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.
In Memoriam: Reaner Shannon, 1936-2022
Dr. Shannon began her career at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine as the main research lab technologist. In 1990, she left the lab to become director of the minority affairs office at the school, becoming the school’s first associate dean for minority affairs in 1998, a post she held until she retired in 2008.
In Memoriam: Carey Harvey Latimore IV, 1975-2022
Carey Latimore was a Baptist minister and an associate professor of history at Trinity University in San Antonio. Dr. Latimore joined the Trinity University community in 2004. He served as the chair of the department of history from 2011-2020 and was the co-director for the African American studies minor.
In Memoriam: Marie Valentine McDemmond, 1946-2022
Marie McDemmond was the first woman to lead Norfolk State University and the first African-American woman to serve as president of a four-year college in Virginia.
In Memoriam: Barbara Brown Simmons, 1947-2022
Barbara Brown Simmons was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of New Mexico School of Law and the first Black woman admitted to the New Mexico State Bar.
In Memoriam: Zollie Stevenson, Jr., 1953-2022
After serving as an administrator for public school systems n Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Dr. Stevenson spent more than a decade at the U.S. Department of Education. He then taught at Howard University and Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas.
In Memoriam: Michael J. Bates, 1944-2022
Dr. Bates joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff in August 1977 as an assistant professor of music. During a more than 40-year career at the university, Professor Bates taught courses in music history, music theory, and music appreciation.
In Memoriam: Donald M. Henderson, 1931-2022
Donald Henderson served as provost at the University of Pittsburgh from 1989 to 1993. He is the only African American to serve in the position
In Memoriam: James E. Newton 1941-2022
Dr. Newton joined the faculty at the University of Delaware in 1972 as an assistant professor of education. The following year he became associate professor and director of the Black American Studies Program.
In Memoriam: Browne C. Lewis, 1962-2022
Browne C. Lewis, dean of the North Carolina Central University School of Law, died on June 2 while attending a conference in Colorado. She was 60 years old.
In Memoriam: Arnold Euriel George, 1952-2022
George joined NCCU in 1991 as an instructor and served the university and music department for 31 years, where he played an instrumental role in building the Jazz Studies Program. His primary instrument was the alto saxophone but he also was an excellent pianist.
In Memoriam: Anthony Owens Parker, 1953-2022
Dr. Parker had been president of Albany Technical College in Georgia since 1995. He was the longest-serving leader in the college's history.
In Memoriam: Samella Sanders Lewis, 1923-2022
Dr. Lewis, a major figure in the world of African American art, joined the faculty at Scripps College in Claremont, California, in 1970, where she was the first Black scholar to be awarded tenure. The Samella Lewis Collection of Contemporary Art was created by Scripps College in her honor in 2007.
In Memoriam: Arthuryne J. Welch-Taylor, 1917-2022
Arthuryne Welch-Taylor taught at Texas Southern University, Prairie View A&M University in Texas, and what is now the University of the District of Columbia.
In Memoriam: Charles Lyman James, 1934-2022
Professor James joined the faculty at Swarthmore College in 1973 and remained on the faculty there for 32 tears. His research focused on the writings of Harlem Renaissance author Arna Bontemps.
In Memoriam: Lionel Johnson Sr.
Johnson was appointed to the newly formed Southern University System in 1974 by then-Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Johnson was subsequently elected as chair, a position he held for 10 years.
In Memoriam: Harold Burnell Brockington, 1922-2022
In 1964, Dr. Brockington was hired as an associate professor and head of the department of music at Delaware State University. He went on to become the longest serving chair of the department of music in the history of Delaware State University – 26 years from 1964 to 1990.
In Memoriam: Delores Ann Richburg Greene, 1935-2022
A long-time educator in several public school systems in Virginia, Dr. Green concluded her career serving as dean at both Virginia Union University and Virginia State University.
In Memoriam: Paul Jefferson, 1944-2022
Dr. Jefferson joined the faculty at Haverford College in Pennsylvania in 1981. He taught in the department of history at Haverford for nearly 30 years until his retirement in 2010.
In Memoriam: Thomas Winston Cole Jr., 1941-2022
In 1987, Dr. Cole was named president of both Atlanta University and Clark College, to simultaneously manage both institutions and create a consolidation plan. President Cole was appointed the founding president of Clark Atlanta University in 1988. He served in that role until 2002.
In Memoriam: Doris Adelaide Derby, 1939-2022
Dr. Derby, a noted photographer of the civil rights era, went on to teach African-American studies and anthropology at the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
In Memoriam: John L. Newman, 1948-2022
In 1990, Newman acquired a full-time teaching position at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville where he remained until he retired as professor emeritus in 2013. Newman presented his artwork in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout the United States, in Jamaica, and Macedonia.
In Memoriam: Walter Matthew Brown, 1927-2022
Walter Brown was the former dean of the School of Education at North Carolina Central University in Durham. He was the first student to graduate with a Ph.D. degree from any historically Black college or university in the United States.
In Memoriam: Earl Nathan Smith III, 1966-2022
Earl Nathan Smith III was assistant dean for student academic services in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. He also taught in the Africana studies and ethnic studies departments at the university.
In Memoriam: Charles Vert Willie, 1927-2022
Charles Willie taught at Syracuse University from 1950 to 1974. He was the first Black faculty member to be awarded tenure at the university. He later served on the faculty at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University.
In Memoriam: Elsie Gloria Jean Moore Smith, 1949-2022
In 1981, Dr. Smith was hired as an assistant professor of counselor education at Arizona State University. She remained on the faculty there for more than 40 years.
In Memoriam: Autherine Juanita Lucy Foster, 1929-2022
In 1956, Autherine Lucy enrolled in a graduate program in education at the University of Alabama. She was the university's first Black student. Angry protests by White students ensued. She was suspended three days later “for her own safety” and she was later expelled.
In Memoriam: Babatunde Ayodeji Ogunnaike, 1956-2022
Babatunde A. Ogunnaike, a native of Nigeria, was the William L. Friend Chair of Chemical Engineering and former dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware. He was an expert in process control, modeling and simulation, systems biology, and applied statistics.
In Memoriam: Dorothy L.W. Smith, 1939-2022
Dorothy Smith taught at Long Beach City College, Grossmont Community College, and later San Diego City College, where she was a professor for 24 years. Smith also lectured at San Diego State University. She was the first Black woman to be elected to public office in San Diego, serving on the school board for nearly eight years.
In Memoriam: Valerie Jean Boyd, 1963-2022
Valerie Boyd was an award-winning author and served as the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer in Residence and director of the master of fine arts in narrative nonfiction program at the University of Georgia.
In Memoriam: Clarence Shelly, 1931-2022
In 1968, Clarence Shelly was hired as the inaugural director of the Special Education Opportunities Program at the University of Illinois, one of the nation’s earliest and largest recruitment efforts of Black and students of color.
In Memoriam: Paul Carter Harrison, 1936-2021
Professor Harrison taught theater at Howard University, California State University Sacramento, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and finally Columbia College in Chicago where he taught for more than a quarter century until his retirement in 2002.
In Memoriam: Edward Daryl Irons, 1923-2022
Dr. Irons, the second Black person to earn a doctorate at Harvard Business School, was the founding dean of the business school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. He later served as dean of the business school at Clark Atlanta University from 1990 to 1995.
