Ada Bello

Ada C. Bello (November 6, 1933 – March 31, 2023) was a Cuban-American LGBT rights activist and medical laboratory researcher of Portuguese descent. She was a founder of the Philadelphia Chapter of Daughters of Bilitis and the Homophile Action League. Bello led activism efforts for the LGBT community beginning in the late 1960s and served in advocacy roles including as a board member of the LGBT Elder Initiative. She lived in Matanzas before moving to Havana to study. Bello attended University of Havana from 1953 until 1956, upon Fulgencio Batista's closing of the university, and she transferred to Louisiana State University (LSU) afterwards. In 1961, she earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from LSU. She resided in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from 1958 to 1961, before moving to Picayune, Mississippi, for a year.

In 1967, Bello became a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). Bello edited the DOB-Philadelphia newsletter with fellow activist Carole Friedman. They both influenced the decision to dissolve DOB and create the Homophile Action League (HAL) in 1968. Bello worked as the editor of the HAL newsletter which challenged police harassment against the LGBTQ community.

In 1968, Bello decided to become an activist after the Philadelphia Police Department raided Rusty's Bar, a local lesbian bar, and arrested 12 women. After consulting with the American Civil Liberties Union, HAL requested to meet with the police department. Due to her immigration status, Bello did not participate directly in the meetings, but drove the car for the HAL attendees. Bello attended the final two Annual Reminder day protests in 1968 and 1969, having received U.S. citizenship in 1968.

In 1980, Bello and fellow LGBTQ activists Mark Segal and John Cunningham traveled to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania along with Spanish-speaking volunteers from the Metropolitan Community Church to assist a group of LGBTQ refugees from Cuba on the Mariel boatlift, known generally as "Marielitos", to receive asylum and temporary housing with LGBTQ-friendly hosts in the United States as part of a settlement program initiated by President Jimmy Carter.

Bello volunteered for the American Library Association's Gay Task Force under Barbara Gittings and was a supporter of the William Way LGBT Community Center where she served as co-chair. Bello served on the board of the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force. She organized the predecessor of the AIDS Fund, From All Walks of Life.

In a 2018 interview, Bello stated about her advocacy that: "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."

Death Bello died from complications of COVID-19 and pneumonia in Philadelphia on March 31, 2023, at the age of 89.