Lucille Berrien, an American politician and civil rights activist, died on May 22, 2026, at the age of 98.
She was an activist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a member of the Black Panther Party. Berrien was the first African-American to run for mayor of Milwaukee, and she became the first African-American woman to enter that race when she ran in 1972.
Born in 1928, she married at 16 and had her first child at 17. After her husband was killed in the Korean War in 1953, she moved to Milwaukee with her two young children. She later worked as a domestic worker in homes in Bayside and Whitefish Bay and ran for Wisconsin state treasurer in 1990.
Lucille Berrien, 98, American politician and civil rights activist.