Coretta Scott King, Lou Rawls, Wilson Pickett, Gordon Parks, Kirby Puckett, Ed Bradley, Tamara Dobson, Buck O Neill, Bebe Moore Campbell and the inimitable James Brown were among the better-known stars who faded from the world stage this year.
They were civil rights pioneers, entertainers, writers, sports legends and journalists. Some broke new ground; others brought us art, beauty and comfort.
Some provoked discussions in homes, bars and barbershops across the country and still others brought us the real story behind the inner workings of government and industry.
BlackAmericaWeb.com remembers the lives and the accomplishments of some of those black luminaries we lost this year.
Lou Rawls (Dec. 1, 1935 - Jan. 6, 2006): The silky smooth jazz, soul and R B singer sold more than 40 million albums during a career that lasted nearly five decades.
Starting in 1980, Rawls hosted the Lou Rawls Parade of Stars telethon to raise money for the United Negro College Fund, which has raised more than $200 million over the years to help educate students at historically black colleges and universities.
A member of the Rock Roll Hall of Fame, known for his raspy vocals, Wilson Pickett (March 18, 1941 - Jan. 19, 2006) cranked out hits in the 1960s, including In the Midnight Hour and Mustang Sally.
Pickett s career began in gospel music, and he had success with a group called The Falcons before breaking into secular music.
Fayard Nicholas (Oct. 20, 1914 - Jan.
25, 2006) was half of one of the most acclaimed tap duos ever. As the Nicholas brothers, he and his brother Harold were legendary for their acrobatic feats in more than 30 musical movies in the 1930s and 1940s, including Stormy Weather and Kid Millions. The brothers performed at the famous Cotton Club along with other legends, including Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters and Duke Ellington.
Fayard Nicholas received a Tony Award in 1989 for his choreography in the Tony Award-winning Broadway show, "Black and Blue."
An activist in her own right, Coretta Scott King (April 27, 1927 - Jan. 30, 2006) was perhaps best known as the wife of the late Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. However, after her husband s assassination in 1968, King, who had been a supportive lieutenant to her husband during the civil rights movement, also goaded and pushed Democratic candidates in 1976 to support a full employment bill and spent more than a decade seeking to have her husband s birthday observed as a national holiday, which was first celebrated in 1986. In later years, King was a familiar presence at seminars and conferences on global issues.
Octavia Butler (June 22, 1947 - Feb. 24, 2006) was the grande dame of black science fiction writers and inspired writers of all backgrounds and genres. Known for addressing issues of class, race and politics in her work, Butler was the only science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, known as the genius grant, in 1995.
In 2000, she won the Nebula Award, science fiction s highest for her novel, Parable of the Talents. The story was set in a futuristic utopian community that had been ravaged by civil war. The book explored intolerance, the growing gap between rich and poor and environmentalism.
He didn t have a typical athlete s body, but the will to win drove Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett (March 14, 1960 - March 6, 2006) to excel on the field. In a 12-year career with the Minnesota Twins, the pudgy center fielder helped lead the team to two World Series championships in 1987 and 1991. During the 20th century, Puckett was the only player in Major League Baseball to have 1,000 hits in his first five full calendar years and one of only two to record 2,000 hits during his first 10 full calendar years.
He was forced to retire at age 35 after losing vision in one eye from glaucoma. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, his first year of eligibility.
Those who knew Renaissance man Gordon Parks (Nov.
30, 1912 - March 7, 2006) said the legendary photographer, movie director, writer and composer didn t just take pictures, write books and music and make movies, but used those media to take readers and viewers beyond the surface image to the places where his subjects dwelled. He was the first black photographer to work at Life and Vogue magazines, the first black man to work for the Office of War Information and the Farm Security Administration during the 1940s. In the 1960s, he was the first black director for a major studio.
He wrote the screenplay, co-produced, directed and composed the musical score for the film based on his 1963 novel, The Learning Tree. He also directed "Shaft," "Shaft s Big Score" and "The Super Cops," also filming several documentaries for television and the Public Broadcasting System.
A composer, bandleader and educator, jazz alto saxophonist Jackie McLean (May 17, 1931 - March 31, 2006) established the African American Music Department (now the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz) and the Jazz Studies degree program at the University of Hartford.
