jewels

Oct. 30 (UPI) — Police in France arrested five new suspects over alleged involvement in theft of priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre in the French capital, Paris’ chief prosecutor said.

The office of Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the men were detained in and around Paris on Wednesday night but that the jewels, which some estimates have valued at more than $100 million, were not recovered.

The development came 10 days after four suspects were filmed on CCTV carrying out the heist in broad daylight using a lift-ladder mounted on the back of a stolen truck to break into the museum’s Apollon Gallery, before disappearing into the back streets on the back of getaway motorcycles.

Beccuau said that DNA from one of those arrested could be a match to traces DNA left behind at the scene and that the suspect was throught to be part of the gang that carried out the theft.

“He’s one we had in our sights,” she said, adding that the others “can give us information about how the theft was carried out.”

Police have four days to charge the five before they have to release them.

Two others suspected of using power tools to gain entry — both men in their 30s with police records — were arrested Saturday, one as he was boarding a flight to Algeria, but investigators now believe the gang extends beyond those detained thus far.

Among the riches taken were an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave to his second wife, Marie Louise, a diadem set with nearly 2,000 diamonds and more than 200 pearls that belonged to Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie and six other priceless pieces dating back to the early 1800s.

However, Eugenie’s diamond and emerald-covered crown was left behind after the gang dropped it onto the road in their haste to escape.

The gang, posing as maintenance workers, ascended to a second-floor balcony adjacent to the River Seine, smashed a window and used disc cutters to break into glass display cases housing the jewels.

The Louvre was shut following the robbery, which French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said was an attack on France, and nine of its 28 galleries, including the Apollon, remained closed on Thursday, according to the Louvre website.

The Louvre has since moved some of its most valuable exhibits, including precious jewels, to the Bank of France, a short distance away, to be stored in its main underground vault, 85 feet below rue Croix des Petits Champs.

The Louvre Museum in the French capital has closed for “exceptional reasons” after a group of intruders successfully stole eight pieces of priceless jewellery in a quick-hit heist that has rocked the world’s most-visited museum.

A manhunt for the thieves was under way in Paris on Sunday as police cordoned off the museum – famously home to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Mona Lisa – with tape and as armed soldiers patrolled its iconic glass pyramid entrance.

French government and museum officials said several intruders entered the Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery) through a window shortly after the museum opened, relying on a lift used to hoist furniture into buildings.

Within just four minutes, the thieves stole away on motorcycles laden with eight items dating back to the Napoleonic era, dropping a ninth on their way out.

French President Emmanuel Macron took to social media to denounce the heist as an “attack on a heritage that we cherish”.

“The perpetrators will be brought to justice,” he added. “Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this, under the leadership of the Paris prosecutor’s office.”

Here’s what we know about the heist, which arrives as the Louvre faces questions over large crowds and overworked staff.

What happened?

Around 9:30am local time (07:30 GMT) on Sunday, as tourists already roamed the halls of the Louvre, the thieves zeroed in on Apollo’s Gallery – a gold-gilded, lavishly painted hall commissioned by King Louis XIV that houses the French crown jewels.

Describing the incident as a “major robbery”, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the thieves used a basket lift to reach the museum’s windows, entered the gallery and escaped via motorbike with “jewels of inestimable value”.

The Louvre evacuated all visitors and posted a notice online that the museum would remain closed throughout the day under “exceptional” circumstances.

Police meanwhile sealed the gates, cleared courtyards and even closed off nearby streets along the Seine River as authorities kicked off an investigation.

It was “crazy”, one American tourist, Talia Ocampo, told the AFP news agency – “like a Hollywood movie”.

No injuries were reported, but the thieves – believed to number four people – remained at large as of Sunday evening.

What was stolen during the heist?

Thieves successfully removed eight items from two high-security display cases, the Ministry of Culture confirmed late on Sunday. These include pieces that belonged to Empress Marie-Louise, the wife of French Emperor Napoleon I, and others that belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.

