In Memoriam: Charles Lyman James, 1934-2022
Professor James joined the faculty at Swarthmore College in 1973 and remained on the faculty there for 32 tears. His research focused on the writings of Harlem Renaissance author Arna Bontemps.
In Memoriam: Arthuryne J. Welch-Taylor, 1917-2022
Arthuryne Welch-Taylor taught at Texas Southern University, Prairie View A&M University in Texas, and what is now the University of the District of Columbia.
In Memoriam: Samella Sanders Lewis, 1923-2022
Dr. Lewis, a major figure in the world of African American art, joined the faculty at Scripps College in Claremont, California, in 1970, where she was the first Black scholar to be awarded tenure. The Samella Lewis Collection of Contemporary Art was created by Scripps College in her honor in 2007.
In Memoriam: Anthony Owens Parker, 1953-2022
Dr. Parker had been president of Albany Technical College in Georgia since 1995. He was the longest-serving leader in the college's history.
In Memoriam: Arnold Euriel George, 1952-2022
George joined NCCU in 1991 as an instructor and served the university and music department for 31 years, where he played an instrumental role in building the Jazz Studies Program. His primary instrument was the alto saxophone but he also was an excellent pianist.
In Memoriam: Browne C. Lewis, 1962-2022
Browne C. Lewis, dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law, died on June 2 while attending a conference in Colorado. She was 60 years old.
In Memoriam: James E. Newton 1941-2022
Dr. Newton joined the faculty at the University of Delaware in 1972 as an assistant professor of education. The following year he became associate professor and director of the Black American Studies Program.
In Memoriam: Donald M. Henderson, 1931-2022
Donald Henderson served as provost at the University of Pittsburgh from 1989 to 1993. He is the only African American to serve in the position
In Memoriam: Michael J. Bates, 1944-2022
Dr. Bates joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff in August 1977 as an assistant professor of music. During a more than 40-year career at the university, Professor Bates taught courses in music history, music theory, and music appreciation.
In Memoriam: Zollie Stevenson, Jr., 1953-2022
After serving as an administrator for public school systems n Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Dr. Stevenson spent more than a decade at the U.S. Department of Education. He then taught at Howard University and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In Memoriam: Barbara Brown Simmons, 1947-2022
Barbara Brown Simmons was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of New Mexico School of Law and the first Black woman admitted to the New Mexico State Bar.
In Memoriam: Marie Valentine McDemmond, 1946-2022
Marie McDemmond was the first woman to lead Norfolk State University and the first African-American woman to serve as president of a four-year college in Virginia.
In Memoriam: Carey Harvey Latimore IV, 1975-2022
Carey Latimore was a Baptist minister and an associate professor of history at Trinity University in San Antonio. Dr. Latimore joined the Trinity University community in 2004. He served as the chair of the department of history from 2011-2020 and was the co-director for the African American studies minor.
In Memoriam: Reaner Shannon, 1936-2022
Dr. Shannon began her career at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine as the main research lab technologist. In 1990, she left the lab to become director of the minority affairs office at the school, becoming the school’s first associate dean for minority affairs in 1998, a post she held until she retired in 2008.
In Memoriam: James E. Turner, 1940-2022
Professor Turner served as director of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University from 1969 to 1986 and returned for a five-year term from 1996 to 2001.
In Memoriam: Dorothy Louise Christel White Smith, 1939-2202
Dr. Smith taught at Long Beach City College, Grossmont Community College, San Diego City College, and San Diego State University. Dr. Smith also was appointed, then elected, to the Board of Education in 1981, becoming the first Black woman ever to be elected to public office in San Diego.
In Memoriam: Terrance Dean, 1968-2022
Before joining the faculty at Denison University in 2019, Dr. Dean was a journalist and an executive for the MTV network. Earlier this year, he was named the inaugural Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson Scholar-in- Residence at the Columbus Museum of Art.
In Memoriam: Paul T. Kwami, 1952-2022
Dr. Kwami was named musical director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1994. He was the first native African to hold the position. Two years later, he was appointed chair of the department of music at the university. Dr. Kwami served in that role until 2003.
In Memoriam: Brian Horton, 1976-2022
Brian Horton was an assistant professor in the department of music at North Carolina Central University and director of the university’s jazz studies program and the NCCU Jazz Ensemble
In Memoriam: Clinnon Oneal Harvey, 1944-2022
Clinnon Harvey, a long-time faculty member and administrator at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, died late last month. He was 77 years old.
