Ten days before the 2016 election, I was standing in a cinderblock room in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with Cecile Richards and other leaders of prominent women’s groups, all of us out to make the case for Hillary Clinton’s historic run for President.

Cecile Richards, a women’s rights crusader who served as president of Planned Parenthood as the nation approached a critical inflection point over reproductive freedom, has died, her family said Monday in a statement.

What her famous mother did as Texas governor, Cecile carried on by standing up a range of progressive and pro-choice organizations.

"Our hearts are broken today but no words can do justice to the joy she brought to our lives," her family said in a post on social media.

After a devastating cancer diagnosis, the reproductive rights champion fought a battle on two fronts. Here, printed in full for the first time, is a conversation from last summer with the icon, who died on Monday at age 67.