Jerry Washington Ward Jr., longtime professor at Tougaloo College in Mississippi and Dillard University in New Orleans, passed away on February 8. He was 81 years old.
In 1970, Dr. Ward began his academic career as a faculty member of the English department at historically Black Tougaloo College in Mississippi. He served as department chair from 1979 to 1986 and as the Lawrence Durgin Professor of Literature from 1988 to 2002. He then transitioned to another HBCU, Dillard University in Louisiana, where he was a distinguished professor of English and Africana studies until his retirement in 2012.
Throughout his career, Dr. Ward published numerous poems, essays, and anthologies including Trouble the Water: 250 Years of African American Poetry (Signet, 1997). His scholarship mainly focused on the works of Richard Wright and African American literature. He was an active supporter of the arts and humanities and civil rights, serving as a leader with the Modern Language Association, the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the Mississippi Advisory Committee for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Dr. Ward was a graduate of Tougaloo College, where he majored in mathematics. He received his master’s degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and his Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia.
