A teacher in Frankford, LeCount was Philly’s Rosa Parks 100 years before the Montgomery bus boycott, defiantly riding street cars and filing petitions to have a law against black riders repealed.

With her fiancé Octavius Catto, she kept up the fight even after the law was changed: When a conductor refused to stop for her, LeCount—just 21 at the time—filed a complaint with the police, eventually forcing the driver to pay a $100 fine.

She also pushed for the rights of African-American teachers and students, standing up to the school board of the Wilmot Colored School to insist a black colleague become principal because “colored children should be taught by their own,” reports noted.