In Memoriam: Verdelle B. Bellamy, 1927-2015
In 1963, Verdelle Bellamy received a master's degree in nursing from Emory University. She was one of two Black students to earn a degree that day, the first African Americans to earn degrees from the university.
In Memoriam: Melissa Elizabeth Exum, 1960-2015
Until February 2015, Dr. Exum was vice provost for academic affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Earlier she held high level posts at Ohio University, Purdue University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In Memoriam: Charles Ullman Smith, 1926-2015
C.U. Smith was a civil rights leader and a long-time faculty member at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee. During his nearly half century at Florida A&M, Dr. Smith served as chair of the department of sociology and dean of graduate studies.
In Memoriam: Jesse Thomas Moore Jr., 1933-2015
Dr. Moore joined the department of history at the University of Rochester in 1970. He later served as associate dean. Professor Moore served as Grand Marshall at many of the university's ceremonial events.
In Memoriam: Clarence H. Fielder, 1927-2015
Clarence Fielder taught in the Las Cruces, New Mexico, public schools for 32 years and taught African American history at New Mexico State University from 1970 to 2010.
In Memoriam: Suzan Maria Armstrong-West, 1948-2015
Professor Armstrong-West had served on the faculty at Edward Waters College since 2008. Earlier, she was assistant dean of students at the University of Texas at Austin and dean of academic programs at Rutgers University.
In Memoriam: Levi Watkins Jr., 1945-2015
Dr. Watkins was the first African American graduate of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. The long-time Johns Hopkins University faculty member also was the first doctor to implant an automatic heart defibrillator in a patient.
In Memoriam: Arthur R. Berry, 1923-2015
During his long career in education, Berry taught at Alabama A&M University, Florida A&M University, and Albany State University in Georgia, where he chaired the art department.
In Memoriam: Floretta Dukes McKenzie, 1935-2015
Floretta D. McKenzie served from 1981 to 1988 as superintendent of the Washington, D.C., public school system. Dr. McKenzie served on the board of trustees at Howard University for more than 20 years.
In Memoriam: Nancy Randolph Davis, 1926-2015
In 1949 Nancy Randolph Davis was the first African American student to enroll at what is now Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Due to rigid rules of Jim Crow, she was initially required to sit in the hallway outside of the classroom.
In Memoriam: Paul Jeffrey, 1933-2015
An exclaimed tenor saxophonist, Paul Jeffrey came to Duke in 1983 and directed the jazz studies program for 20 years until his retirement in 2003.
In Memoriam: Felicia Janette Jones-Haskins, 1962-2015
Felicia Jones-Haskins was an assistant professor and chair of the Allied Health Program at Wilmington University in Delaware. She recently defended her doctoral dissertation at Widener University.
In Memoriam: Robert Bertrand France, 1960-2015
Dr. France was a professor of computer science at Colorado State University. A native of Guyana, Dr. France received a Ph.D. at Massey University in New Zealand.
In Memoriam: Waymon T. Webster, 1927-2015
Professor Webster joined the faculty at Prairie View in 1967. During his years on the faculty, he served as chair of the department of counselor education and the department of psychology. He also served as dean of the Graduate School.
In Memoriam: Lazette Golden Hale-Wilson, 1920-2015
According to the Ph.D. Project, she was the first African American women to be licensed as a certified public accountant and also hold a Ph.D. in accounting. She was a professor emerita at Utah State University.
In Memoriam: Reuben V. Burrell, 1919-2015
Burrell started taking photographs at the 1949 commencement ceremonies at Hampton University. At the time of his death he was 95 years old and went to work up to the day before he died.
In Memoriam: Dorothy James Orr, 1920-2015
Dorothy James Orr taught at Fordham University in The Bronx, New York and was vice chair of the African American Leadership Forum for Education Policy at Pace University in New York.
In Memoriam: Burrell A. Brown, 1947-2015
Burrell Brown was a professor and chair of the department of business administration and economics at California University of Pennsylvania. He served for 20 years as legal counsel for the Pennsylvania chapter of the NAACP.
