Ruby Martin, 70; First Director of the U.S. Office of Civil Rights

Ruby Martin, 70, who was the first director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Johnson administration, died Thursday in Richmond, Va. The cause was amyloidosis, a plasma cell disorder.

Born in Arkansas, Martin grew up in Cleveland, where she attended white schools. She made the honor roll at her highly academic high school before entering Nashville’s Fisk University.

In Nashville, Martin said she was “thrown off more buses than I care to remember” for refusing to sit in the back. She said the experience made her determined to work for civil rights.

Martin earned a law degree in 1959 from Howard University in Washington, and became a civil rights attorney for the Community Relations Service in Cleveland and U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

In 1965, she joined the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to help implement the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She became the department’s director of civil rights in 1968, and oversaw the federal school desegregation program and enforcement of employment and affirmative action programs.

In 1990, Martin joined the cabinet of the nation’s first African American governor, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia. As his secretary of administration, she oversaw the departments of general services, information technology, and personnel and training.

She also coordinated Gov. Wilder’s efforts to establish trade ties with Africa.

Martin later was a consultant on trade with Africa to North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt.