In Memoriam: Charles Wade Mills, 1951-2021
Since 2016, Charles W. Mills was the Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Earlier, he served as the John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
In Memoriam: Robert Lewis Albright, 1944-2021
Robert L. Albright served as the eleventh president of Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, from 1983-1994.
In Memoriam: Colin Luther Powell , 1937-2021
Colin Powell was the first African American to serve as Secretary of State, National Security Adviser, and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 1997, he founded the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at City College of New York. In 2013, the Center was transformed into the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership.
In Memoriam: Teresa Ann Miller, 1962-2021
Teresa A. Miller was senior vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and chief diversity officer for the State University of New York. Earlier, Miller was a tenured professor of law at the University at Buffalo, specializing in immigration law, criminal procedure, and prisoner law.
In Memoriam: Millie Louise Bown Russell, 1926-2021
The granddaughter of enslaved African Americans, Dr. Russell was the first Black student to enroll in the medical technology program at Seattle University. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the university in 1948 and later had a long career as an administrator and lecturer at the University of Washington.
In Memoriam: Clifford E. Reid, 1945-2021
Clifford E. Reid was the Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics, Emeritus at Colby College. He taught at Grinnell College in Iowa for 16 years before joining the faculty at Colby College in 1987. He taught there for 22 years.
In Memoriam: Walter L. Smith, 1935-2021
Dr. Smith served as dean of Hillsborough Community College in Tampa before being named president of Roxbury Community College in Massachusetts in 1974. He was appointed president of Florida A&M University in 1977 and served in that role until 1985.
In Memoriam: Kariamu Welsh, 1949-2021
After studying as a Fulbright scholar in Africa, Welsh joined the faculty at Temple University in 1985. She earned a doctorate in dance history at New York University and joined the dance faculty at Temple in 1999.
In Memoriam: Julius Sherrod Scott, 1955-2021
Professor Scott earned a Ph.D. in history at Duke University in 1986, where his dissertation concerned communications between groups of free and enslaved Africans throughout the Atlantic World that were facilitated by travelers on ships between ports in the New World. The dissertation was finally published as a book in 2018.
In Memoriam: Albert Odontoh Richardson, 1946-2021
A native of Ghana, Albert Richardson was a professor emeritus of computer and electrical engineering at California State University, Chico. He joined the faculty there in 1989 and was named professor emeritus in 2012.
In Memoriam: bell hooks, 1952-2021
The leading feminist scholar bell hooks, the Distinguished Professor in Residence in Appalachian Studies at Berea College in Kentucky, died at her home in Berea on December 15 at the age of 69.
In Memoriam: Tyler Stovall, 1954-2021
Tyler Stovall was a renowned historian of modern Europe, professor, and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Fordham University. From 2014 to 2020, he was dean of humanities at the University of California, Santa Cruz
In Memoriam: Shirley Ann Mathis McBay, 1935-2021
After attending segregated public schools, Dr. McBay enrolled in college at the age of 15. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Georgia. Dr. McBay had a long career in academia at Spelman College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In Memoriam: Charles Johnson, 1927-2021
Dr. Charles Johnson joined Duke in 1970 as the first Black faculty member in the School of Medicine and the first Black physician on the faculty of Duke University. He served on the faculty of the School of Medicine for 26 years until his retirement in 1996.
In Memoriam: Desmond Mpilo Tutu, 1931-2021
Desmond Tutu, the Anglican archbishop who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to dismantle apartheid in South Africa, died in Cape Town on December 26. He was 90 years old and had suffered from cancer.
In Memoriam: Gwendolyn Gordon, 1980-2021
Dr. Gordon was an assistant professor in the department of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a secondary appointment in the School of Arts and Sciences’ department of anthropology. She held degrees from three different Ivy League universities.
In Memoriam: Kenya Siana Flash, 1980-2021
Kenya Siana Flash was the librarian for political science, global information, and government information at the Marx Science and Social Science Library on the campus of Yale University.
In Memoriam: Rayford Lee Harris Sr., 1924-2022
Harris taught industrial arts in the Richmond public school system, before joining the faculty at Virginia State in 1959. At Virginia State, he directed the industrial arts and technical education teacher training program. For 32 years, he prepared school teachers in woodworking, metalworking, and other industrial arts.
