Remembering equal pay activist Lilly Ledbetter

Lilly Ledbetter, the equal pay activist and the person for whom The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was named, died at age 86. Ledbetter was a worker at a tire plant in Alabama when she found out that she was being paid substantially less than the men she worked alongside. Ledbetter set out to fix the pay gap for others after her, including being the plaintiff in a failed Supreme Court case and the ultimately successful pay act that was signed into law as former President Barack Obama’s first bill.

Host Scott Tong spoke to Ledbetter in January on the 15-year anniversary of the law being signed.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.