June Pointer (Nov. 30, 1953-April 11, 2006) was the youngest of the Pointer Sisters, the harmonious quartet that found its greatest fame in the 1970s and 80s with such hits as Fire, I m So Excited, He s So Shy and Jump (for My Love)." Pointer was the lead singer for the latter two songs.
She left the group to pursue a solo career, releasing two albums in 1983 and 1989, scoring solo hits with Ready for Some Love and Tight On Time (I ll Fit U In).
Earl Woods (March 5, 1932-May 3, 2006) was the father, mentor and first coach for PGA phenom Tiger Woods. However, Woods was an athlete in his own right, attending Kansas State University on a baseball scholarship.
The KSU catcher broke the color barrier in baseball in the Big Seven Conference in 1951 and was offered a contract by the Kansas City Monarch of the Negro Leagues. Instead, Woods joined the U.S.
Army, serving two full tours of duty during the Vietnam War, the second as a member of the Green Berets.
Few people know that Lula Mae Hardaway (Jan. 11, 1930 - May 31, 2006) co-wrote I Was Made to Love Her and Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I m Yours with her superstar son Stevie Wonder, as well as negotiated his first contract.
When Innervisions won a Grammy award for Album of the Year in 1973, Wonder refused to accept the award unless Lula walked with him to the podium where he proclaimed, "her strength has led us to this place."
When he knocked out Archie Moore on Nov. 30, 1956, 21-year-old Floyd Patterson (Jan.
4, 1935 - May 11, 2006) became the youngest world heavyweight champion in history. Patterson, who made headlines as a gold medalist in the middleweight division at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, held on to the title for five years, winning the world heavyweight championship twice. After a brief loss in 1960, Patterson recaptured the crown, becoming the first heavyweight boxer to make a successful comeback for the title.
When people think of Katherine Dunham (June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) they usually think of her as a dancer, but she was so much more. Dunham -- a dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author and educator -- was also a trained anthropologist. One of the most successful dancers during the 20th century, Dunham was hailed in Europe and Latin America as La Grande Katherine during her heyday in the 1940s through the 1960s.
She founded the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis, Ill., a non-profit, multidisciplinary arts organization that includes collections of African and Caribbean folk and contemporary art and material documenting Dunham s life and work.
Singer, songwriter and keyboardist Billy Preston (Sept. 9, 1946 - June 6, 2006) has been credited with breaking down racial barriers in music. Dubbed the fifth Beatle when he began performing with the Fab Four at the tail end of the group s career, he also joined forces with the Rolling Stones, appearing frequently on stage with Mick Jagger and crew before embarking on his solo career in the 1970s.
Preston, a celebrated singer-songwriter, Preston is best known, perhaps, for his hits Will It Go Round In Circles, Nothing From Nothing and With You I m Born Again, a duet with the late Syreeta Wright, a former wife of Stevie Wonder.
James Cameron (Feb. 23, 1914 - June 11, 2006), founder of America s Black Holocaust Museum, was America s only known living survivor of a lynching.
In 1930, at the age of 16, Cameron was falsely accused of participating in the killing of a white man in Marion, Ind. He watched as a mob of 15,000 people beat and lynched two of his friends. Cameron, however, survived the ordeal, when a man in the crowd stepped up and proclaimed his innocence.
As an adult, Cameron became active in civil rights issues, including the founding of three NAACP chapters in Indiana during the 1940s. In 1988, he founded the museum to document racial injustices suffered by black people.
The co-founder and lead guitarist of Kool The Gang, Claydes Charles Smith (Sept.
6, 1948 - June 20, 2006) penned the group s hit Joanna and Take My Heart and co-wrote others, including Jungle Boogie, Hollywood Swinging and Jungle Boogie.
Tony Award-winning director Lloyd Richards (June 19, 1919 - June 29, 2006) was best known for his staging of the original production of Lorraine Hansberry s A Raisin in the Sun, which debuted on Broadway on March 11, 1959, starring Sydney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands. Richards, who later became the dean of the Yale University School of Drama, staged the first production of a play by then-unknown playwright August Wilson and went on to direct the world premieres of six of Wilson s plays.
