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Ada Bello, pioneering LGBTQ activist and longtime laboratory chemist, has died at 89

In 2018, she said: "I would like to get to a point in which your sexual orientation is irrelevant and is not taken more seriously than the color of your eyes.”

Ms. Bello, a native of Havana, Cuba, learned English by using it every day after she began classes at Louisiana State University in 1958.
Ms. Bello, a native of Havana, Cuba, learned English by using it every day after she began classes at Louisiana State University in 1958.Read moreAda Bello

Ada Bello, 89, of Philadelphia, a pioneering LGBTQ activist and longtime laboratory chemist for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the University of Pennsylvania, died Friday, March 31, of pneumonia and COVID-19 at Chestnut Hill Hospital.

Born in Havana, Cuba, Ms. Bello fled an oppressive government when she was 25. She arrived in the United States in 1958, earned a degree in chemistry at Louisiana State University, and worked as a laboratory researcher for Penn and the FDA from 1962 through her retirement about two decades ago.

She was also a fiery and eccentric advocate for LGBTQ rights and other progressive causes. She cofounded the Philadelphia chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, the Homophile Action League, and the LGBT Elder Initiative. She was a board member of the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force, instrumental in the formation of the William Way Community Center, and a perpetual presence at countless rallies, protests, and marches.

She edited and distributed local newsletters, wrote articles and letters to the editor about gay rights issues, and helped organize the first Philadelphia Gay Pride Parade. One of her most effective policy-changing strategies was to link constitutional rights with gay rights, and she demonstrated on the Fourth of July at Independence Hall in 1969.

“She was determined and had a sense of mission,” said longtime friend and colleague John Cunningham. “When she saw an injustice, she thought it was important to stand up to it.”

Ms. Bello organized conferences and fundraisers, served on panels and advisory councils, and prompted government officials to enact important changes regarding gay rights, the response to AIDS, and senior health care. She won a 2022 Spirit award from the Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of Elders and the 2015 David Acosta Revolutionary Leader award from Galaei.

“We were a bunch of women, mostly professionals, who knew we weren’t breaking the law and shouldn’t have to scurry around back alleys,” she told the Philadelphia Gay News in 2015. “It was rough, and it built anger at the injustice we saw.”

Ada Bello was born Nov. 6, 1933, and grew up as an only child in provinces near Havana. She left Cuba when the government closed the University of Havana and painstakingly learned English in the United States by using it every day.

She graduated from LSU with a bachelor’s degree in 1961 and moved to Picayune, Miss., for a year before settling in Philadelphia with a friend. She said in a 2018 online interview with Outwords that she met successful lesbian women while in college and saw them as role models when she became a leader in Philadelphia’s LGBTQ community.

In 2018, the staff at Outwords said it was “profoundly grateful for the energy and spirit she brought to America’s gay rights revolution.”

Ms. Bello became a U.S. citizen in 1968 and lived in Germantown, West Philadelphia, East Falls, and Roxborough. Her mother joined her from Cuba in 1972, and Ms. Bello told Marc Stein in a 1993 online interview for outhistory.org that they never discussed her sexuality.

“I’m sure she knew, but she was a totally different generation,” Ms. Bello said. “There was such a difference between the way she experienced her life and I experienced my life.”

Ms. Bello was outspoken about the economic policies of city officials, the need for improved services for the elderly, and the U.S. government’s relations with Cuba and Latin America. She moved to Cathedral Village retirement community in 2005 and told Outwords in 2018: “In the future, I would like to get to a point in which your sexual orientation is irrelevant and is not taken more seriously than the color of your eyes.”

“Ada Bello was a brilliant, courageous woman,” a friend said in a Facebook post. “She will be deeply missed.”

Ms. Bello is survived by several relatives.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m., Friday, April 14, at Cathedral Village retirement community, 600 E. Cathedral Rd., Philadelphia, Pa. 19128.

Donations in her name may be made to William Way LGBT Center, 1315 Spruce St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107, and Morris Animal Refuge, 1242 Lombard St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19147.