DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Edna Griffin, an Iowa civil-rights pioneer best known for integrating lunch counters, died Tuesday. She was 90.
In 1948, Griffin led the fight against Katz Drug Store in downtown Des Moines, which refused to serve blacks at its lunch counter. Griffin staged sit-ins, picketed in front of the store and filed charges against the store's owner, Maurice Katz, who was fined. The Iowa Supreme Court then made it illegal to deny service based on race.On Saturday, Griffin was inducted into the Iowa African-American Hall of Fame. She is a member of the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and received the Christine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice.
She received the George Washington Carver Meritorious Award for Race Relations and an honorary doctorate from Simpson College.
Griffin founded and led a chapter of the Iowa Congress of Racial Equality. She organized Iowans to attend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 march on Washington, D.C., and helped start the former radio station KUCB. A plaque in her honor is at the site where Katz Drug Store once stood at Seventh and Locust streets. Last spring, Des Moines' mayor proclaimed May 15 as Edna Griffin Day.