, education, and the workplace.
“People forget that in 1977, gay people could be fired, jailed, and kicked out of their homes and theaters,” she told Tablet magazine in 2016. “It was terrifying to see my friends go to prison just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The committee approved the amendment by a vote of 5-3, but opposition quickly grew.
By a strange coincidence, the group was headed by Ms. Bryant, one of her talent agent husband's most famous clients. Ms. Bryant was a singer, former beauty pageant contestant, spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice, and involved in conservative Christian causes.
Immediately after the vote, Bryant, who had been in frequent contact with the Shaqs, called Shaq's home.
“I have to disagree with you,” Bryant said, according to James T. Sears' book “Rebels, Ruby Fruits, and Rhinestones: Queering Space South of Stonewall” (2001). Then she started reading the Bible.
“I grew up during the Holocaust,” said Schack, who is Jewish. “I consider this a human rights issue.”
Bryant said he disagreed and hung up.
Over the next few months, Ms. Bryant garnered national support in her campaign to overturn the law, collecting donations from all over the country for the anti-gay coalition she founded and named Save Our Children. Shaq also received death threats and accusations from religious leaders.
In a June 1977 referendum, 69 percent of Dade County voters voted to overturn the law. Although many people said this was the end of Schack's political career, she easily won re-election in 1978 and remained in office until 1986. During that time, she championed other causes, including the county's first historic preservation law.
She also led efforts to approve a bold project by French artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude to wrap 11 islands in Biscayne Bay in pink fabric. The 1983 project “Surrounded Islands'' became an international sensation and helped establish the city as a major arts center.
Ruth Naomi Burroughs was born in Brooklyn on August 24, 1931, and raised in Bay Shore on Long Island's South Shore. Her mother, Roslyn (Zimmerman) Burrows, was an interior designer who helped her father, James Burrows, in his wallpaper and art supply store.
The store was a popular stop for artists heading to Long Island's East End. Jackson Pollock was a regular customer.
Schack's upbringing in a store instilled in him a lifelong love of the arts, while growing up in a liberal household instilled in him a lifelong love of politics. “Others wanted to be Shirley Temple,” she told the Miami Herald in 1984. “I wanted to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
She spent two years at Mary Washington College at the University of Virginia (now Mary Washington University in Fredericksburg) before dropping out, telling her father that college was “a wasteful investment.” Returning to New York City, she designed store displays and campaigned for 1952 Democratic presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson.
Ms. Schack earned a bachelor's degree in English from Barry University (now the University) in Miami in 1970 and a master's degree in social science from the University of Colorado in 1975.
She met Richard Shuck on a blind date and they married in 1953. After the wedding, they hopped into his red Hudson convertible and headed to Miami Beach for a two-week honeymoon.
They fell in love with the city and decided to stay despite concerns about overt prejudice. They faced anti-Semitism, and black visitors to Miami Beach, including Mr. Shaq's agents, had to leave town at sunset or risk arrest.
But it's also a rapidly growing place, and Ms. Shaq embraced the opportunity to change that. While raising her three daughters, she became active in local Jewish organizations, civil rights activities, and the women's movement.
Mr. Shaq passed away in 2012. In addition to his daughter Barbara, Mr. Schack is survived by two daughters, Janice Schack-Marquez and Linda Streitenberger. five grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
After retiring from the Dade County Commission in 1986, Ms. Schack became president of the Dade Community Foundation (now the Miami Foundation). Her foundation is an arts and culture organization that has grown into one of Florida's largest organizations. She retired in 2009.
In 1998, the county commission passed a new anti-discrimination ordinance nearly identical to the one Schack had proposed more than 20 years earlier. This time, the city's political and cultural leaders came out in droves to support it. Ms. Shaq was fond of saying this is a sign of how much Miami has changed.
“Life here was and still is amazingly exciting and amazing, and it changes every hour,” she told Outwords magazine in 2018. “I tell people, 'If you don't like change, get out. You're going to hate living here, because next week it won't be the same.'”