In Memoriam: Edward Daryl Irons, 1923-2022
Dr. Irons, the second Black person to earn a doctorate at Harvard Business School, was the founding dean of the business school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He later served as dean of the business school at Clark Atlanta University from 1990 to 1995.
In Memoriam: Paul Carter Harrison, 1936-2021
Professor Harrison taught theater at Howard University, California State University Sacramento, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and finally Columbia College in Chicago where he taught for more than a quarter century until his retirement in 2002.
In Memoriam: Clarence Shelly, 1931-2022
In 1968, Clarence Shelly was hired as the inaugural director of the Special Education Opportunities Program at the University of Illinois, one of the nation’s earliest and largest recruitment efforts of Black and students of color.
In Memoriam: Valerie Jean Boyd, 1963-2022
Valerie Boyd was an award-winning author and served as the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence and director of the master of fine arts in narrative nonfiction program at the University of Georgia.
In Memoriam: Dorothy L.W. Smith, 1939-2022
Dorothy Smith taught at Long Beach City College, Grossmont Community College, and later San Diego City College, where she was a professor for 24 years. Smith also lectured at San Diego State University. She was the first Black woman to be elected to public office in San Diego, serving on the school board for nearly eight years.
In Memoriam: Babatunde Ayodeji Ogunnaike, 1956-2022
Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, a native of Nigeria, was the William L. Friend Chair of Chemical Engineering and former dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware. He was an expert in process control, modeling and simulation, systems biology, and applied statistics.
In Memoriam: Autherine Juanita Lucy Foster, 1929-2022
In 1956, Autherine Lucy enrolled in a graduate program in education at the University of Alabama. She was the university's first Black student. Angry protests by White students ensued. She was suspended three days later “for her own safety” and she was later expelled.
In Memoriam: Elsie Gloria Jean Moore Smith, 1949-2022
In 1981, Dr. Smith was hired as an assistant professor of counselor education at Arizona State University. She remained on the faculty there for more than 40 years.
In Memoriam: Charles Vert Willie, 1927-2022
Charles Willie taught at Syracuse University from 1950 to 1974. He was the first Black faculty member to be awarded tenure at the university. He later served on the faculty at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
In Memoriam: Earl Nathan Smith III, 1966-2022
Earl Nathan Smith III was assistant dean for student academic services in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. He also taught in the Africana studies and ethnic studies departments at the university.
In Memoriam: Walter Matthew Brown, 1927-2022
Walter Brown was the former dean of the School of Education at North Carolina Central University in Durham. He was the first student to graduate with a Ph.D. degree from any historically Black college or university in the United States.
In Memoriam: John L. Newman, 1948-2022
In 1990, Newman acquired a full-time teaching position at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville where he remained until he retired as professor emeritus in 2013. Newman presented his artwork in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States, in Jamaica, and Macedonia.
In Memoriam: Doris Adelaide Derby, 1939-2022
Dr. Derby, a noted photographer of the civil rights era, went on to teach African-American studies and anthropology at the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
In Memoriam: Thomas Winston Cole Jr., 1941-2022
In 1987, Dr. Cole was named president of both Atlanta University and Clark College, to simultaneously manage both institutions and create a consolidation plan. President Cole was appointed the founding president of Clark Atlanta University in 1988. He served in that role until 2002.
In Memoriam: Paul Jefferson, 1944-2022
Dr. Jefferson joined the faculty at Haverford College in Pennsylvania in 1981. He taught in the department of history at Haverford for nearly 30 years until his retirement in 2010.
In Memoriam: Delores Ann Richburg Greene, 1935-2022
A long-time educator in several public school systems in Virginia, Dr. Green concluded her career serving as dean at both Virginia Union University and Virginia State University.
In Memoriam: Harold Burnell Brockington, 1922-2022
In 1964, Dr. Brockington was hired as an associate professor and head of the department of music at Delaware State University. He went on to become the longest serving chair of the department of music in the history of Delaware State University – 26 years from 1964 to 1990.
In Memoriam: Lionel Johnson Sr.
Johnson was appointed to the newly formed Southern University System in 1974 by then-Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Johnson was subsequently elected as chair, a position he held for 10 years.