In the film Men of Honor, actor Cuba Gooding, Jr. portrayed Carl Maxie Brashear (Jan. 19, 1931 - July 25, 2006), dramatizing his efforts to become a U.
S. Navy master diver in the early 1950s. An accident during a naval towing operation led, eventually, to the amputation of one of Brashear s legs.
He recovered and returned to full active duty and diving. In 1968, he became the first amputee to be certified as a diver. Two years later, he became the first black man certified as a master diver.
Civil rights activist Robert McCullough (1942 - Aug. 7, 2006) led a group of students in the landmark 1961 sit-in protest at a whites-only McCrory s lunch counter in Rock Hill, S.C.
Rather than pay a $100 fine, he and eight others who became known as the Friendship Nine, chose to serve a 30-day sentence on a chain gang. Author Taylor Branch, in his book, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, wrote the group s actions made electrifying news within the civil rights movement.
Songwriter and lead singer for the reggae group Culture, Joseph Hill (Jan.
22, 1949 - Aug. 19, 2006) was inducted into the Jamaican Reggae Walk of Fame and was honored by the Jamaican government for his contributions to the nation s culture. Hill led the band for 30 years and wrote its most popular songs, including "Two Sevens Clash," "Natty Never Get Weary" and "I'm Not Ashamed.
" Willi Ninja (April 12, 1961 - Sept. 2, 2006) didn t invent voguing, but his skill was so impressive that he made it legend as a featured performer in the documentary, Paris Is Burning. The self-taught choreographer, who said he was inspired by Fred Astaire, Asian culture and Olympic gymnasts, also influenced the work of pop star Madonna, who immortalized Ninja s stylings in her hit song and video, Vogue.
As Cleopatra Jones in a film of the same name, Tamara Dobson (May 14, 1947 - Oct. 2, 2006) was a kung fu-fighting, Afro-wearing, fashion-forward superagent in a genre of action movies that became known as blaxploitation in the 1970s. The film, written and co-produced by actor Max Julien, introduced the first black super heroine to the silver screen.
I wrote it for somebody else, Julien said of the screenplay. But Tamara just won the role. She had a great demeanor.
Buck O Neill (Nov. 13, 1911 - Oct. 6, 2006) was a star in the Negro Leagues in the 1940s and, for many in later generations, became the ambassador for the league after being featured in filmmaker Ken Burns acclaimed PBS documentary, Baseball.
He was the first black man to coach in the majors with the Chicago Cubs in 1962. As a scout for the Cubs, he signed future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Lou Brock and Elston Howard. He was an advocate for getting star Negro League players and executives honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Alas, when 17 members of the Negro Leagues were inducted into the hall, O Neill was not among them.
Trevor Berbick (Aug. 1, 1954 - Oct.
28, 2006) was the last man to fight Muhammad Ali, winning the 10-round contest in Nassau, the Bahamas in 1981 by unanimous decision and earning the distinction as the man who ended Ali s boxing career. Berbick, whose career lasted from 1976 to 2000, held the heavyweight title briefly in 1986 before losing it to Mike Tyson.
Considered one of the most important painters in Southern self-taught art, Mose Tolliver (1920 - Oct.
30, 2006) sold his work to passersby for just a few dollars until he was discovered and his work featured in a major exhibition of Black American Folk Art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1982.
A journalist, reporter and 60 Minutes correspondent, Ed Bradley (June 22, 1941 - Nov. 9, 2006) won 19 Emmy awards, the Peabody Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and was lauded for his penetrating interviews, his passion for a wide range of subjects -- especially music -- and a burning desire to help aspiring black journalists.
He was the first black television reporter to cover the White House, and in a 1995 TV Guide poll, he was rated the second most trusted television news personality, behind Walter Cronkite.
A gifted R B singer, Gerald Levert (July 13, 1966 - Nov. 10, 2006) was also widely known in musical circles for his work as a composer and producer.
He formed the trio LeVert in 1984, and four of the group s seven albums went platinum. He also collaborated with Keith Sweat and Johnny Gill in the group LSG. But the son of the O Jays Eddie Levert was best known for his intense solo performances and impassioned, pleading love songs.
A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, credited with putting R B on the map, Ruth Brown (Jan. 12, 1928 - Nov. 17, 2006) was celebrated among many entertainers from that genre for fighting for royalties from Atlantic Records for herself and others.
