Lilly Ledbetter, an equal pay advocate whose lawsuit against her employer inspired the Fair Pay Act of 2009, died Saturday in Alabama at the age of 86.

Ledbetter died of respiratory failure, according to a statement from her family to Alabama news organization Al.com.

“Lilly Ledbetter never intended to become a pioneer or a household name. She just wanted to get paid the same as a man for her hard work,” wrote Barack Obama, who signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009.

Ledbetter worked at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant in Alabama and discovered she was paid less than her male colleagues doing the same work.

Ledbetter filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer in 1998 after discovering that her annual salary was $6,500 less than that of the lowest-paid male supervisor. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2007 that she had filed her lawsuit too late. That meant she never received the $3.8 million in back pay and damages that was scheduled for her as part of a lower court ruling.

The lawsuit attracted national attention. Obama co-sponsored legislation that gave workers more leeway to sue their employers for unequal pay and gave women six months after receiving a discriminatory paycheck to seek redress.

Republicans, including then-President George W. Bush, opposed the bill, but once Obama took office, Congress passed the legislation and Obama signed it into law. It was his first passage of legislation.

Ledbetter joined Obama, his wife Michelle and labor activists at the White House for the ceremony.

“This one’s for Lilly,” Obama said at the time, handing Ledbetter a pen. “To make our economy work, we need to make it work for everyone. That there are no second-class citizens in our workplaces, and that it is not only unfair and illegal – but also bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability.”

Ledbetter continued to advocate for workers’ rights. She spoke at the 2012 Democratic national convention.

“I came up short, but this fight became bigger than Lilly Ledbetter. Today is about my daughter. It’s about my granddaughter. It’s about women and men. It’s about families. It’s about equality and justice.”

In 2014, she appeared again in the White House when Obama approved executive actions that barred federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discussed their salaries and directed the Labor Department to collect statistics from such contractors on men’s and women’s pay, the New reported York Times. .

Ledbetter also wrote an op-ed in the Times in 2018, during the height of the #MeToo movement, detailing the sexual harassment she faced at Goodyear.

“Sexual harassment is not about sex, just like pay discrimination is not just about pay. Both are about power. They are clear evidence that too many workplaces value women less,” Ledbetter wrote.

Last week, a film about Ledbetter, Lilly, starring Patricia Clarkson, premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

“This has been the privilege of a lifetime to play this amazing woman,” Clark said on Today. “This woman who had so much grace, courage and glory. She was remarkable.”

Despite Ledbetter’s efforts, a gender pay gap persists in the US. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in March that women earned 83% of what men earned last year.