In Memoriam: Christopher Smith, 1968-2023

Dr. Smith joined the faculty of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California in 2002. Earlier, he served as the director of primary research for Ruder Finn Public Relations in New York City.

In Memoriam: Christopher Smith, 1968-2023

Dr. Smith joined the faculty of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California in 2002. Earlier, he served as the director of primary research for Ruder Finn Public Relations in New York City.

In Memoriam: Lee Etta Powell, 1930-2023

Powell was the first woman and the first African Americans to serve as superintendent of the Cincinnati public school system, the third largest in the state of Ohio. She later taught at George Washington University.

In Memoriam: James Edward Kennedy, 1933-2023

Kennedy began his career as a teacher and later assistant principal in the Mobile County Public School System. In 1968, he was one of the first African Americans to join the faculty at the University of Southern Alabama.

In Memoriam: Robert Charles Smith, 1947-2023

Robert Charles Smith was a long-time member of the political science department at San Francisco State University. One of his later contributions to the literature was a discussion of how U.S. conservativism was inherently related to anti-Blackness.

In Memoriam: Lilly Adams-Dudley, 1950-2023

In 1975, Lilly Adams-Dudley joined the staff at Canisius College as a language arts specialist. She retired in 2018 as the director of Canisius Opportunity Programs for Education (COPE) which provided scholarships, mentoring, and tutoring for students from underrepresented groups.

In Memoriam: Donald Brown

Donald Brown served as director of the Office of African, Hispanic Asian, and Native American (AHANA) Student Programs at Boston College for 27 years from 1978 to 2005.

In Memoriam: Randall Robinson, 1941-2023

Randall Robinson was a lawyer, civil rights activist, and educator. He was one of America's leading voices in opposition to South African apartheid. He taught at Pennsylvania State University from 2008 to 2016.

In Memoriam: Wayne Shorter, 1933-2023

Wayne Shorter was a pioneering jazz musician, composer, and a former member of the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles. He won 12 Grammy Awards (the last one in 2022), the 2017 Polar Music Prize, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.

In Memoriam: Roslyn Elizabeth Pope, 1938-2023

While a senior at Spelman College in Atlanta, Pope along with a young Julian Bond wrote "An Appeal for Human Rights," which laid the groundwork for the formation of civil rights protests by college students in Atlanta.

In Memoriam: Arthur E. Thomas, 1940-2023

In 1985, Dr. Thomas was appointed president of Central State University. He was the first alumnus of the school to serve as university president. Dr. Thomas served as president of the university until 1995.

In Memoriam: Patricia Liggins Hill, 1942-2023

Dr. Hill joined the faculty at the University of San Francisco in 1970 as an instructor in English and ethnic studies. Dr. Hill retired as a full professor in 2015 after teaching at the University of San Francisco for 45 years.

In Memoriam: John H. Bracey Jr., 1941-2022

Professor Bracey was a leading figure in the fields of African American studies and U.S. history. He joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and helped create one of the nation’s first doctoral programs in African American studies.

In Memoriam: Fannie Gaston-Johansson, 1938-2023

Dr. Gaston-Johansson was a member of the University of Nebraska Medical Center faculty from 1985 to 1993. She joined the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1993. In 1998, Professor Gaston-Johansson became the first Black woman to become a tenured professor at Johns Hopkins University.

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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