NEW YORK - Marilyn Clement, a social activist who advocated tirelessly for a national health care program and who rallied for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King Jr., died Monday. She was 74.

Clement died of cancer in Manhattan, said Katie Robbins, who is assistant national coordinator for Healthcare-Now! Clement founded that organization in 2004.

Clement began her career in the 1960s with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and for five decades worked with civil rights groups including the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Center for Constitutional Rights.