Amelia Boynton Robinson, a Civil Rights Movement organizer who played a key role in the voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, passed away this morning at the age of 104. Her daughter, Germaine Boynton, said Robinson had endured multiple strokes this summer. 

In the 1960s Boynton Robinson’s home and office in Selma were centers of organizing around local civil rights battles. She worked with Southern Christian Leadership Conference members including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Bevel to make sure the marches came to fruition. On March 7, 1965—which came to be known as Bloody Sunday—Boynton Robinson was beaten by local and state law enforcement officers who halted a voting rights demonstration on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. When President Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act into law, Boynton Robinson was in the room. The Civil Rights legend celebrated the 50-year anniversary of Bloody Sunday this past March by crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge with President Barack Obama. 

(H/t NPR)