These are the items that were stolen:

• Tiara from the jewellery set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense
• Necklace from the same duo’s sapphire jewellery set
• A single earring from the sapphire jewellery set
• Emerald necklace from the Marie-Louise set
• Pair of emerald earrings from the Marie-Louise set
• Brooch known as the “reliquary” brooch
• Tiara of Empress Eugenie
• Another large brooch of Empress Eugenie

The crown of Empress Eugenie was recovered outside the walls of the museum, the ministry said, where it was dropped by the thieves as they fled. The crown contains 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, according to the Louvre.

Apollo’s Gallery is home to a range of other priceless gems, including three historical diamonds – the Regent, the Sancy and the Hortensia – and “the magnificent hardstone vessel collection of the kings of France”, according to the museum’s website.

Anthony Amore, an art theft expert and co-author of the book Stealing Rembrandts: The Untold Stories of Notorious Art Heists, told Al Jazeera the items contained in the collection were priceless “not just in terms of dollars, but in terms of cultural patrimony”.

“It’s not like stealing a masterpiece where instantly news media … would publicise this image,” Amore said. “You might see pieces like this broken up and individual jewels sold that are indistinguishable to members of the public.”

How did the thieves do it?

The thieves used a combination of power tools, motorcycles and efficiency to pull off the minutes-long heist, authorities said.

The group drew up on a scooter armed with angle grinders, one police source told AFP. They used the hoist to access the gallery from the outside, cutting windowpanes with a disc cutter.

One witness, who told the TF1 news outlet that he was riding his bicycle nearby at the time, said he saw two men “get on the hoist, break the window and enter”, adding that the entire operation “took 30 seconds”.

Le Parisien reported that the thieves entered the museum – located inside a former palace – via the facade facing the Seine, where construction work is ongoing. Two were dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests, the newspaper said.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati said authorities arrived “a couple of minutes after we received information of this robbery”.

“To be completely honest, this operation lasted almost four minutes – it was very quick,” she said.

Footage showed the hoist braced to the Seine-facing facade and leading up to a balcony window, which observers said was the thieves’ entry point before it was removed Sunday.

What happens now?

With the thieves still at large, forensic teams have descended upon the Louvre and surrounding streets to gather evidence and review CCTV footage from the Denon wing, where Apollo’s Gallery is located, and the Seine riverfront.

Authorities also planned to interview staff who were working when the museum opened on Sunday, they said.

The Interior Ministry said it was compiling a detailed list of the stolen items, but added that “beyond their market value, these items have priceless heritage and historical value”.

Dati, the culture minister, suggested the thieves were “professionals”.

“Organised crime today targets objects of art, and museums have of course become targets,” she said.

Have similar heists happened in the past?

The Louvre’s most famous heist occurred in 1911, when the Mona Lisa portrait disappeared from its frame. It was recovered two years later, but decades afterward, in 1956, a visitor threw a stone at the world-famous painting – chipping paint near the subject’s left elbow and prompting the portrait to be moved behind bulletproof glass.

In recent years, the museum has struggled with growing crowds, which totalled 8.7 million in 2024, and frustrated staff who say they are stretched too thin.

In June, the museum delayed opening due to a staff walkout over chronic understaffing.

One union source, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP that the equivalent of 200 positions had been cut at the museum over the past 15 years, out of a total workforce of nearly 2,000.

The fact that Sunday’s theft took place in broad daylight inspired a wave of consternation from French citizens and politicians.

“It’s just unbelievable that a museum this famous can have such obvious security gaps,” Magali Cunel, a French teacher from near Lyon, told the Associated Press news agency.

PARIS — In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves rode a basket lift to the Louvre, forced a window into the Galerie d’Apollon — while tourists pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridors — smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said.

It was among the highest-profile museum thefts in recent memory and comes as Louvre employees have complained of worker and security understaffing.

One object was later found outside the museum, according to Culture Minister Rachida Dati. French daily Le Parisien reported it was the emerald-studded crown of Napoleon III’s wife Empress Eugénie — gold, diamonds and sculpted eagles — recovered just beyond the walls, broken.

