Sister Mary Roger Thibodeaux, a veteran member of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and a leading Catholic light of the 20th-century Black freedom struggle, has died in Pennsylvania. At the time of her passing on March 11, she resided at Paul’s Run Retirement Center in Philadelphia and was eight days from her 87th birthday. No cause of death was released.

Her order, founded by St. Katharine Drexel to serve Native and African Americans, announced the news on Tuesday. It was first shared by her fellow Black SBS sister, Beulah Martin.