Little is known about the late civil rights champion Dorothy Cotton and the crucial role she played in helping to shape the U.S. civil rights movement.

Cotton, who was one of the closest advisers to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., passed away earlier this month at her home in Ithaca, N.Y. She was 88.
She was forced into action after a white boy riding a bicycle sang “deep down in the heart of niggertown” as he rode by her.
The incident left Cotton outraged and she was soon helping to organize protests against segregation at libraries and lunch counters, in addition to teaching direct-action tactics to students.

The North Carolina native met King Jr. in 1960 when he preached at her church. She was a teacher and was asked to join the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which, was co-founded by King Jr., to organize peaceful protests and work for the increased rights of Blacks.
Cotton, who is called an “unsung hero” of the movement, worked with King Jr. as the group’s educational director, one of the few high-level positions for women in the SCLC at the time.
She was the only female member of King Jr.’s executive staff and became one of his closest colleagues. Cotton wrote in her biography “If Your Back’s Not Bent,” that her position in King Jr.’s inner circle put her at the forefront of the civil rights movement as an educator, planner, activist and leader.
She had managed to obtain a solid education by putting herself through college while working as a housekeeper for the president of Shaw University. She then earned an undergraduate degree from Virginia State University and a Master’s Degree in speech therapy from Boston University.
Cotton was placed in charge of the Citizenship Education Program, which was instrumental in teaching thousands of poor men and women of their rights to vote and “transform from poorly-educated and disenfranchised people from victims to full citizens.”

She said in a 2013 interview that her work was not publicized at the time for fears the program “would have been shut down for teaching all those old Black folk that they are citizens.”
The program focused on teaching voter registration requirements as well as community and individual empowerment. Most Southern states then had voting registration laws designed around literacy exercises specifically to disqualify Black voters, who to register to vote had to recite parts of the Constitution as well as signing one’s name in cursive writing.
Many of the Blacks were themselves illiterate and were turned away at the polls.
The program led to a wave of education that spread through the local communities, with the residents themselves becoming the teachers. It had a profound impact with more than 6,000 men and women taking part in workshops and classes.
Her “leadership contributed significantly to a movement that has altered the course of social and political life in the U.S. and transformed the place of African Americans and all people of color in civic engagement and leadership,” according to her biography posted on the Dorothy Cotton Institute that was founded by the Center for Transformative Action in 2010.

Cotton worked closely with King Jr. for 12 years and even accompanied him on his trip to Oslo, Norway to receive the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
Committed to the cause, she remained with the SCLC after King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968 outside the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
She said her life’s work was based on his philosophy and practices of nonviolence, reconciliation, restoration and grassroots leadership development.
After leaving SCLC, she went on to become the Southeastern Regional Director of ACTION, the federal agency for volunteer programs, Vice-President for Field Operations at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and Director of student activities at Cornell University.
Cotton later founded Dorothy Cotton & Associates, a consulting company that organized seminars on social change, leadership development, and individual empowerment. She was also a co-founder of the National Citizenship School.