Dorothy Cotton, Civil Rights Pioneer and MLK Colleague, Dies

ATLANTA (AP) — The Southern Christian Leadership Conference says a civil rights pioneer who worked closely with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has died.

SCLC spokesman Maynard Eaton tells The Associated Press that Dorothy Cotton died Sunday.

Cotton was director of the Atlanta-based civil rights group’s Citizenship Education Program. She was one of only a handful of women who worked on the executive staff of the SCLC.

Cotton’s biography at the Dorothy Cotton Institute states that she became one of King’s closest colleagues while she served as national director of education for more than a decade.

Her biography says that her life’s work was based on the practices of nonviolence, reconciliation and restoration, and grassroots leadership development.