Patricia Stephens Due, 72, whose belief that, as she put it, "ordinary people can do extraordinary things" propelled her to leadership in the civil rights movement -- but at a price, including 49 days in a stark Florida jail -- died Tuesday in Smyrna, Ga. The cause was thyroid cancer, her daughter Johnita Due said.
At 13, Patricia Stephens challenged Jim Crow orthodoxy by trying to use the "whites only" window at a Dairy Queen. As a college student, she led demonstrations to integrate lunch counters, theaters and swimming pools and was repeatedly arrested. As a young mother, she pushed two children in a stroller while campaigning for the rights of poor people. As a veteran of integration and voting rights battles, she fought for economic rights and wrote a memoir to honor "unsung foot soldiers."
NEW YORK TIMES
