Rev. Addie Wyatt has passed away at the age of 88, at Advocate Trinity Hospital. Wyatt dedicated her life to fight for African-American and women’s rights. Her passion for social justice began when she was denied a job in 1941, as a typist, because she was black. She later became the first female international vice president of a major American Labor Union. The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

In 1941, a teenage Addie Wyatt applied for a job as a typist in Chicago’s meat-packing industry.

Black people weren’t needed for office jobs, she was told. If she wanted work, she’d have to roll up her sleeves, and step onto the shop floor — slopping stew into cans.

The Rev. Wyatt took that job, setting her life’s course as a tireless advocate for the rights of women, African-Americans and anyone else she felt wasn’t getting a fair shake in life.

“She always believed in being fair and honest, and she stood for what was right,” said the Rev. Wyatt’s sole surviving sibling, Maude McKay, 74, of Glenwood. “She just couldn’t take injustice.”

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