<p>June Elizabeth Kay Campbell, the mother to one son who became North Carolina's state auditor and another who became the mayor of Atlanta, died Thursday, on her 79th birthday from complications from pancreatic cancer.</p><p>She was diagnosed in March with the disease.</p><p>Black leaders gathered around Campbell's kitchen table to map Raleigh's civil rights movements in the 1950s and 1960s.</p><p>For two decades, the "Oval Table Gang" organized efforts to desegregate Raleigh city schools, support black candidates for office, plan demonstrations and fight redistricting that threatened to dilute black power.</p><p>Members included Raleigh's only black mayor, Clarence Lightner; former State Sen. John Winters; former Wake County Sheriff John Baker, the Rev. Arthur Calloway, a longtime civil rights activist; State Sen. Vernon Malone; Wake County Commissioner Harold Webb; and Wake County Superior Court Judge Stafford Bullock.</p><p>But she may be most remembered as the well-dressed, composed mother in the historic 1960 photo walking her young son Bill through hostile onlookers to his first day at Raleigh's Murphey School _ the first time a black student attended a previously all-white Raleigh public school.</p><p>"She was the one who had the courage and the strength to not only apply for three of her children to integrate the Raleigh schools, but she was the one _ by herself _ who ended up having to take (Bill) to school, and ended up having to go and get him," said her eldest son, Ralph Campbell Jr., North Carolina's state auditor.</p><p>Her husband, the late civil rights activist Ralph Campbell Sr., was employed with the postal service in Raleigh, and had been told he would be fired if he chose to escort his son to school over going to work that day. He died in 1983.</p><p>Bill, their second son, became mayor of Atlanta. Ralph Jr. is the first black person elected to the Council of State _ the group of department heads who, together with the lieutenant governor, are elected rather than being appointed by the governor.</p><p>Bill Campbell served two terms as Atlanta mayor, from 1994-2002. For the past few years, his administration has been subject of a federal corruption investigation. On Monday, before heading to Raleigh to be with his family, Campbell said he is innocent and has been the target of a federal "witch hunt."</p><p>Born in Wilmington, June Campbell graduated from Washington School in 1944 and later attended Shaw University and N.C. State University.</p><p>She is survived by her four children, Ralph Jr., Mildred Campbell Christmas and Edwin "Eddie" Campbell Sr., all of Raleigh, and Bill Campbell of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.</p><p>She also leaves five grandchildren; a sister, Gloria Kay Greene of Alexandria, Va.; and two daughters-in-law. A sixth grandchild preceded her in death.</p><p>Visitation begins at 10:30 a.m. Monday at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church in Raleigh. The funeral service will begin at 11:30 a.m. Campbell will be buried in Raleigh National Cemetery beside her late husband.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x2855984)</p>
