Civil rights activist Wilson dead at 90

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ST. LOUIS, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Long-time civil rights activist Margaret Bush Wilson, who fought employment discrimination, has died in St. Louis at the age of 90, her family says.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said Wilson was the head of the Missouri NAACP when dozens of civil rights activists began protesting for equal job opportunities for minorities in 1963.

Former U.S. Rep. Bill Clay, D-Mo., remembered the former chairwoman of the national NAACP as a woman driven to break racial and gender barriers.

"She was a role model for so many people, especially for women and for many lawyers," Clay, a longtime friend of Wilson's, said of the civil rights pioneer's death Tuesday. "I don't think anybody will take her place."

The NAACP said the organization "lost a champion and the world has lost a pioneer."

Wilson is survived by her son, Robert Edmund Wilson III; her sister, Ermine Byas; and two grandsons.