Lilly Ledbetter, whose name appears in the US Equal Pay Act, has died at the age of 86.
CBS, the BBC's news partner in the United States, quoted her children as saying she died peacefully on Saturday, surrounded by family and loved ones.
“Our mother lived an extraordinary life,” adds a family press release.
Ms. Ledbetter's activism led to the first bill signed by Barack Obama after he became president of the United States in 2009.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act made it easier for workers to sue after discovering they were victims of pay discrimination.
Mr. Obama said the law sent the message “that there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces.”
President Biden, who was vice president during the Obama administration, described Ms. Ledbetter as a “fearless leader and advocate for equal pay.”
He paid tribute, saying that “her fight started in the factory and reached the Supreme Court and Congress” and that she “never stopped fighting to ensure that all Americans receive what they deserve “.
“Before she was famous, Lilly was like so many other women in the workforce: she worked hard, with dignity, only to discover that she was paid less than a man for the same work.”
Biden added that it was “an honor to stand with Lilly as the bill that bears her name became law,” describing the Fair Pay Restoration Act as “a crucial step in the fight to close the disparities wage rates across gender and race.
Ms. Ledbetter worked as a supervisor at Goodyear, the tire maker, in Alabama for nearly 20 years before discovering she was being paid less than men doing the same job.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that she had no grounds to take legal action because her complaint had not been filed within six months of the first acts of discrimination. His law overturned this decision.
The former president paid tribute on Twitter/X, saying Ms. Ledbetter “never wanted to be a pioneer or a household name. She just wanted to be paid like a man for her hard work.”
“Lilly did what so many Americans before her did: set high goals for herself and even higher goals for her children and grandchildren,” Mr. Obama said.
Ms. Ledbetter continued her advocacy after the law was signed.
She received Advertising Week's Future Is Female Lifetime Achievement Award last week, according to Alabama news site AL.com.
A new film about her life, titled Lilly and starring Patricia Clarkson, recently screened at the Hamptons International Film Festival.
