In Memoriam: Donald Toussaint L’Ouverture Byrd II, 1932-2003
Throughout an illustrious career as a jazz recording artist and performer, he taught at North Carolina Central University, Delaware State University, Rutgers University, Hampton University, New York University, Cornell University, Oberlin College and Howard University.
In Memoriam: Verla Marie Williams Vaughn, 1948-2013
Dr. Vaughan joined the nursing faculty at Tennessee State University in 1977. In addition to her role on the faculty for 36 years, Dr. Vaughan served as chair of the Christine Sharpe Lectureship, which provided nursing students access to some of the nation's top leaders in nursing.
In Memoriam: Randolph Wilson Bromery, 1926-2013
Dr. Bromery was a former professor of geology and chancellor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He also served as president of Westfield State College, Roxbury Community College, and Springfield College.
In Memoriam: David Lloyd Mathews, 1949-2013
He was president of the Auburn Hills campus of Oakland Community College in Michigan and had served in that post for less than two months before his death.
In Memoriam: Jane Cooke Wright, 1919-2013
When she was named professor of surgery and chair of the cancer chemotherapy department at New York Medical College in 1967, she was the highest-ranked African American woman at any predominantly white U.S. medical school.
In Memoriam: Wilbert Frazier Jordan Jr., 1950-2013
An environmental attorney, he was the first African American to receive an athletic scholarship at the University of Southern Mississippi.
In Memoriam: George R. Greene, 1930-2013
Early in his legal career, Greene represented students from Shaw University and Saint Augustine's College who were arrested in 1960 for their participation in Raleigh's lunchcounter sit-ins.
In Memoriam: Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013
Since 2009, the noted Nigerian author and educator, has served as the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and professor of Africana studies at Brown University.
In Memoriam: James Madison Nabrit III, 1932-2013
He was a prominent civil right attorney who argued several important cases involving education before the U.S. Supreme Court. His father, James M. Nabrit Jr. was president of Howard University in the 1960s.
In Memoriam: Margaret Ann Wheatley, 1945-2013
She was an assistant professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the former president of the Ohio Nurses Association.
In Memoriam: James Carey Letton, 1933-2013
James C. Letton, an organic chemist with a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, held a patent for the fat substitute Olestra and was chair of the department of chemistry at historically Black Kentucky State University.
In Memoriam: H. Fred C. Simons, 1925-2013
Dr. Simons served in a number of administrative posts at the University of Connecticut, including vice president for student affairs. The African American Cultural Center on the University of Connecticut campus is named in his honor.
In Memoriam: Ora-Mae Williams Cheaney, 1912-2013
She was an alumna of Kentucky State University and served on the faculty there for nearly two decades teaching courses on food and nutrition.
In Memoriam: Huel Davis Perkins, 1924-2013
Dr. Perkins was professor emeritus of the humanities at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He served as assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs, executive assistant to the chancellor, and special assistant to the chancellor at the university.
In Memoriam: Antronette Yancey, 1957-2013
A professor of public health at the University of California at Los Angeles, she was a leading advocate of brief periods of exercise throughout the day for schoolchildren and office workers. As an undergraduate, she played varsity basketball at Northwestern University.
In Memoriam: Ruth Alice Lucas, 1920-2013
She was an educator who was the first African American woman to be promoted to the rank of colonel in the United States Air Force. In 1994 she retired from the University of the District of Columbia after serving as assistant to the dean of the College of Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Technology.
In Memoriam: Arvarh E. Strickland, 1930-2013
After teaching at Chicago State College, in 1969 he became a tenured professor of history at the University of Missouri, the first African American tenured professor in the university's history.
In Memoriam: Richard Iton, 1961-2013
A professor of African American studies and political science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, Dr. Iton died late last month after a 11-year battle with leukemia. He was 51 years old.
In Memoriam: Laura Marie Leary Elliott, 1945-2013
Elliott enrolled at East Carolina University in 1962 at the age of 17 after being the valedictorian at Pitt County Training School in Calico, North Carolina. She was the first African American graduate of the university.
