Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72 - CNN.com

Civil rights leader Patricia Stephens Due dies at 72 - CNN.com: Civil rights leader Dr. Patricia Stephens Due died Tuesday at age 72, nearly 52 years after she played a leading role in student sit-ins in Tallahassee, Florida, her family said.

Due's death followed "a determined and courageous fight against cancer," her family said.

In 1960, as a 20-year-old college student and founding member of the local chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality, Due, her sister, Priscilla, and three other Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University students were arrested for sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter.

Their decision to spend 49 days in jail rather than pay fines marked one of the first "jail-ins" during the civil rights movement, according to Johnita Due, one of the civil rights leader's three daughters and a lawyer for CNN.