The theft unfolded just 270 yards from the “Mona Lisa,” in what Dati described as “a four-minute operation.” No one was hurt.

Images from the scene showed confused tourists being steered out of the glass pyramid and adjoining courtyards as officers closed nearby streets along the Seine.

Also visible was a lift braced to the Seine-facing facade near a construction zone — an extraordinary vulnerability at a palace-museum.

A museum already under strain

Around 9:30 a.m., several intruders forced a window, cut panes with a disc cutter and went straight for the vitrines, officials said. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the crew entered from outside using a basket lift.

The choice of target compounded the shock. The vaulted Galerie d’Apollon in the Denon wing, capped by a ceiling painted for Louis XIV, displays a selection of the French Crown Jewels. The thieves are believed to have approached via the riverfront facade, where construction is underway, used a freight elevator to reach the hall, took nine pieces from a 23-item collection linked to Napoleon and the Empress, and made off on motorbikes, according to Le Parisien.

Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre — with visitors present — ranks among Europe’s most audacious since Dresden’s Green Vault museum in 2019, and the most serious in France in more than a decade.

It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet.

Security around marquee works remains tight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a bespoke, climate-controlled case.

It’s unclear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s breach.

The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia and recovered two years later in Florence.

Today the former royal palace holds a roll call of civilization: Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”; the armless serenity of the “Venus de Milo”; the “Winged Victory” of Samothrace, wind-lashed on the Daru staircase; the Code of Hammurabi’s carved laws; Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”; Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa.” More than 33,000 works — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to Europe’s masters — draw a daily tide of up to 30,000 visitors even as investigators now begin to sweep those gilded corridors for clues.

Politics at the door

The heist spilled instantly into politics. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella used it to attack President Emmanuel Macron, weakened at home and facing a fractured Parliament.

“The Louvre is a global symbol of our culture,” Bardella wrote on X. “This robbery, which allowed thieves to steal jewels from the French Crown, is an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the decay of the state go?”

The criticism lands as Macron touts a decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan — about $800 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the “Mona Lisa” a dedicated gallery by 2031. For workers on the floor, the relief has felt slower than the pressure.

What we know — and don’t

Forensic teams are examining the site of the crime and adjoining access points while a full inventory is taken, authorities said. Officials have described the haul as being of “inestimable” historical value.

Recovery may prove difficult. “It’s unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again,” said Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds. “Professional crews often break down and re-cut large, recognizable stones to evade detection, effectively erasing their provenance.”

The Louvre closed for the rest of Sunday as police sealed gates, cleared courtyards and shut nearby streets along the Seine.

Key questions still unanswered are how many people took part in the theft and whether they had inside assistance, authorities said. According to French media, there were four perpetrators: two dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two each on a scooter.

Investigators are reviewing closed-circuit TV from the Denon wing and the riverfront, inspecting the basket lift used to reach the gallery and interviewing staffers who were on site when the museum opened, authorities said.

Adamson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Oct. 19 (UPI) — A group of thieves broke into the Louvre Museum on Sunday morning and stole priceless jewels before fleeing on motorcycles, the famed institution confirmed to UPI.

A representative for the Louvre said that several people broke in through a window in the Apollo Gallery, which houses many of France’s royal jewels, around 9:30 a.m. local time after the museum had already opened its doors to the public.

Inside, the thieves stole jewelry from their display cases. French media later reported that they made off with seven jewels owned by Napoleon Bonaparte and his wife, Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais.

“An investigation has begun, and a detailed list of the stolen items is being compiled,” museum officials said in a statement. “Beyond their market value, these items have inestimable heritage and historical value.”

After the theft, the museum was evacuated “without incident” and no injuries were reported among the public, museum staff or law enforcement, the representative said.

The museum shared on social media that it would be closed Sunday for “exceptional reasons.”

“At the Louvre Museum this morning to commend the exemplary commitment of the staff mobilized following the theft,” Culture Minister Rachida Dati shared on social media after visiting the site.

