Funeral services Saturday for longtime Minneapolis community leader

Funeral services will be held Saturday for longtime Minneapolis community leader Elizabeth Samuels, who died last week after suffering a stroke. She was 80 years old.

Samuels was known throughout the black community as "Mother" or "Queen Mother" Samuels. Community leaders say for much of her life she helped shape and nurture the Twin Cities civil rights movement. They say Samuels was an organizer who did most of her work behind the scenes, not in front of TV cameras.

In February, Samuels told MPR News about why she continued to organize for racial equality.

"I think the institution of racism is very much alive and well," she said. "And people are still in the process, hopefully, of trying to de-program themselves from that thinking. So I think that's very much part of how people think."

Samuels Funeral services will be held at New Salem Baptist Church in north Minneapolis.