Beth Rickey (1953-2009)

The Washington Times has this wonderful obituary, which chronicles the little-known Beth Rickey's efforts to expose the full extent of David Duke's racism. (Via.)

A sample:

Beth Rickey, perhaps more than any single person, helped stop the meteoric political rise of neo-Nazi David Duke. People today may forget what a political force Duke had become in Louisiana back then. With three weeks remaining in the 1991 race for governor, Duke had been in a statistical dead heat in the polls against ethically challenged former three-term governor Edwin Edwards. And Duke had the momentum.

What Duke could never escape, though, was all the evidence that he truly was a neo-Nazi, rather than what he claimed to be: a next-generation Reaganite conservative with a long-ago tawdry Ku Klux Klan past that he had thoroughly put behind him. Much of that evidence was unearthed by Beth Rickey.

The whole article is worth reading for its dramatic details about how she accomplished this.

Notably, the Washington Times -- considered a staunchly conservative newspaper -- reports that Rickey died earlier this month of a mysterious illness because she had run out of money for health care. A social worker had actually found a philanthropist who was willing to help her, but he couldn't reach her in time to save her life.