“Respect for their responsiveness and professionalism. Together with President Emmanuel Macron, we extend our sincere thanks to them.”

Dati told French TV channel TF1 on Sunday that one of the jewels was later found and that the entire heist lasted only four minutes. She called the thieves “professionals.”

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday that “everything is being done” to find the thieves.

“The mobilization of investigators will be total, under the authority of the Parquet de Paris,” Nuñez said. The Parquet de Paris is the public prosecution office in the French capital. “Attacking the Louvre is attacking our history and our heritage.”

The news comes just days after the Louvre announced that two 18th-century snuff boxes that were stolen during a violent armed robbery in 2024 while they were on loan to the Cognacq-Jay Museum have been found and returned.

When Tom and Ethel Bradley moved with their two young daughters into a modest three-bedroom home in Leimert Park in 1950, Black people were restricted from buying houses in the neighborhood. The Bradleys had to purchase the home through a white buyer likely affiliated with the American Civil Liberties Union, recalled their oldest daughter, Lorraine Bradley, who was almost 7 years old at the time.

“It was the very first time that a Black family moved into Leimert Park,” said Lorraine, explaining the immediate historic significance of the home, and adding that her parents were brave people who believed integration was essential to equality. “My parents understood the implications of that. They were willing to sacrifice themselves in many regards.”

For the first year, white children on the street wouldn’t play with Lorraine or her 5-year-old sister, but that slowly changed and the family became accepted in the neighborhood. It helped that Tom was a police officer, said Lorraine.

Tom and Ethel explained to their children that, “unless people understood and lived with you, they would only look at you racially and not as a person,” said Lorraine.

The 1,282-square-foot home — where the Bradleys lived until 1977, when Tom became the first Black mayor of Los Angeles and moved the family into the 10,000-square-foot Getty House — is among six buildings of deep importance to Black heritage in L.A. that have been designated Historic Cultural Monuments as part of a project led by the Getty in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles’ Office of Historic Resources.

“We are thrilled for everyone to recognize the courage that my parents took to move to that neighborhood,” said Lorraine. “Somebody had to, so my dad and mom decided it was them.”

The additional sites to receive landmark status are Stylesville Barbershop & Beauty Salon in Pacoima; St. Elmo Village and Jewel’s Catch One in Mid-City; the California Eagle newspaper in South L.A.; and New Bethel Baptist Church in Venice.

Jewel’s Catch One was the oldest Black-owned disco in the U.S. as well as one of the city’s first gay nightclubs to open its doors to LGBTQ+ people of color.

(Micaela Shea / J. Paul Getty Trust)

The designations are the culmination of ongoing work done by African American Historic Places, Los Angeles, which was launched by the city and Getty in 2022 with the goal of identifying, memorializing and protecting the city’s Black heritage and history.

Each site will receive its own plaque. Celebrations are set for later this month at the Bradley residence, St. Elmo Village and Jewel’s Catch One. Stylesville is planning a party for a later date.

AAHPLA hosted a kickoff event at St. Elmo Village in 2023, but work to create the project began in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd when many cultural organizations, including Getty, began reevaluating the ways they were highlighting and interacting with Black history, art and heritage, said Rita Cofield, associate project specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute and AAHPLA project leader.

St. Elmo Village in Mid-City is a thriving arts community, residence and activism hub.

(Elizabeth Daniels / J. Paul Getty Trust)

Getty soon decided to implement an initiative focused on African American heritage in L.A. and began looking for partners in the community who could help best identify each unique location.

In some cases, unless you have roots in a particular community, you won’t have the depth of understanding to realize that even though a particular building looks commonplace — or isn’t built in high architectural style — that it’s actually extremely important, said Cofield.

The plaques, in conjunction with the program, will help further establish the locations and their history in the popular imagination — and also serve to protect the sites from harm or demolition.