In Memoriam: Stephen A. Martin Sr., 1946-2013
He is the former vice president for finance and chief business officer at Tuskegee University in Alabama. He taught at Dillard University in New Orleans and served in the administration at Delgado Community College in New Orleans and Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth.
In Memoriam: Mulgrew Miller, 1955-2013
A native of Greenwood, Mississippi, Miller studied at the University of Memphis and began his professional career with the Duke Ellington orchestra. He was appointed director of the jazz studies program at William Paterson University in 2005.
In Memoriam: Hayward Farrar Jr., 1950-2013
He was the Gloria D. Smith Professor of Africana Studies and associate professor of history at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He had served on the Virginia Tech faculty since 1992.
In Memoriam: James Edward Hawkins, 1949-2013
Dr. Hawkins joined the faculty at Florida A&M University in 1977 as an assistant professor of broadcast journalism. He served as dean of the journalism school from 2004 to his retirement in 2012.
In Memoriam: Homer Eli Favor, 1925-2013
Homer Favor joined the faculty at Morgan State University in 1956 as an assistant professor of economics. In 1963, he founded the Urban Studies Institute at Morgan State.
In Memoriam: Martin Gardiner Bernal, 1937-2013
Professor Bernal and Professor Mary Lefkowitz of Wellesley College engaged in a scholarly give and take in the pages of JBHE in the mid-1990s on Dr. Bernal's thesis that Africans had a major influence on Greek thought and culture.
In Memoriam: Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, 1918-2013
Nelson Mandela, the driving force behind the drive to end apartheid in South Africa and the former president of the Republic has died. On May 12, 2005, the editors of JBHE were privileged to attend the awarding of an honorary doctorate by Amherst College to Nelson Mandela at Saint Bartholomew's Church in New York City.
In Memoriam: Thelma Plane Payton, 1932-2013
Thelma Payton served for 28 years as the First Lady of Tuskegee University. But she also had a 30-year career as a professional in the fields of psychiatric social work, family practice, and social work education.
In Memoriam: William Herbert Gray III, 1941-2013
The former congressman and former president of the United Negro College Fund was featured in an interview for the inaugural issue of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education in 1992.
In Memoriam: Carl G. Harris Jr., 1935-2013
He served as a professor of music and university organist at Hampton University in Virginia. He was the first African American to earn a doctorate in music from the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
In Memoriam: Charles A. Hines, 1935-2013
In October, 1994, Dr. Charles A. Hines was appointed the sixth president of Prairie View A&M University and served in that role until 2002. He held a Ph.D. in sociology from Johns Hopkins University and served for 38 years in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of Major General.
In Memoriam: John Louis Dotson Jr., 1937-2013
Dotson was the publisher of the Akron Beacon Journal when it won a Pulitzer Prize for a series on race. In 1977, Dotson was one of nine journalists who founded what is now the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland, California.
In Memoriam: Jeffrey R. Thomas
Jeffrey R. Thomas, an assistant professor of religion at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, died earlier this month. He also served as the pastor of the Trinity Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Augusta.
In Memoriam: Cecil L. Patterson, 1917-2013
Holding master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Cecil Patterson joined the faculty at what is now North Carolina Central University in 1950 as an assistant professor of English. He taught there for 36 years.
In Memoriam: George Ebow Bonney, 1948-2013
Dr. Bonney, a native of Ghana, was a professor of community health and family medicine at Howard University and also served as director of the Statistical Genetics and Bioinformatics Unit at the National Human Genome Center.
In Memoriam: Njoku Ekpe Awa, 1938-2013
Professor Awa was born as the son of a tribal chieftain in Nigeria. He earned bachelor's and master's degree at Michigan State University and a Ph.D. at Cornell University. He joined the faculty at Cornell University in 1974 and taught there for 21 years.
In Memoriam: G. Earl Peace Jr., 1945-2013
Dr. Peace served as a faculty member and administrator at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, for 21 years. He also held posts at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and for the University of Wisconsin system.
