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Recy Taylor, Alabama black woman raped by 6 white men, dies

Recy Taylor is seen Oct. 7, 2010, at her home in Winter Haven, Fla. Black and white leaders from a rural southeast Alabama community apologized Monday, March 21, 2011, to relatives of Taylor, who was raped in 1944 by a gang of white men who escaped prosecution because of what officials described as police bungling and racism. Taylor’s brother said Taylor died Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, in her sleep. (Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
Associated Press

ABBEVILLE, Ala. – Recy Taylor, a black Alabama woman whose rape by six white men in 1944 drew national attention, has died. She was 97.

Taylor’s brother Robert Corbitt says she died in her sleep Thursday at a nursing home in Abbeville. She would have been 98 on Sunday.

Taylor was 24 when she was abducted and raped as she walked home from church in Abbeville. She was left on the side of the road in an isolated area. The NAACP assigned Rosa Parks to investigate the case and rallied support for justice for Taylor.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries decline to indict the six white men who admitted to authorities that they assaulted her.

The Alabama legislature passed a resolution apologizing to Taylor in 2011