Rita Addessa, longtime social activist and former executive director of the Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force, has died at 76

Rita Addessa, 76, of Philadelphia, the longtime executive director of the Pennsylvania Lesbian and Gay Task Force, a fierce lifelong advocate for peace, social justice, and civil rights of all sorts, and self-described nonprofit organization management professional, died Saturday, July 9, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse.

Irascible, resolute, and fearless in pursuit of her goals, Ms. Addessa was called a “pit bull,” “abrasive,” and “very difficult” by some of her activist contemporaries, and “a pioneer” and “miracle in modern social activism” by others. She enthusiastically embraced all such depictions, often wore a silver battle-ax on a chain around her neck, and famously opened her remarks at a 1986 gay-rights rally by shouting, “Pay attention!″

She told The Inquirer in 1994: “I hate fluffy newspaper stories, and I don’t like talking about myself.” But there is no disagreement about the effectiveness of her 25-year tenure with the task force.

“Rita was the real thing, a salt-of-the-earth dynamo who fought tenaciously for LGBT people and so many others who get stepped on,” said Bill Dobbs, a longtime gay activist in New York. Another colleague wrote on Facebook: “She was tough and difficult and brilliant.”

“I am guided by the principle that everything is possible.”

From 1979, when she was hired to run what was then called the Philadelphia Gay Task Force, through 2005, when the group was dissolved, Ms. Addessa and others helped pass a 1982 Philadelphia ordinance that prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, and public accommodations based on sexual orientation and gender identity; persuaded the School District of Philadelphia and Police Department to adapt their curriculum and policies to recognize LGBTQ people; created an antiviolence and discrimination hotline; and raised media and public consciousness to issues of equal treatment for all under the law.

“We are a relentless voice for justice,” Ms. Addessa told the Daily News in 2003. “We have moved from invisibility to visibility. … We are an oppressed minority fighting for social and economic justice. What is more important than that?”

She monitored investments made in the LGBTQ community by local foundations and organizations, demanded that public agencies hire LGBTQ applicants, and drew the ire of many politicians. “She did transformative work that laid the foundation for subsequent generations to bring queer communities into the central roles we play in Philadelphia today,” Christopher Bartlett, executive director at William Way LGBT Community Center, said in a Facebook post.

Ms. Addessa also protested against environmental hazards and insufficient funding for public education, championed public improvements for the disabled and unionization in workplaces, and won a 1986 Hall of Fame Award from the Philadelphia Gay News.

She wrote fiery opinion pieces for The Inquirer, Daily News, and other media outlets, appeared on TV and radio shows, spoke extensively about social equality, and organized rallies and protests wherever she saw the need. Former colleagues on Facebook called her “Comrade Rita,” “a force of nature,” a “mighty warrior,” and “a remarkable, unforgettable person.”

“She was alternately tough and infuriating and sweet and insightful,” a friend said in an online post. Her son John said: “She never lost interest in making people’s lives better.” She wrote on her LinkedIn page: “Peace and Justice to each and everyone. Viva la revolucion.”

Born Sept. 12, 1945, in Philadelphia, Rita Leonida Addessa graduated from West Catholic Girls High School in 1963. She needed surgery for a bone disease in her leg when she was a girl and used a cane and a lift in her shoe for the rest of her life.

She attended a few semesters at St. Joseph’s College, now St. Joseph’s University, but dropped out to pursue her driving interest in social activism. She worked briefly as a paralegal, married Thomas Cugini, and they had sons John and Mark, and lived in West Philadelphia. They later divorced, and her son Mark died earlier.

Ms. Addessa lived in Center City for the last 15 years and enjoyed opera and the Philadelphia Orchestra. She pored over the works of Noam Chomsky and other social critics, and made sure the task force’s collection of papers and records remained available at Temple University’s Special Collections Research Center in Charles Library and elsewhere. She had a memorable laugh, and was generous, supportive, and warm to her family and friends.

In 2003, she said: “We live in a world that should be fair and just for all people. Privileges and benefits should not be held by the small elite.” Nine years earlier, she had said: “I am guided by the principle that everything is possible.”

In addition to her son and former husband, Ms. Addessa is survived by three grandchildren, a sister, and other relatives.

Services are to be held later.