Lilly Ledbetter, a champion of ladies getting paid the identical as males for doing the identical work, died Saturday night time, her household stated in a press release. She was 86.

AL.com was first to report that she had died.

Based on that outlet, the assertion stated she died “peacefully” and “surrounded by her household and family members. Our mom lived a unprecedented life. We actually respect your respect for our privateness throughout this time of grief. “

Ledbetter’s activism led to the first invoice Barack Obama signed into regulation after turning into president in 2009.

The regulation, known as the Lilly Ledbetter Honest Pay Restoration Act, made it simpler for employees to sue after discovering what they believed to be pay discrimination.

In signing the measure, Obama stated that it despatched the message “that there aren’t any second-class residents in our workplaces, and that it is not simply unfair and unlawful, it is unhealthy for enterprise to pay somebody much less due to their gender or their age or their race or their ethnicity, faith or incapacity.”

Ledbetter labored at Goodyear Tire & Rubber in Gadsden, Alabama, for practically 20 years earlier than discovering she was being paid lower than males doing the identical job.

The laws successfully overturned a two-year-old, 5-4 Supreme Court docket resolution that discovered that Ledbetter did not have grounds to sue as a result of she did not uncover the alleged pay discrimination inside six months of it first going down.

The invoice signed by Mr. Obama modified the principles so Ledbetter and employees like her may sue inside six months of discovering the alleged pay discrimination, no matter when it started.

The previous president paid tribute to Ledbetter in a publish on X, saying she “by no means got down to be a trailblazer or a family title. She simply needed to be paid the identical as a person for her exhausting work. However this grandmother from Alabama saved on preventing” till he signed the invoice bearing her title.

“Lilly did what so many People earlier than her have achieved: setting her sights excessive for herself and even greater for her youngsters and grandchildren,” Mr. Obama stated.

Amongst others additionally paying tribute, the AFL-CIO, which known as her “a real hero” and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, who stated she “eternally modified my understanding with the easy however highly effective phrase, “Equal pay for equal work.” It is surprising that, as a CEO, I witnessed firsthand how broad the pay disparities had been—not simply in my very own firm, however throughout so many others we acquired. Lilly taught me the combat for equality begins with pay fairness.”

Ledbetter continued her advocacy effectively after the regulation was signed.

She obtained the Future Is Feminine Lifetime Achievement Award from Promoting Week final week, AL.com famous.

And a film about her life, “Lilly,” starring Patricia Clarkson, simply premiered on the Hamptons Worldwide Movie Pageant.