Willie Grace Campbell, 90; Women's Rights Advocate

Willie Grace Campbell, 90, who spent five decades promoting human rights and women's empowerment from Indiana to Washington to Africa, died of congestive heart failure Feb. 6 at her home in Los Angeles.

Ms. Campbell launched voter education projects in six inner cities during the 1960s, took part in the first White House Conference on Civil Rights, trained legions of female political candidates, pushed the League of Women Voters to challenge social inequities with lawsuits and served as vice chair of the federal African Development Foundation from age 75 until her death.

"A natural diplomat and a catalytic agent for change, Mrs. Campbell was a tireless advocate for justice and opportunity," Ward Brehm, chairman of the foundation, said in a statement.

Until recently, she split her time between Los Angeles and Washington. She was born in Louisville on Aug. 26, 1915, five years to the day before women received the right to vote with the 19th Amendment, a fact that she liked to point out. She was raised in Cincinnati and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in three years, then received a master's degree in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1939, with financial assistance from her fiance's father.

"It was mid-Depression," she told the University of Michigan last year when she provided funds for a graduate scholarship. "There wasn't any money for scholarships, and certainly not for women," even though she had very good grades and references. Because of the fear she experienced then, she said, "I know how it is with [a needy student] -- when you want to do something terribly, terribly, and it's so hard."

Ms. Campbell married and moved to Indianapolis, where she had two of her three children and in 1945 helped establish a chapter of the League of Women Voters. She served as the organization's state president, then rose to the national board in 1959. In the 1970s, she became president of the National Women's Education Fund, part of the National Women's Political Caucus. At the same time, she worked for the league's Overseas Education Fund, trying to improve schooling in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

"What affects women in one country affects us all," she told The Washington Post in 1991.

She did all her work as a volunteer, which she described as "fortuitous."

"I'm not bound by particular obligations. I can follow my own motivations -- which don't rely on God or anyone but are based on my belief that we really have to resolve our problems ourselves," she told Los Angeles magazine in 2004.

One of her daughters, Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, said her mother made the point that she was not doing charity or relief work but tackled the underlying issues so that those most affected, often women, could address their own problems. She traveled to remote African villages to help create jobs, dismissing concerns about her age by quoting actress Billie Burke, who played Glinda the Good Witch in the "Wizard of Oz" movie: "Age doesn't matter, unless you're a cheese."

"She wasn't a glass-half-full kind of person. I'd call her a glass-90-percent-full person," her daughter said. "When there was a setback, she would say, 'What are we going to do next?' "

In addition to her daughter, of Washington, survivors include her husband, Dr. Jack Campbell of Los Angeles; two other children, Jamie Campbell of Reno, Nev., and Duncan Campbell of Bloomington, Ind.; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.