Adelfa Botello Callejo, a Dallas lawyer and civil rights leader who was first exposed to activism as a girl interpreting for her immigrant father, died Saturday. She was 90 and had battled a return of brain cancer since last year.

Callejo’s crusades ranged from protests over the fatal police shooting of a 12-year-old Mexican-American boy in 1973, to City Council redistricting in the late 1980s, to strategizing over Farmers Branch’s policies against illegal immigration in 2006.

Her influence was so broad that some simply called her La Madrina, “The Godmother.” She called herself the “millionaire militant,” a reference to her belief that her wealth bolstered her independence.

“In my family, it was un-American to not protest,” Callejo said in a 2006 address to tens of thousands at a Dallas march against strict immigration policies.

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http://www.dallasnews.com/obituary-headlines/20140125-longtime-dallas-lawyer-civil-rights-activist-adelfa-callejo-dies-at-90.ece