Former NCCW official, longtime civil rights activist, dies at 78

Published: 2006-04-27

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (CNS) -- A funeral Mass was celebrated April 25 at Holy Family Church in Waukegan for Margaret C. "Peggy" Roach, a former official of the National Council of Catholic Women whose work in civil rights led President Lyndon B. Johnson to give her one of the pens he used to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When President Richard M. Nixon replaced Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, president of the University of Notre Dame, as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights because of his criticism of the Nixon administration's civil rights record, Roach gave the pen to Father Hesburgh. Roach, 78, died of cancer April 20 at the Waukegan home she shared with her sisters, Helen and Jane Roach. Following the funeral Mass at Holy Family, she was buried at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, Ill. A memorial Mass for Roach was to be celebrated April 28 at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago.

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