JBHE: Latest News for 1/3/08

In Memoriam

William Russell Adams Jr. (1936-2007)

William R. Adams Jr., a lawyer, educator, and journalist, died recently from heart failure at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 71 years old.

A graduate of Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, he taught high school and worked as a newsman for a local radio station for several years before accepting a position as lecturer in English at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as associate dean of admissions and director of minority recruitment at Penn.

Allen and his wife Carol Black both entered the University of Pennsylvania law school in 1976. After graduating in 1979 they opened the firm Black & Adams in Philadelphia. For over a quarter of a century the husband-wife team handled a wide range of litigation including many civil rights cases.

In his later years, Adams continued to teach as an adjunct professor of English at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania. He retired and closed the law practice in 2004.

Richard Fowler Tyson (1928-2007)

Richard Fowler Tyson, who in 1949 filed a racial desegregation lawsuit against the University of Maryland, died from a stroke last month at his home in Columbia, Maryland. He was 79 years old.

Dr. Tyson was a 1947 graduate of Morgan State University. In 1949 he applied to the School of Pharmacy at the University of Maryland but was denied admission because of his race. He filed suit but lost the case. He went on to earn a master’s degree in science education from Columbia University.

After serving in the Army, he entered Howard University School of Medicine, completing his training there in 1963. He opened a family practice in Columbia in 1969.

In addition to his practice, Dr. Tyson served as an adviser to medical students at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland. He also was a mentor for students in the Meyerhoff Scholar Program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.