Raleigh's former first lady dies

RALEIGH -- The wife of Raleigh's first African-American mayor has died.

Marguerite "Rita" McKinley Massey Lightner was 84.

She died Thursday night, an hour after the annual Clarence E. Lightner Youth Leadership Awards Banquet. Named for her husband, the program provides motivational training to children in middle and high schools throughout Wake County.

Lightner had been ill a long time and suffered from congestive heart failure, said her son, Bruce Lightner.

She became the City's "First Lady" when Clarence Lightner became Raleigh's first African-American mayor in 1972. He served one term, from 1973 to 1975, before losing his bid for re-election. Clarence Lightner died in 2002 at the age of 80.

Marguerite Lightner attended North Carolina College in Durham, now N.C. Central University, where she met Clarence Lightner. They married in 1946, and she took a job with the state Department of Education.

In 1957, she joined her husband at Lightner Funeral Home, where she worked as the finance manager for 50 years.

She was a fashionable lady and for many years had her wardrobe designed by professional dressmakers, Bruce Lightner wrote in an obituary. She was a frequent customer at Raleigh's clothing stores on Fayetteville Street, he wrote.

"She was a beautiful lady," said Octavia Rainey, a Southeast Raleigh activist, adding that Lightner loved her children, as well as the neighborhood children.

Marguerite Lightner enjoyed the Christmas season, and along with her husband decorated their house every year with an eight-foot Christmas tree decorated with fake snow, her son wrote.

"She took great pride in adorning the tree with beautiful, bright and custom made trinkets," Bruce Lightner wrote, adding she opened her gifts the day after Christmas, "so that on Christmas Day her children's joy was the only family focus."

Just before Christmas in 1974 -- and during her husband's term -- Marguerite Lightner was indicted for conspiring to receive and dispose of goods stolen by another Raleigh woman.

About a month later, she was on trial for eight days. On Jan. 28, 1975, an all white jury acquitted her of the charges. The events were closely covered by the media.

Ralph Campbell, president the black political group Wake-Raleigh Citizens Association, said at the time she could have been set up.

"A person can get set up very easily," he said in a News & Observer article printed Dec. 17, 1974.

Even though she was found not guilty, the publicity damaged her husband politically. He came in third for his re-election bid a year later.

Marguerite Lightner was preceded in death by her son, Lawrence, who died in 1992. She is survived by her children: Bruce Lightner, Debra Lightner and Claire Lightner-Sharpe, all of Raleigh; a host of grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and her sister, Jean Massey Quick of Durham.

Funeral services will be held on Tuesday at noon at Davie Street Presbyterian Church. Family visitation will be held at 11:30 a.m. at the church. Burial will follow in historic Mount Hope Cemetery.