The civil rights leader Rev. Willie Barrow, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma 50 years ago, has died at home in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 90. Nicknamed “Little Warrior,” she was a fixture of the civil rights movement in Chicago where she helped found Operation Breadbasket, which became the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Democracy Now! interviewed Willie Barrow in 2008 on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, where she was a superdelegate. She explained how then-nominee Barack Obama came to be her godson.

Rev. Willie Barrow: “Well, he came to—we have a broadcast every Saturday morning, and—from 10:00 to 11:00, and he was bringing those two little girls every Saturday morning alone. … And he said to me one Saturday, 'Reverend Barrow, could I talk with you?' I said, 'Do you want to make an appointment?' He said, 'No, I want to talk with you now.' I said, 'Come on over.' And he said, 'Do you have godchildren?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'Could I be one?' I said, 'Of course.' And that’s how we started.”