In Memoriam: Constance Jordan Wilson, 1951-2022
Dr. Wilson joined the faculty at Alabama A&M University in 1979, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in urban and regional planning. In 1988, Professor Wilson became head of the department of community planning and urban studies.
In Memoriam: Lawrence Arnette Davis, Jr., 1937-2022
At the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Dr. Davis served as an assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, chair of the department of mathematics and physics, dean of Arts and Sciences, and dean of Liberal and Fine Arts. He was named chancellor of the university in 1991 and served in that role for 21 years.
In Memoriam: Calvin Otis Butts III, 1949-2022
Calvin O. Butts was the long-time president of the State University of New York at Old Westbury, civil rights activist, and the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. In 1999, Dr. Butts was named president of SUNY Old Westbury. He served in that role until 2020 and was the longest-serving president in university history.
In Memoriam: Frank Sidney Jones, 1928-2022
In 1968, Frank Sidney Jones was named executive director of the Urban Systems Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1971 he was named Ford Professor of Urban Affairs and became the first African American to achieve tenure at MIT.
In Memoriam: Terrance Dean, 1968-2022
Dr. Dean joined the faculty at Denison University in 2019. His research interests included gender and sexuality, Black religion and homiletics, rhetoric and communication, the African diaspora, Black cultural studies, James Baldwin and Afrofuturism.
In Memoriam: Mae Coates King, 1938-2022
Dr. King, professor emerita of political science at Howard University in Washington, D.C., was the first African American senior staff associate of the American Political Science Association. She was a founding member of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and a former president of the International Association of Black Professionals in International Affairs.
In Memoriam: Daniel L. Blash, 1968-2022
Since 2019, Daniel L. Blash was vice dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion and chief diversity officer for the Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Earlier, he served as the assistant dean of diversity and inclusion at Washington University's School of Medicine.
In Memoriam: Willa Elaine Johnson, 1957-2022
Dr. Johnson taught at the University of Mississippi for 23 years. Colleagues remember her as a “renaissance woman” who was an expert in many disciplines, fluent in multiple languages, and an artist. She was only the second Black woman in the U.S. to earn a doctorate in Hebrew Bible.
In Memoriam: Bobbie Brown Knable, 1936-2022
Knable joined the staff at Tufts University in 1970 beginning as an instructor in the English department. In 1980 she was appointed dean of students and remained in that role until her retirement in 2000.
In Memoriam: Walter D. Broadnax, 1944-2022
After serving as dean of the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C., in 2002 Dr. Broadnax became president of Clark Atlanta University. He served in that role for six years. At the time of his death, Dr. Broadnax was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and International Affairs in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
In Memoriam: Oscar Lewis Prater, 1939-2022
Dr. Prater was appointed the sixth president of Fort Valley State College in 1990. During his tenure, he presided over the college's transition to university status. He stepped down in 2001. Dr. Prater later was named the nineteenth president of Talladega College and served from 2005 to 2007.
In Memoriam: Sylvester Modupe Broderick Jr., 1941-2022
A native of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Professor Broderick came to the United States in 1959 to attend what is now Otterbein University in Ohio. He later taught at North Carolina A&T State University, the University of Wisconsin, and universities in Brazil and Africa.
In Memoriam: Charles Sommerville Harris, 1951- 2022
Charles S. Harris was the former athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania, Arizona State University, and Averett University in Virginia, and the former commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. He was the first African American to serve as the athletic director at an Ivy League school.
In Memoriam: Bobby Lee Lovett, 1943-2022
In 1973, Dr. Lovett joined the faculty at Tennessee State University, a historically Black educational institution in Nashville. In addition to teaching history for more than 30 years, Dr. Lovett served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the university.
In Memoriam: Wiley Joseph Henderson Jr., 1934-2022
In 1978, Wiley J. Henderson accepted a position as an associate professor of biology at Alabama A&M University where he taught for the next 42 years.
In Memoriam: G. Reginald Daniel, 1949-2022
After serving as a lecturer at UCLA, Dr. Daniel began teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1992. He was named an assistant professor of sociology in 1998. He was promoted to associate professor in 200e and to full professor in 2009.
