Rev. Addie L. Wyatt | Civil rights leader, 88

The Rev. Addie L. Wyatt, 88, one of the country's foremost champions for organized labor and civil rights, died Wednesday in Chicago after a long illness. She had lived on the South Side since moving to Chicago from Mississippi in 1930.

As a union leader, she fought for principles of worker rights, and she was the first female president of a local chapter of the United Packinghouse Workers of America.

She worked with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association in Alabama and endured violent opposition during marches with King in Chicago in the 1960s.

Wyatt campaigned for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and was a founding member of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

"It's important to know that Addie Wyatt is an example of the power of one," said Carol Adams, president and chief executive of the DuSable Museum of African American History. "As one individual, she was able to impact some of the most significant areas of our time."

For all of her political and professional influence, Wyatt was equally influential in the lives of the members the Vernon Park Church of God, which she founded with her husband, the Rev. Claude S. Wyatt Jr., who died in 2010. She is survived by a son.

- Chicago Tribune