Joan Specter, the former City Council member, gourmet baker, food columnist, and wife of the late U.S. Senator Arlen Specter has died. She was 90 years old.

Specter was elected to Council as a Republican in 1979 and served for 16 years. She's remembered, in part, for her fight against institutional racism, saying Philadelphia hopes "to set a pattern and rally support for other cities to follow suit."

Services will be held Tuesday at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley.

(Photo credit: William Thomas Cain / Stringer)