Deaths of some Influential African Americans over the past year – September ’08 to September ‘09

Levi Stubbs

Levi Stubbs, age 72, the Four Tops lead singer, who possessed one of the most dynamic and emotive voices of all the Motown singers, died October 17, 2008. He had been ill recently and died in his sleep at the Detroit house he shared with his wife, said Dana Meah, the wife of a grandson.

Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba, age 76, South African singer, civil rights activist against apartheid and Grammy Award winner for best folk recording: An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba. She was married previously to South African Jazz Trumpeter, Hugh Masekela and in the late 60’s early to the Leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Stokely Carmichael. She died of a heart attack in Italy after performing one of her most famous songs- “Pata Pata” on November 10, 2008.

Odetta

Odetta, age 77, Voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She was a folk singer with the powerful voice who moved audiences and influenced fellow musicians for a half-century died on December 2, 2008. Odetta died of heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt, age 81, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality died December 25, 2008. Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died in Connecticut of colon cancer.

J. Max Bond, Jr

J. Max bond, Jr., age 73, was one of the most influential African American architects. He was one of a few black architects of national prominence. He died on February 18, 2009 of cancer. At his death he was a partner in charge of the museum portion of the National September 11th Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center. Also he was a professor at City College in NY and at Columbia University. With his firm, Bond, Ryder he led architects in the 1970 project –Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non Violent Social Change in Atlanta, GA; the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama.

John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin, 94, on March 26, 2009. Distinguished and revered, historian, scholar and professor and author of the book, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. He was Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago. Dr. Franklin received degrees from Fisk University and Harvard University.

Wayman Tisdale

Wayman Tisdale, age: 44. Wherever Wayman Tisdale went, whatever he was doing, chances were he was smiling. Tisdale was a three-time All-American at the University of Oklahoma in the mid-1980s before playing a dozen years in the NBA and later becoming an accomplished jazz musician- a smooth jazz bass guitarist. Wayman lost a two year battle with cancer on May 15, 2009.

(Judy Lake (Sukie) was on the Wayman Tisdale Jazz Cruise in January, 2009. She said, “I had a ball. There were no children on this cruise and the jazz was 24/7. I also celebrated the inauguration of President Obama on the cruise. We had a great celebration.” For more info & photos, click on the category- WLH World Travelers)

Koko Taylor

Koko Taylor, age 80, a sharecropper’s daughter whose regal bearing and powerful voice earned her the sobriquet “Queen of the Blues,” died after complications from surgery on June 3, 2009.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson, Age 50, the sensationally gifted “King of Pop” who emerged from childhood superstardom to become the entertainment world’s most influential singer and dancer died Thursday, June 25, 2009. He was described as the world’s greatest ever entertainer and was a double-inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records – including the “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time” with 13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one singles, and the sale of over 750 million records. He was also a noted philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to many charities he supported. He fostered love and peace through his music. His personal life generated significant controversy, however, with vitiligo of his skin and reported face lightening to even out his complexion, his facial surgeries and his unusual and child-like ways. Michael was accused of sexually molesting a boy at his Netherland Ranch home. He was acquitted at the trial. The day after Jackson died, the boy who brought the charges against him admitted that he lied to get money to escape poverty-that his father put him up to it. Michael Jackson was loved by many. His memorial service was broadcast live around the world and was watched by over one billion people.

Judi Ann Mason, whose precocious success as a playwright brought her to network television as one of the first female African-American sitcom writers and one of the youngest television writers of any race or either sex, died on July 8, 2009 in Los Angeles. She was 54.The cause was a ruptured aorta, the Writers Guild of America, West, said in a news release. Ms. Mason was just 19 and a student at Grambling State College in Louisiana when she wrote “Livin’ Fat,” a comedy about a struggling black family in a Southern city whose members find their lives changed and values challenged when one of them accidentally discovers a cache of stolen money from a bank robbery. The play was produced off Broadway in 1976 by the Negro Ensemble Company, but even before that, it won a comedy award sponsored by the Kennedy Center and the television producer Norman Lear. Mr. Lear then hired her as a writer for the series “Good Times,” a broad comedy spinoff of “Maude” about the family of Maude’s former housekeeper, Florida Evans. It starred Esther Rolle, John Amos and Jimmie Walker. Ms. Mason went on to write for a number of popular television series, including “Sanford,” a vehicle for Redd Foxx that was a sequel to “Sanford and Son”; “A Different World,” the “Cosby Show” spinoff set at a black college; the popular prime-time soap “Beverly Hills 90210”; and “I’ll Fly Away,” a dramatic series set in the 1950s South that focused on a successful white lawyer (Sam Waterston) and the black woman (Regina Taylor) who cares for his children. For the movies, Ms. Mason was a writer of “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” starring Whoopi Goldberg.

E. Lynn Harris

E. Lynn Harris, age 54, died Thursday July 23, 2009 while on a business trip to Los Angeles, California, said Laura Gilmore, his publicist. The author, who introduced millions of readers to the “invisible life” of black gay men, was a literary pioneer whose generosity was as huge as his courage.  E. Lynn Harris touched fans with his courage and his kindness.  Harris wrote a series of novels that exposed readers to characters rarely depicted in literature: black, affluent gay men who were masculine, complex and, sometimes, tormented. Keith Boykin, an author and friend, said Harris encouraged the black community to talk openly about homosexuality.

Respectfully Submitted,

Mary A. Herbert, Editor

Tags: Deaths of Influential African Americans, E. Lynn Harris, Eartha Kitt, John Hope Franklin, Koko Taylor, Levi Stubbs, Michael Jackson, Miriam Makeba, Odetta, Wayman Tisdale