CRIME

Amelia Boynton Robinson remembered as fearless, tireless leader of civil rights movement

Associated Press
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FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2003 file photo, Amelia Boynton, Robinson appears at an American Civil Rights Education Services tour at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. Boynton Robinson, a civil rights activist who nearly died while helping lead the Selma march on “Bloody Sunday,” championed voting rights for blacks, and was the first black woman to run for Congress in Alabama, died Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015. She was 104. Boynton Robinson was hospitalized in July after having a major stroke and turned 104 on Aug. 18. (AP Photo/Gregory Smith, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this March 7, 2015 file photo, President Barack Obama, center, holds hands with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left, and Amelia Boynton Robinson, right, who were both beaten during "Bloody Sunday," as they walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., for the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday." Boynton Robinson, a civil rights activist who nearly died while helping lead the Selma march on “Bloody Sunday,” championed voting rights for blacks, and was the first black woman to run for Congress in Alabama, died Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015. She was 104. Boynton Robinson was hospitalized in July after having a major stroke and turned 104 on Aug. 18. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File) (The Associated Press)

Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson is being remembered as a fearless leader whose tireless dedication to equal rights helped lead to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Boynton Robinson died in a Montgomery, Alabama, hospital early Wednesday morning, her son Bruce Boynton said. Boynton Robinson was hospitalized in July after a stroke and recently turned 104 years old.

Boynton Robinson helped lead a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 and was beaten in an attack by law enforcement that led to the march being called "Bloody Sunday."

Fifty years after the beating, Boynton Robinson held hands with the first black president of the United States, Barack Obama, during a commemoration event as she was pushed across the bridge in a wheelchair.