By Frederick N. Rasmussen , fred.rasmussen@baltsun.com|December 14, 2008
Beautine DeCosta-Lee, a retired educator and civil rights activist who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Kirby Pines retirement community in Memphis, Tenn. The former longtime Northwest Baltimore resident was 95.
Beautine Hubert, the granddaughter of slaves, was born in Hancock County, Ga., and was raised near Savannah.
"Her parents, John Wesley and Lillie Jones Hubert, were educators," said her daughter, Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis, an author who lives in Memphis.
"She was also inspired by her grandparents, Camilla and Zacarias Hubert, former slaves, who sent their 12 children to college and built a school in Hancock County," she said.
After graduating from Spelman High School in Atlanta in 1930, she earned a bachelor's degree in three years from Savannah State College in 1933.
She interrupted her graduate studies at Atlanta University to marry Frank DeCosta, an educator, in 1934.
In 1935, the couple moved to Charleston, S.C., when he was appointed principal of Avery Normal Institute and she was a school matron.
They moved to Philadelphia in 1941, when Mr. DeCosta began work on his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania and Mrs. DeCosta worked for the Urban League.
In 1942, Mrs. DeCosta earned a master's degree in social work from Atlanta University and pursued further graduate studies at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Stanford University, Tulane University and the University of Chicago.
From 1946 to 1952, she was dean of women at South Carolina State before moving with her family to Montgomery, Ala., in the early 1950s, where she taught sociology at Alabama State College.
"One of my most significant memories of my mother is of her participation in the Montgomery bus boycott, which began in 1955," her daughter said. "During my semester break from Wellesley in January 1956, I visited my parents in Montgomery."
Every morning, she recalled, her mother would rise before dawn and drive African-American workers downtown.
"She would pick up workers, maids, day laborers and salespeople on the street corners to take them to work," her daughter said.
Dr. DeCosta-Willis recalled a phone call one evening informing her mother that Dr. King's home on Jackson Avenue had been bombed.
