Faye Kennedy, a plain-spoken and passionate advocate for civil rights and social justice in Hawaii, has died of bone cancer at age 88.

Diagnosed just weeks ago, Kennedy chose hospice care at her home in St. Louis Heights and died there in her sleep on Feb. 28, according to Richard Figliuzzi, her hanai son.

A former social worker, Kennedy poured her energy and enthusiasm into numerous causes, aiming to strengthen the voices of the disenfranchised, excluded or vulnerable. She helped create and served on the Hawaii Commission on Civil Rights and was instrumental in establishing the Martin Luther King Jr. state holiday in 1988.

“Faye is her own iconic type of woman — certainly a trailblazer in her own right,” said Alphonso Braggs, president of the Hawaii branch of the NAACP and a national board member. “The thing that folks will remember the most about Faye is the impact that she had on social justice here in Hawaii.”

“We’re trying to figure out how do we move forward without Faye,” he added. “We felt like she would always be there with that crisp and unfiltered tone and the words that she was never lacking for.”

Kennedy led the Hawaii Women’s Political Caucus for several years as its president. She served on the board of Hawaii Literacy for a decade and was a board member of Hawaii Youth at Risk and the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

She helped reactivate the NAACP in Hawaii and was its first vice president from 2003 to 2007. She also served on the Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women as well as the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

“She was a force of nature,” said Sandra Simms, retired Circuit Court judge and longtime friend. “You name it, Faye was involved in it. She was able to bring everybody in the community together from all walks of life because she knew everybody from all walks of life.”

Kennedy was a member of the Democratic State Central Committee for more than two decades and a delegate to five Democratic National Conventions, including the historic one that nominated Barack Obama for president. She and Amy Agbayani also co-chaired Hawaii Friends of Civil Rights.

“She had a very clear and strong understanding of what’s good and right, and she stood up for the most vulnerable,” Agbayani said.

Born on April 3, 1931, in Kansas City, Mo., Kennedy was one of five sisters, including Florynce “Flo” Kennedy, who went on to become a pioneering feminist, political activist and attorney. Their father set an example for them, standing his ground with a shotgun when Ku Klux Klan members tried to drive him from the home he’d bought in a mostly white neighborhood.

Kennedy earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hunter College in New York in 1955 and a certificate from Alliance Francaise in Paris the following year. She began her career as a vocational counselor for the state of New York. There she met and married Patrick Daly in 1961, who remained by her side until his death in 2015.

She was a social worker from 1965 to 1977 with the New York State Division of Parole and wrote a novel, “Good-bye, Diane,” in 1976, under her legal name, Faye Kennedy Daly. She and her husband ran into racism when house-hunting as an interracial couple, recalled Figliuzzi, who has known them since he was a little boy in New York and whose family followed them to Hawaii.

The couple moved to Honolulu in 1978, attracted by its multiethnic, multicultural environment. They soon plunged into community affairs. Hawaii was one of the last states to adopt the Martin Luther King holiday, and Kennedy said recently she had to make clear it was a holiday “for all people and not just for black people.”

Among Kennedy’s honors were the YWCA Leader Luncheon Award and awards from the City and County of Honolulu for a “Lifetime of Dedication to Public Serv­ice” as well as an Outstanding Achievement Award from Hawaii Literacy.

Even late in life, Kennedy didn’t slow down. In 2009 she helped launch the Honolulu African American Film Festival at the Honolulu Museum of Art, and in 2011 began staging free jazz concerts at the Hawai‘i State Art Museum.

In January, when Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, Christine, visited Honolulu and signed copies of her new book about her mother, Kennedy made a point of meeting her.

“Faye was out there with her high heels,” Simms said. “She was out there to the end! She looked fabulous and she did fabulous things.”

Kennedy and her husband did not have children, and her sisters predeceased her, Figliuzzi said.

“When I think of her journey from 1931 until now, it makes me think and see how far we’ve come and yet how far we still need to go in so many areas,” Figliuzzi said.

“Her point of view was so incredibly genuine and grounded,” he said. “It didn’t sound like anybody else.”

Services will be held April 3 at Oahu Cemetery Chapel, with visitation at 10 a.m. and the service at 11 a.m.

Donations in Kennedy’s memory are invited to The Institute for Human Serv­ices, 546 Kaahi St., Honolulu, HI 96817; and The Obama Foundation, c/o Raquel Vargas Ramirez, 5235 S. Harper Court, Suite 1140, Chicago, IL 60615.