<\/p>\n
Ruth Shack in 2016, as she was honored with the Cultural Champion Award from the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council as a pioneering leader in foundations, philanthropy and the arts. Shack was among the forces behind Miami’s steady march to becoming a bonafide arts destination. She also served as president of the Dade Community Foundation, now The Miami Foundation. Decades before, as a Dade County commissioner, Shack sponsored a human rights ordinance to prohibit discrimination on the basis of homosexuality.<\/p>\n
Emily Michot<\/p>\n
emichot@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Ruth Shack came to Miami Beach in 1953 on her honeymoon and never returned.<\/p>\n
She and her groom, Richard Shack, fell in love with the area<\/a> on a two-week trip after their wedding and decided to stay \u2014 a decision that would change not only their own lives, but also the future of the new city they called home.<\/p>\n Shack would later enter politics, serving three terms as a Dade County commissioner, and then entering the nonprofit world as head of the Dade Community Foundation (now The Miami Foundation). She became known as a fierce advocate for the LGBTQ community after sponsoring in 1977 an amendment to Miami-Dade\u2019s Human Rights Ordinance that protected people from workplace, housing and other types of discrimination based on their sexual orientation.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a force to be reckoned with,\u201d said Richard Milstein, Shack\u2019s friend. \u201cShe was always speaking her mind and fighting for everyone. She set a pattern for all of us for what we should do.\u201d<\/p>\n After more than seven decades in South Florida, Shack died Saturday of complications from a respiratory illness. She was 94 years old.<\/p>\n Shack was born in Long Island, New York, and studied at the University of Virginia for two years before dropping out and moving back to New York to work at an advertising agency. It was then she met Richard on a blind date, where he told her after 30 minutes that he planned to marry her. The couple was wed for nearly 60 years, until his death in 2012.<\/p>\n Shack earned her bachelor\u2019s degree from Barry University in 1970 and a master\u2019s degree from the University of Colorado in 1975. In 1976, she became a county commissioner, and it was in January 1977 that she sponsored the amendment to the Human Rights Ordinance that added protections on the basis of sexual orientation.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing born a Democrat, being raised a liberal, being exposed to all of the revolution in my family, coming to Miami desperate to change the antisemitic, anti-black attitudes, my being a part of changing those two antis, as I say, being a part of the civil rights movement and then being one of the founding mothers in town of the women\u2019s revolution \u2014 this was the next natural step for me,\u201d Shack said in a 2018 interview with Outwords<\/a>. \u201cIt was not a big deal. It was correct.\u201d<\/p>\n Coconut Grove native Damian Pardo was one of the lives that Shack touched through her work.<\/p>\n Pardo is the city of Miami\u2019s District 2 commissioner and is the first openly gay Miami commissioner. When he was 13 years old, he remembers thinking of Shack as his hero because of how she spoke up for members of Miami\u2019s LGBTQ community. Her actions made him feel comfortable telling his family about his sexual orientation.<\/p>\n \u201cRuth was speaking for people that were struggling with their sexual orientation,\u201d he said in an interview Sunday. \u201cAt the time, there weren\u2019t any voices. In the 1970s, gay people were vilified; we were an abomination.\u201d<\/p>\n Shack\u2019s efforts were later overturned when singer and Florida citrus spokeswoman Anita Bryant petitioned to put the ordinance on the ballot, stoking anti-gay sentiment that led it to be repealed in June of 1977. However, a decade later, the protections were restored in a 1998 vote.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, Anita Bryant\u2019s victory was pyrrhic, and Ruth Shack emerged as one of LGBTQ America\u2019s most cherished allies,\u201d the Outwords biography of Shack says.<\/p>\n During her time as a commissioner, Shack also sponsored the county\u2019s first historic preservation ordinance and persuaded her colleagues on the commission to approve \u201cSurrounded Islands,\u201d a now-famous installation by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude that wrapped pink fabric around a series of islands in Biscayne Bay.<\/p>\n After leaving office, Shack became the first CEO of the Dade Community Foundation, now known as The Miami Foundation. She envisioned Miami becoming a city with diverse leaders with \u201cextraordinary values,\u201d said Rebecca Fishman Lipsey, the foundation\u2019s current president and CEO.<\/p>\n \u201cI met her 18 years ago when I first moved to Miami,\u201d Lipsey said. \u201cShe has been a mentor and mother to our organization.\u201d<\/p>\n Shack retired in 2009, but even in her later years, she was actively involved with The Miami Foundation. In the past year, Lipsey fondly remembered a workshop where Shack interacted with the foundation\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s remained a voice in our minds,\u201d Lipsey said.<\/p>\n David Lawrence Jr., who served on the Dade Community Foundation board in the \u201890s, is among those who admire Shack\u2019s many years of service to Miami.<\/p>\n \u201cRuth loved life and justice and books and straight talk and Miami,\u201d said Lawrence, a retired publisher of the Miami Herald and chair of The Children\u2019s Movement of Florida. \u201cOne of our community\u2019s best-ever examples of public service.\u201d<\/p>\n Shack is survived by three daughters, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. The Shack family asks that donations be made to The Miami Foundation, which has set up a memorial fund<\/a> in her honor.<\/p>\n In Shack\u2019s absence, the legacy of the work she did to help others will live on, Pardo said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe may have passed, but her influence is very much still right here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n![\"Art](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0012273839.JPG\" "\\"0012273839.JPG\\"")
Art collectors Ruth and Richard Shack are pictured with some of their artwork at their home in 1999. In the background is \u201cStriding Man\u201d by William Kentridge. Patrick Farrell Miami Herald <\/p>\n![\"Ruth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ruth_shack_1977.JPG\" "\\"ruth_shack_1977.JPG\\"")
Ruth Shack in 1977. Miami Herald archives <\/p>\n![\"Ruth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/5-11072012-10000378AA.JPG\" "\\"5-11072012-10000378AA.JPG\\"")
Ruth Shack trying Cuban coffee in 1976. Albert Coya Miami Herald <\/p>\n Ruth Shack on the cover of Tropic magazine in 1980. Miami Herald archives <\/p>\n
![\"Christo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/MIA_09NSUPINKISLANDSPREVIEW.jpeg\" "\\"MIA_09NSUPINKISLANDSPREVIEW\\"")
Christo and Jeanne-Claude\u2019s 1983 conceptual art project, \u201cSurrounded Islands,\u201d involved surrounding eleven manmade islands in Biscayne Bay with pink fabric. Carl Juste cjuste@miamiherald.com <\/p>\n The Miami Foundation\u2019s current president and CEO, Rebecca Fishman Lipsey, pictured with former president Ruth Shack. Courtesy of Rebecca Fishman Lipsey, The Miami Foundation <\/p>\n
David Lawrence, Ruth Shack and Adolfo Henriquez. Courtesy of Rebecca Fishman Lipsey, The Miami Foundation <\/p>\n
![\"Ruth](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0202114422.JPG\" "\\"0202114422.JPG\\"")
Ruth Shack in her office at the Dade Community Foundation in 2002. Raul Rubiera Herald Staff <\/p>\n