“If you see a plaque with the date and the importance of it, you’ll get some sense of just what this neighborhood was — what this building was or still is,” said Cofield. “So you connect with it on your own. You can investigate on your own at any time and it’s accessible.”

Stylesville Barbershop & Beauty Salon in Pacoima is the oldest Black-owned barbershop in the San Fernando Valley.

(Cassia Davis / J. Paul Getty Trust)

Angelenos and visitors to the city can now make a day out of touring the sites. In the process, they will learn about how the California Eagle — established by John J. Neimore in 1879 — was home to one of the oldest and longest-running Black-owned and operated newspapers in the country; how St. Elmo Village is still a thriving arts community and center for community activism; how Stylesville barbershop is the oldest Black-owned barbershop in the San Fernando Valley; how Jewel’s Catch One was the oldest Black-owned disco in the U.S., as well as one of the city’s first gay nightclubs to open its doors to LGBTQ+ people of color; and how the establishment of New Bethel Baptist Church marked the early days of Black migration to the Oakwood neighborhood.

Moving forward, AAHPLA will continue to seek out sites that would benefit from landmark status, while also investing in Pacoima, Oakwood and the Central Avenue corridor — famous for its vibrant jazz and music scene — in order to develop better cultural preservation strategies.

“We really want to celebrate intangible heritage too,” said Cofield. “How do we do that? Do we do it through schools, through murals? So we’re really working with those neighborhoods, to think of strategies to celebrate and highlight African American heritage.”

Jewel Thais-Williams, the founder of the pioneering Black lesbian and queer nightclub Jewel’s Catch One in Los Angeles, has died. She was 86.

Thais-Williams’ death was confirmed by KTLA and by several friends and employees of the club. No cause of death was immediately available.

For decades, the Mid-City nightclub — known to regulars as The Catch — was L.A.’s hallowed sanctuary for Black queer women, and a welcoming dance floor for trans, gay and musically adventurous revelers. Artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Madonna and Whitney Houston sashayed down Catch One’s winding halls, while the indomitable Thais-Williams fended off police harassment and led care programs during the height of the AIDS crisis.

The Catch was singularly important to the development of Black and queer nightlife in L.A., and belongs beside New York’s Paradise Garage and Chicago’s Warehouse in any account of the most important nightclubs in America.

“It was a community, it was family,” Thais-Williams told The Times in a 2018 interview. “To be honest myself, I was pretty much a loner too. I always had the fears of coming out, or my family finding out. I found myself there.”

Thais-Williams, born in Indiana in 1939, opened Jewel’s Catch One in 1973. She didn’t have ambitions to open a generationally important nightclub, just a more resilient business than her previous dress shop. However, her experience of being shunned as a Black woman by other local gay clubs bolstered her resolve to make the Catch welcoming for those left out of the scene in L.A.

Jewel’s Catch One on West Pico Boulevard.

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

“I didn’t come into this business with the idea of it becoming a community center,” she said in 1992. “It started before AIDS and the riots and all that. I got the first sense of the business being more than just a bar and having an obligation to the community years ago when Black gays were carded — requiring several pieces of ID — to get into white clubs. I went to bat for them, though I would love to have them come to my place every night.

“The idea is to have the freedom to go where you want to without being harassed. The predominantly male, white gay community has its set of prejudices. It’s better now, but it still exists.”

Jewel’s Catch One became a kind of West Coast Studio 54, with disco-era visionaries like Donna Summer, Chaka Khan, Sylvester, Rick James and Evelyn “Champagne” King performing to packed rooms. Celebrities like Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg attended the parties, glad for wild nights out away from the paparazzi in Hollywood.

Thais-Williams “opened the door for so many people,” said Nigl “14k,” the Catch’s manager, doorperson and limo driver for 27 years up until its sale in 2015. “A lot of people that felt not wanted in West Hollywood had nowhere to go. But people found out who she was and put word out. She was a great friend and a shrewd businessperson who allowed people to just be themselves.”

