The Rev. Willie Barrow,
Chicago civil rights leader, dies at 90
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[March 13, 2015] By
Mary Wisniewski
CHICAGO (Reuters) - The
Rev. Willie T. Barrow, a Chicago civil rights leader
known as the "Little Warrior" for her small stature and
determination to fight for equality, died on Thursday at
age 90.
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Barrow died at her Chicago home. She had recently been
hospitalized for a blood clot in her lung, the Chicago Sun-Times
reported.
Barrow had started her career in the civil rights movement when
she was just 12 years old, demanding to be allowed to ride on an
all-white school bus in her native Texas. She became an
organizer for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and marched with him in
Washington and in Selma, Alabama.
Barrow helped organize the Chicago chapter of Operation
Breadbasket, which was dedicated to improving economic
conditions in black communities, and she was important in
persuading King to take his civil rights work to Chicago.
President Barack Obama, a former community organizer in the
nation's third-largest city, said that for him and his wife,
Michelle, Barrow was "a constant inspiration, a lifelong mentor,
and a very dear friend."
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"I was proud to count myself among the more than 100 men and
women she called her 'Godchildren,' and worked hard to live up
to her example," Obama said in a statement.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., head of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition
civil rights organization which grew out of Operation
Breadbasket, called Barrow an "authentic freedom fighter" in the
lineage of Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer.
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"In sickness and death her body was frail, but her spirit and good
works were never feeble," said Jackson. "Her flame of hope, freedom
and justice will forever burn."
Jackson noted that Barrow had traveled to Nicaragua, Cuba, North
Vietnam and Russia, and had been in South Africa when Nelson Mandela
was released from prison.
Obama said Barrow had also stood up for labor rights and women's
rights, welcomed gays and lesbians to the civil rights movement and
had made one of the first pieces of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered flags lowered at city facilities
in Barrow's memory.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Eric Beech)
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