The neighbours knew Juanita Goggins only as an elderly recluse with no friends and a family that was rarely seen.
Goggins was so private that she instructed a neighbour who delivered groceries to leave them at the door, ring the bell and go away before she emerged. She spurned offers of home help from the local authorities even though she was evidently finding it increasingly difficult to look after herself.
So the residents of her South Carolina community were saddened, if not entirely shocked, to hear that the 75-year-old woman had frozen to death in her own home and that her body went undiscovered for nearly a fortnight.
But in the days before her funeral today, they were surprised to learn that at one time Goggins had been a trailblazing politician and civil rights activist who shook up South Carolina's exclusive politics as the first black woman elected to the southern state's legislature.
That same legislature last year honoured Goggins, who was also the first black woman to serve on the government's civil rights commission and who was twice invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter, by naming a highway after her. But that didn't catch the eye of the people who lived around her. It was Goggins's neighbour of 16 years, Erskine Hunter, who dropped off the groceries and left before she answered the door.
He also tended her lawn but was invited in only once, to fix a water heater. He knew nothing of her past. "I miss her," he told the Associated Press. "I don't know why I didn't go over there and hammer on the door."
The first that Linda Marshall knew about the woman whose rent she collected each month was reading an obituary. "She needed someone to assist her, but anyone who tried to get close, she'd block them off," she said. "She was very fragile. This was something I always dreaded."
Goggins was the youngest of 10 children and the only one to make it to college and earn a degree at what was then the all-black South Carolina state college. She went on to become a teacher in the segregated school system.
She had experienced discrimination but working in the education system she saw how even after segregation was formally abolished it lived on through bureaucratic practice, funding priorities and racial attitudes. She was determined to change that, so she entered politics and in 1972 became the first black woman to represent South Carolina at the Democratic party's national convention. Shortly after, she was the first black woman appointed to the US government's civil rights commission.
Then in 1974, Goggins beat a white man to win a seat in the South Carolina legislature in Columbia.
"I am going to Columbia to be a legislator, not just a black spot in the House chambers," she said at the time.
Goggins said that voters "were weary of poor representation". "They were ready to accept a person who was sincere and concerned about things. Those feelings go beyond colour," she said.
She made her way on to the powerful committee drawing up budgets, and used her position to win funding for sickle-cell anaemia, a blood disorder that disproportionately affects the African American community. She pushed through important reforms to education affecting school funding and class sizes.
"She was truly a mover and a shaker, so well-liked and so well-loved by so many," said John King, who now holds Goggins' former seat.
Goggins' last surviving sibling, Ilese Dixon, 88, wasn't surprised that her sister achieved so much as a politician.
"She was not bashful or anything. She liked to talk. I used to say she could sell an Eskimo ice. She was just lively and smart. She thought she could fix the world," she told the Associated Press.
After Goggins retired from politics, she worked for the state's health and environment department. But she became increasingly withdrawn after moving to a quiet neighbourhood in Columbia in the early nineties.
Goggins had distanced herself from her family, who suspected she was suffering from dementia. Her former husband, Horace, said that she "divorced herself from family and friends".
"I tried to communicate with her and went down there to Columbia many times," he told South Carolina's Herald newspaper. "She wouldn't accept contact from anybody."
Goggins became even further withdrawn after she was mugged near her home. She put new locks on the doors and rarely left the house.
She died of hypothermia after snow hit South Carolina last month. It was nearly two weeks later, when one of her neighbours noticed that he had not seen her lights go on for some time, that concerns were raised and the landlord called the police. They found Goggins wrapped up in several layers of clothes. The electricity had been cut off after she failed to pay the bill but the police found hundreds of dollars in cash in the house.
Goggins' only son, also called Horace, said that despite the sad circumstances of his mother's death, it is an opportunity to remind people of the trailblazer she once was. "I want her to be remembered as a positive role model, not only for African-American girls, but also any young girl who has a want and a desire to make a change and do something positive," he said
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ma ... thcarolina
