A Trailblazer of Civil Rights Dies Forgotten

When he dropped off groceries every month, Mr. Hunter said, Ms. Goggins asked that he ring the doorbell and leave the food on her front stoop. “She didn’t let anybody in that house,” he said. “She just wasn’t the type to stop and talk.”
So it came as a surprise when neighbors this week found Ms. Goggins’s obituary in newspapers across the South.
“When I read it in the newspaper and learned everything she had done, I was like, ‘Wow,’ ” said Linda Martin, the longtime property manager for Ms. Goggins’s rented house. “I really didn’t know anything about her.” But that pride was tempered with sadness and regret. Her death might have been prevented, family members say, if only Ms. Goggins had been more receptive to help. Her son, Horace W. Goggins Jr., and Ms. Martin had both asked Richland County’s department of adult protective services to monitor Ms. Goggins, but she had refused their assistance.

It’s just so sad,” Ms. Martin said. “You reach out to help a person, and they reject you. What else can you do?” She added, “I always dreaded that something of this nature would happen.”

Ms. Goggins’s body was discovered on March 3, when the police entered through a window after neighbors reported that she had been unusually reclusive, even by her own standards. It had snowed recently, and temperatures were still in the 30s. Ms. Goggins was found wearing several layers of pants, socks and shirts. Her thermostat and stove were working, but were turned off, said the county coroner, Gary Watts.

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