In Memoriam: Otis Davis Simmons, 1924-2015
Dr. Simmons joined the faculty at Alabama State University in 1966 as chair of the department of music. He was named the university's first dean of the School of Music in 1972.
In Memoriam: James Dennis Singleton Jr., 1945-2015
James "Jeigh" Singleton was professor emeritus of fashion design at Washington University in St. Louis. He led the fashion design program at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts for 25 years.
In Memorian: Wilbert Augustus Cheatham, 1942-2014
Gus Cheatham was the longest-serving vice president in the history of Loma Linda University in California. He also served as deputy assistant secretary and deputy director of the Office for Civil Rights in what was then the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
In Memoriam: Nelson Townsend, 1941-2015
Nelson Townsend was named interim athletics director at Florida A&M University in December. He had served as athletics director at the university from 1986 to 1987 and again from 2005 to 2007.
In Memoriam: Quinton Bernard Wilkes, 1941-2015
A graduate of Morgan State University, Quinton Bernard Wilkes was the first African American man to earn a Ph.D. in psychology at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. He also was a founding member of the the African American studies department at Fordham.
In Memoriam: Abbie Simmons Grayson, 1904-2014
At the time of her death, Abbie Simmons Grayson was not only the oldest alumna of Tuskegee University, but she was the oldest person in the state of Alabama.
In Memoriam: Aaron Shirley, 1933-2014
Dr. Shirley was the first African American resident at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He served as a clinical instructor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi for more than 40 years.
In Memoriam: Annie Frances Lee, 1935-2014
Annie Lee was an internationally acclaimed artist who was a major supporter of the Tom Joyner Foundation's effort to raise money for historically Black colleges and universities.
In Memoriam: Jonathan Raymond Reed, 1933-2014
Jonathan Raymond Reed was a long-time obstetrician and gynecologist and an assistant clinical professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
In Memorian: Haskell S. Bingham, 1930-2014
Dr. Bingham, the former provost at Virginia State University, traced his roots to a Virginia slave in 1703. He also was a descendant of the slave Gabriel, who was executed in 1800 for planning a slave rebellion in Richmond.
In Memoriam: Clement Alexander Price, 1945-2014
Clement Alexander Price was the Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor and the founding director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers University-Newark.
In Memoriam: Norward Roussell, 1934-2014
After working in the New Orleans public schools, in 1987 Dr. Roussell was appointed the first Black school superintendent in Selma, Alabama. Later he was an administrator at his alma mater, Dillard University in New Orleans.
In Memoriam: Ali Alamin Mazrui, 1933-2014
A native of Kenya, Dr. Mazrui was considered a giant among African scholars and one of the world's great public intellectuals. At the time of his death, he was the Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at Binghamton University in New York.
In Memoriam: Jeffrey A. Smith, 1970-2014
Dr. Smith, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Cheyney University in Pennsylvania, had been at his new job for only three weeks before his death. Previously, he was a vice president at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In Memoriam: Paul L. Epps, 1916-2014
In 1935, Paul Epps was the first student to register at what is now Norfolk State University, the historically Black educational institution in Virginia. He later was elected the first student body president at what was then a junior college.
In Memoriam: Elton C. Harrison, 1917-2014
Dr. Harrison taught mathematics at Fort Valley State University in Georgia and then had a long career as an administrator at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Dillard University in New Orleans.
In Memoriam: Lester B. Brown, 1929-2014
Over the course of a long career in the academic world, Dr. Brown served as the inaugural chair of the department of chemistry at Albany State University in Georgia. He later taught at Miami Dade College and held administrative posts at Voorhees College and Florida Memorial University.
In Memoriam: Gerald Stanley Wilson, 1918-2014
Wilson was a bandleader, composer, musician, and long-time educator at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wilson taught a course entitled "The Development of Jazz" at UCLA from 1992 to 2008.
