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Lonely death of Juanita Goggins, trailblazer of US civil rights
The neighbors 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 neighbor 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.