The Detroit Experience Factory is presenting a virtual tour tonight called LGBTQ+ Detroit: Past & Present.
"The LGBTQ community in Detroit and the surrounding suburbs has been ever present and strong," reads the introduction on the tour's Eventbrite page. "Despite battling incredible amounts of persecution and prosecution, LGBTQ community leaders continued to build up the community by creating their own spaces of acceptance, entertainment and livelihood.
"In this virtual experience, our local guide will introduce you to the spaces that have breathed life into this community over the years and the many that continue to today," the introduction continues. "They will introduce you to the various moments of perseverance in the face of hatred, homophobia, social injustice and an epidemic. In response to those moments, many organizations and projects were born."
Davy R. Webb will be the tour's guide.
"The LGBTQ tour covers the history of queer people and the queer community in the metro Detroit area from about the end of Word War II up to the present day," Webb said. "It also covers a lot of the organizations and cultural institutions that exist today for the community, including Between The Lines."
Tonight will mark the second time the Detroit Experience Factory has offered this event.
"We have done this tour once before and I will be leading it tomorrow for the first time," Webb said. "We started this tour because we wanted to highlight all of the different minority communities that make up Metro Detroit including the Black Community, MENA community, and of course the LGBTQ community."
Webb offered a few tidbits of what to expect on the tour, which will look at the history of Menjo's, the life of Ruth Ellis and the Ruth Ellis Center and the interaction between the Canadian and American sides of the border in regard to the queer history of the region.
A donation of any size is the cost of admission. A portion of the funds received from the tour will be donated to the Ruth Ellis Center. For more details, including how to purchase tickets and to connect with the tour, visit eventbrite.com.
