The late C. DeLores Tucker left a rich legacy when she died in 2005. A participant in the Selma-to-Montgomery, Ala. March and longtime NAACP board member, she became Pennyslvania’s first Black Secretary of State in 1971. She would later chair the National Political Congress of Black Women, Inc. But perhaps her greatest – and least appreciated – accomplishment might be her relentless campaign to eliminate sexist and degrading lyrics from the music industry.

It was a war for which she never volunteered.

“I have, since 1993, led a crusade against this gangster, porno rap,” she said in a 2000 interview on CNN. “And all of the industry does not support it. In fact, I got involved by two of our entertainers coming to us and asking us to help: Dionne Warwick and Melba Moore and many others who did so, but didn’t want their names known.”

Quoting lyrics from one song, she said, “She was sucking ‘d’ up and down with a smooth stroke, taking nine inches of d-i-c-k like Deep Throat. The other bitch…”

Tucker took her campaign against sexually explicit lyrics to the streets, picketing music stores, and to the suites, purchasing stock in Time Warner and challenging its top executives at stockholders’ meetings..

Rap artists, in turn, attacked Tucker with a vengeance.

Tupac Shakur, in a song titled, “How Do U Want It?” raps: “DeLores Tucker you’s a [MF]. Instead of trying to help a nigga you destroy your brother.”

On another song titled “Wonder Why They Call U Bitch,” Shakur says: “Got your legs up trying to get rich. Keep your head up and your legs closed Dear Ms. Delores Tucker.”

Eminem, the rapper from Detroit, said on the “Rap Game” CD: “Tell that C. DeLores Tucker slut to suck a dick/ [MF] ducked, what the fuck? Son of a bitch/Take away my gun, I’m gonna tuck some other shit.”

KRS-One, hailed as a race-conscious rapper, spent time denouncing Tucker on a CD supposedly about freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal. The first verse:

Everywhere I look there’s another house negro
Talkin about they people and how they should be equal
They talkin but the conversation ain’t going nowhere
You can diss hip-hop, so don’t you even go there
C. DeLores Tucker, you wanna quote the scripture
Everytime you hear nigga, listen up sista

The second verse of the song was also spent attacking the “girl named Delores.”

The music industry refused to accept any responsibility. Responding to a news conference held in 1996 by Tucker, former Secretary of Education William Bennett and Sen. Joseph Lieberman [D-Conn.], the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) issued a statement that said, in part:

“…The recording industry flags explicit sound recordings with a Parental Advisory Logo. The highly visible black-and-white logo has provided parents, for the last 12 years, with a tool to determine what is appropriate for their children. Parents – not some special interest group – should be the arbiter of family values.”

Tucker countered that even free speech has its limitations – except when it comes to her.

Tupac Shakur was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996. Undaunted, Tucker filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against Shakur’s estate, Time and Newsweek. Time reported that “claims that lewd remarks made about [Tucker]…caused her so much distress that she and her husband have not been able to have sex.” Newsweek referenced claims that the lyrics “iced their sex life.”

Tucker’s suit, taken all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, was dismissed, according to judges at various points, largely because she was deemed to be a public figure and therefore must prove that malicious lyrics were written, knowing in advance that they would damage her reputation.

Rather than ignoring rap lyrics, as many conservatives have charged in the wake of Don Imus’ being fired for calling Rutgers University basketball players “nappy-headed hos,” many African-Americans have challenged the portrayal of Black women, especially in rap videos. Essence magazine has launched a “Take Back the Music Campaign,” women at Spelman College protested Nelly’s “Tip Drill” video, and public figures – including NAACP Board Chair Julian Bond, Bill Cosby, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and E. Faye Williams, Tucker’s successor at the National Political Congress of Black Women – have voiced mounting opposition to lewd lyrics.

Some African-Americans refused to join C. DeLores Tucker’s campaign because she often paired her efforts with those of Bill Bennett, a conservative Republican. But critics of the music have run out of excuses. It’s time to pick up where Tucker left off and declare language that degrade females, whether uttered by Don Imus or rappers, must not be tolerated.