Civil rights activist Amelia Boynton Robinson passed away on Wednesday morning. She was 104.
The Associated Press noted that her son Bruce Boynton said his mother died in the company of loved ones at a hospital in Montgomery, Alabama around 2:20 a.m. She has been hospitalized recently after suffering a stroke.
Boynton Robinson cemented a place in history after being beaten while she and hundreds of other demonstrators tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during a 1965 march. The event became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
She was beaten unconscious by law enforcement officials. Her story drew national attention and was portrayed in 2014 film Selma by actress Lorraine Toussaint.
In an interview with the New York Post last year, Boynton Robinson spoke about that fateful day.
“I wasn’t looking for notoriety,” she said. “But if that’s what it took I didn’t care how many licks I got. It just made me even more determined to fight for our cause.”
She is survived by her son and granddaughter.