JBHE: Latest News for 1/14/10

In Memoriam

Kenneth Francis Taylor (1937-2009)

Kenneth Taylor, who taught at Savannah State University in Georgia for more than half a century, died from heart failure at an Atlanta hospital. He was 72 years old.

Dr. Taylor joined the Savannah State faculty in 1972 and later served as chair of the university’s department of health, physical education, and recreation. He was a stickler for punctuality. He locked the door to his classroom at the time his lecture was scheduled to begin. Students who were only a few seconds late were not permitted to enter the room. After retiring from teaching in 1997, Dr. Taylor served for a period as assistant to the president of Atlanta Metropolitan College.

Carnegie Howard Mims Jr. (1944-2009)

Carnegie Mims Jr., an attorney, professor of law, and one of the first black students at the University of Texas, has died after a long illness. He was 65 years old.

Mims was a native of New Orleans but was raised in Austin, Texas. He was part of a small group of black students who racially integrated the city’s Stephen F. Austin High School. In 1962 he enrolled at the University of Texas, which previously had only a handful of black students. After earning a degree in history, Mims enrolled at the university’s law school.

After serving as a legislative aide for Barbara Jordan and as an attorney for the Texas Supreme Court, Mims started a private practice in Houston. During his 23 years of practicing law in Houston, Mims served as a professor at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University.

Audrey Snypse Lawson (1918-2009)

Audrey Snypse Lawson, historian, educator, author, and civil rights activist, died last month at her home in Piermont, New York. She was 91 years old.

Lawson, a native of Philadelphia, was a graduate of Fisk University. She held a master’s of social work degree from Columbia University. She began her career as a social worker but later served as an associate professor of social work at Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. Her 2003 book, True Stories From Mine Hole, documented the saga of African-American workers who were recruited to break a strike at a factory in Piermont.