In Memoriam: Julius LeVonne Chambers, 1936-2013
Julius Chambers, a major figure in civil rights law, was the former chancellor of North Carolina Central University and the former director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.
In Memoriam: Albert Lee Murray, 1916-2013
Albert Murray, the African American novelist, educator, and essayist, has died at his home in Harlem. He was 97 years old.
In Memoriam: George L. Howell Jr., 1933-2013
Howell served as an administrator at Tuskegee University from 1975 to 2005. He held various posts including vice president for business and fiscal affairs. After retiring, he continued to serve the university as a special assistant to the president of the university.
In Memoriam: Arnold Tooson Bell, 1951-2013
Dr. Bell taught at Florida A&M University for 31 years. He was the first African American to be named a certified clinical specialist by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties.
In Memoriam: Kofi Awoonor, 1935-2013
The Ghanaian poet, who studied and taught in the United States, was killed in the terrorist attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.
In Memoriam: Elbert Bernard White, 1945-2013
Before his retirement in 2011, Dr. White was an associate professor and the former associate dean for undergraduate studies in the Volgenau School of Engineering at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
In Memoriam: Devenia Victoria Pinder Wallace, 1919-2013
Devenia Wallace joined the faculty at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in the late 1950s. She served as chair of the home economics department, now known as the department of human ecology.
In Memoriam: Lee Thornton, 1942-2013
Dr. Thornton was the first African American woman to serve as a White House correspondent for a major news network. She taught at Howard University for 14 years and was interim dean of the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland.
In Memoriam: Leslie Woodard, 1960-2013
Leslie Woodard was a lecturer in English and creative writing and dean of Calhoun College at Yale University. Before joining the faculty at Yale, she was the director of undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University in New York City.
In Memoriam: Major Robert Odell Owens, 1936-2013
The former 12-term Congressman from New York was a major supporter of African American higher education and after leaving Washington, taught at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.
In Memoriam: Jidlaph Gitau Kamoche, 1940-2013
In 1977, Jidlaph Kamoche became the first director of the American American studies program at the University of Oklahoma. A native of Kenya, he came to the United States to study history at Amherst College.
In Memoriam: Mitchell Wright Spellman, 1919-2013
Dr. Spellman served on the faculty at the medical schools of Howard University, Charles R. Drew University, the University of Southern California, UCLA, and from 1978 to 2004 at Harvard Medical School.
In Memoriam: Maxine Herring Parker, 1944-2013
Before she was elected to the Birmingham City Council in Alabama in 2005, Parker had a 41-year career as an administrator at Talladega College in Alabama.
In Memoriam: John Calvin Berry, 1925-2013
Berry came to the University of Southern Mississippi as associate director of Title IV programs. In 1970 he was hired as an instructor, the first African American faculty member in university history.
In Memoriam: William M. Spann, 1927-2013
Spann joined the faculty at Shaw University in 1957. He was the founder of the university's program in kinesiology, coached women's basketball, and served as chair of the department of allied health and as athletics director.
In Memoriam: Wesley Cornelious McClure, 1942-2013
Wesley McClure, the ninth president of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, died on December 6 at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital. He was 71 years old.
In Memoriam: Benjamin F. Ward, 1948-2013
After teaching at Yale for seven years, Dr. Ward joined the Duke faculty in 1980. In addition to philosophy, he taught courses in German studies, Arabic, and comparative literature.
In Memoriam: Lonnie E. Duncan, 1967-2013
Dr. Duncan was an associate professor of counseling education and counseling psychology at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. He also served as the co-training director of the university's counseling psychology doctoral program.
In Memoriam: Amiri Baraka, 1934-2014
Amiri Baraka, poet, author, social activist, and emeritus professor of Africana studies at Stony Brook University, died on January 9 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey.
In Memoriam: Franklin Eugene McCain, 1941-2014
He was one of the four students from North Carolina A&T State University, who on February 1, 1960 began a sit-in at the segregated lunchcounter of the Woolworth's store in Greensboro, North Carolina. The movement quickly spread throughout the South.
In Memoriam: Kenneth Carlton Edelin, 1939-2013
Dr. Edelin was a long-time professor and administrator at the Boston University School of Medicine. He was best known for a 1975 legal case when he was convicted of manslaughter for an abortion. The conviction was later overturned.
In Memoriam: Rose L. Glee, 1942-2014
She served as interim director of the Office of Technology Transfer, Licensing, and Commercialization at Florida A&M University and was the former director of the Office of Sponsored Research at Southern University.
In Memoriam: Marva Odessa Lane Rudolph, 1949-2014
Marva Rudolph, associate vice chancellor and director of the Office of Equity and Diversity at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, died on February 6. She was 67 years old.
In Memoriam: Hazo W. Carter Jr., 1946-2014
Dr. Carter served as president of West Virginia State University for 25 years from 1987 to 2012. He was the longest serving president in the university's history.
In Memoriam: Tanya I. Edwards: 1960-2014
Dr. Edwards was an associate professor of family medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and the former medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.
In Memoriam: Najee E. Muhammad, 1944-2014
Dr. Muhammad joined the faculty at Ohio University in 1996 and taught in the department of educational studies. He served for one year as interim chair of the department of African American studies.
In Memoriam: Jonas T. Kennedy, 1917-2014
A trustee emeritus and long-term financial supporter of Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Kennedy's gifts financed the construction of three campus buildings.
In Memoriam: CherRhonda Smith-Hollins, 1980-2014
At Prairie View A&M, Dr. Smith-Hollins worked in the areas of student retention and recruitment. She coordinated the engineering school's summer programs and was adviser to the university's chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.
In Memoriam: Charles Sumner Stone Jr., 1924-2014
Chuck Stone was a Tuskegee Airman, a veteran journalism, an esteemed professor of journalism, and a frequent contributor to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
In Memoriam: Beatrice Elizabeth Coleman, 1904-2014
Beatrice Coleman was one of only seven Black students in the 1925 graduating class at Brown University. At the time of her death was one of the oldest living graduates of the university.
In Memoriam: Isaac Greggs, 1928-2014
Dr. Greggs led the Southern University marching band, called the Human Jukebox, for 36 years until his retirement in 2005. During his tenure the band played at six Super Bowls and three presidential inaugurations.
In Memoriam: Vincent Gordon Harding, 1931-2014
Vincent G. Harding, the civil rights activist, author, and professor emeritus of religion and social transformation at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, died on May 19 in Philadelphia. He was an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In Memoriam: Maya Angelou, 1928-2014
Maya Angelou, author, poet, dancer, actress, civil rights activist, and the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University, has died at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She was 86 years old.
In Memoriam: Raymond H. Boone Sr., 1938-2014
Raymond H. Boone Sr., former professor of journalism at Howard University and the founder of the Richmond Free Press, died earlier this month at the age of 76. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
In Memoriam: Roosevelt “Sandy” Gilliam Jr., 1933-2014
Roosevelt Sandy Gilliam Jr. was the former director of athletics at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne and the former vice president for development and industrial relations at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg.
In Memoriam: Anna Lee Cooke, 1923-2014
Anna L. Cooke, who served on the staff at Lane College, a historically Black educational institution in Jackson, Tennessee, for a quarter century, died on June 28 at the Jackson Madison County Hospital. She was 91 years old.
