Mrs. Rowan, an Arkansas native who had grown up with racial discrimination, found the store manager and demanded a formal apology. She insisted that the cashier place her change in her palm.
“She taught us never to accept unequal treatment,” her son said.
Mrs. Rowan, 89, who died March 26 at Georgetown University Hospital of complications from a stroke, endured many episodes of racial disparity in the Washington area.
She was the wife of Carl T. Rowan, a prominent State Department official and among the first nationally syndicated black columnists in the country.
