WASHINGTON (AFP) - A key fighter in the struggle to end racial segregation in US schools, the black civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill, died at the age of 100 on Sunday, local media reported.
He died at his home in Richmond, capital of the western state of Virginia, the city's Times Dispatch newspaper said.
Hill helped change US society by fighting in the courts to end segregation of blacks from whites in areas of public life such as voting rights, jury selection, access to school buses and employment protection, it said.
His triumph was his role in a series of lawsuits against segregated schools that led to a 1954 Supreme Court ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional.
In 1999 he received the presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
He died at his home in Richmond, capital of the western state of Virginia, the city's Times Dispatch newspaper said.
Hill helped change US society by fighting in the courts to end segregation of blacks from whites in areas of public life such as voting rights, jury selection, access to school buses and employment protection, it said.
His triumph was his role in a series of lawsuits against segregated schools that led to a 1954 Supreme Court ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional.
In 1999 he received the presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
