June Dobbs Butts, an accomplished researcher and childhood friend of Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday from complications from a stroke.
“She was one month shy of 91,” said Wendy Eley Jackson, a member of the family.
Butts graduated from Spelman College and earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. She taught in colleges and a medical school before being trained as a sex therapist by the famed American team of William Masters and Virginia Johnson. She served as a visiting scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and she also served on the board of Planned Parenthood.
Butts was the daughter of John Wesley Dobbs, a notable African American civic leader in Atlanta. Maynard Jackson, Atlanta’s first African American mayor, was her nephew.
Wendy Jackson said Butts loved traveling the world and was a pioneer in many ways.
Services will be held June 11, she said.
