Lilly Ledbetter, an activist for equal pay whose legal fight against her employer paved the way for the Fair Pay Act, has died. She was 86.

Ledbetter worked at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Alabama for nearly two decades before learning from an anonymous note stuffed in her work mailbox that she earned significantly less than her male colleagues.

“When I read it ... my heart just stopped, almost, because I knew it was correct,” Ledbetter said in a January interview with NPR.

“Me and those three men that was listed on that note — we four had the exact same job, and I was making about 35 to 40 percent, at that time, less than they were,” she said. “I just could not believe it. I was devastated, humiliated all at once, and it just floored me.”

On the verge of retirement and unable to quit — but, also, unable to “let it go” — she filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1998 and a lawsuit against Goodyear in 1999.

A federal jury in Alabama took her side and awarded her $3.8 million in 2003, but Ledbetter told NPR in 2009........

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