The club’s many rooms allowed for a range of nightlife — strip shows, card games and jazz piano sets alongside DJ and live band performances [along with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings]. The boisterous, accepting atmosphere for Black queer partiers contrasted with the constant surveillance, regulation and harassment outside of it.

“There was a restriction on same sex dancing, women couldn’t tend bar unless they owned it,” Thais-Williams said in 2018. “The police were arresting people for anything remotely homosexual. We had them coming in with guns pretending to be looking for someone in a white T-shirt just so they could walk around.”

A fire in 1985 claimed much of the venue’s top floor, closing it for two years. Thais-Williams suspected that gentrifiers had their eye on her building.

“It’s very important not to give up our institutions — places of business that have been around for years,” she said. “Having a business that people can see can offer them some incentive to do it for themselves. I’m determined to win, and if I do fail or move on, I want my business to go to Black people who have the same interest that I have to maintain an economic presence in this community.”

Thais-Williams’ AIDS activism was crucial during the bleakest eras of the disease, which ravaged queer communities of color. She co-founded the Minority AIDS Project and served on the board of the AIDS Project Los Angeles, which provided HIV/AIDS care, prevention programs and public policy initiatives.

With her partner, Rue, she co-founded Rue’s House, one of the first dedicated housing facilities in the U.S. for women living with HIV. The facility later became a sober-living home. In 2001, Thais-Williams founded the Village Health Foundation, a healthcare and education organization focused on chronic diseases that affected the Black community.

Jewel Thais-Williams in 2015.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

“Jewel is a true symbol of leadership within our community,” said Marquita Thomas, a Christopher Street West board member who selected Thais-Williams to lead the city’s Pride parade in 2018. “Her tireless efforts have positively affected the lives of countless LGBTQ minorities, [and her] dedication to bettering our community is truly inspiring.”

After decades in nightlife, facing dwindling crowds and high overhead for a huge venue, in 2015 Thais-Williams sold the venue to nightlife entrepreneur Mitch Edelson, who continues to host rock and dance nights in the club, now known as Catch One. (Edelson said the club is planning a memorial for Thais-Williams.)

“People in general don’t have appreciation anymore for their own institutions,” Thais-Williams told The Times in 2015. “All we want is something that’s shiny because our attention span is only going to last for one season and then you want to go somewhere else. The younger kids went to school and associated with both the straight people and non-Blacks, so they feel free to go to those spots. The whole gay scene as it relates to nightclubs has changed — a lot.”

After the sale, the importance of the club came into sharper focus. A 2018 Netflix documentary, “Jewel’s Catch One,” produced by Ava DuVernay’s company Array, highlighted The Catch’s impact on Los Angeles nightlife, and the broader music scene of the era. When Thais-Williams sold it, the Catch was the last Black-owned queer nightclub in the city.

In 2019, the square outside of Jewel’s Catch One was officially named for Thais-Williams.

“With Jewel’s Catch One, she built a home for young, black queer people who were often isolated and shut out at their own homes, and in doing so, changed the lives of so many” said then-City Council President Herb Wesson at the ceremony. “Jewel is more than deserving to be the first Black lesbian woman with a dedicated square in the city of Los Angeles for this and so many other reasons.”

L.A.’s queer nightlife scene is still reeling from the impact of the pandemic, broader economic forces and changing tastes among young queer audiences. Still, Thais-Williams’ vision and perseverance to create and sustain a home for her community will resonate for generations to come.

“Multiple generations of Black queer joy, safety, and community exist today because of Jewel Thais-Williams,” said Jasmyne Cannick, organizer of South L.A. Pride. “She didn’t just open doors — she held them open long enough for all of us to walk through, including this Gen-X Black lesbian. There’s a whole generation of younger Black queer folks out here in L.A. living their best life, not even realizing they’re walking through doors Jewel built from the ground up.”

“Long before Pride had corporate sponsors and hashtags, Jewel was out here creating space for us to gather, dance, organize, heal, and simply exist,” Cannick continued. “We owe her more than we could ever repay.”

Thais-Williams is survived by her wife and partner for 40 years, Rue.