As part of the settlement with the label, the company provided $2 million to establish the Rhythm and Blues Foundation in the late 80s to assist R B singers without pensions or health care.
His son, Bobby, may be better known today for his a cappella vocals and the ditty Don t Worry Be Happy, but operatic baritone Robert McFerrin (1921 - Nov. 24, 2006) was a legend in his own right as the first black man to sing as a member of the New York Metropolitan Opera.
He also sang the vocals in the film version of Porgy and Bess, which starred Sidney Poitier as Porgy.
A writer who focused on America s ethical, ethnic and social divides -- particularly issues of importance to black Americans -- Bebe Moore Campbell (Feb. 18, 1950 - Nov.
27, 2006) took on the mental health system, interracial dating and the Emmett Till lynching in her novels. Author Carolyn See once wrote that in a fair world, Campbell will be remembered as the most important African-American novelist of this century, except for, maybe, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.
Gerald M.
Boyd (Oct. 3, 1950 - Nov. 23, 2006) moved up the ranks of The New York Times to become managing editor.
Along the way, he was a national political correspondent, a White House correspondent and, as a senior editor, orchestrated the coverage that led to a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for a series on race. Later that year, he helped direct the coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
During his career, Boyd was a major part of nine Pulitzers won by the newspaper. While a journalist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boyd and a friend helped establish the Greater St.
Louis Association of Black Journalists and a minority journalism workshop for high school students, the latter of which launched a number of prestigious journalism careers, including that of CBS weekend "Early Show" host Russ Mitchell. Boyd resigned from the Times in 2003 in the wake of a scandal that involved reporter Jayson Blair, who fabricated a number of stories he wrote for the newspaper.
At 113 years old, Moses Hardy (Jan.
6, 1893 - Dec. 7, 2006) was the last living black World War I veteran, the oldest documented American and was believed to be the second-oldest man in the world. Hardy served in France during World War I and apparently saw combat.
According to the Associated Press, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records said that research by his group and other media organizations had failed to locate other surviving black World War I veterans. The consultant, Robert Young, said only 10 to 12 veterans from that war survive.
In 1947, Ahmet Ertegun (July 31, 1923 - Dec.
14, 2006), the son of a Turkish ambassador, co-founded Atlantic Records, which became a giant in 20th-century popular music in the late 1940s and went on to create a signature sound with R B during the 1950s when he signed Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, the Drifters and the Coasters and then, in the 1960s and 1970s, Aretha Franklin. Decades later, when Brown decided to press Atlantic for past due royalties for herself and other singers on the label, Ertegun -- who had since sold the label -- supported Brown and persuaded the firm to pay and to put up $2 million to help establish the Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which provides financial support, medical assistance and educational outreach through various grants and programs to support R B and Motown artists of the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Most people remember Mike Evans (Nov.
3, 1949 - Dec. 14) as Lionel from the sitcoms All In The Family and The Jeffersons, but Evans was also co-creator and writer for Good Times. His last role was on Walker, Texas Ranger in 2000.
In recent years, Evans was involved in real estate.
Always imitated but never duplicated, James Brown (May 3, 1933-Dec. 25, 2006), the Godfather of Soul, amazed audiences with his electrifying stage presence, rough-edged voice and flashy footwork.
Brown s stage influence, in sartorial style as well as his dance moves, was apparent in artists ranging from Michael Jackson to Prince to Mick Jagger. Known as the hardest working man in show business because of his heavy touring pace and intense performances in which he could lose two to three pounds a show, Brown was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and his music is sampled regularly by rap artists. A larger than life personality matches the a seven-foot statue of Brown that stands on the 800 block of Broad Street in Augusta, Ga.
, a present from the city for Brown s 72nd birthday. Last August, the county coliseum authority renamed the city s civic center the James Brown Arena. Hopefully, the high court will reaffirm the goals of diversity by striking down the Michigan affirmative action ban and affirming the education diversity plan for Seattle and Louisville schools.
There’s no physical sign, barrier or even a chalk line that marks the zone where a black can’t enter at the risk of grave harm. But the zone is there, and people are ..
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Political organizer and advocate Melanie Campbell watched the swearing-in of members of the Congressional Black Caucus on Thursday and thought, "It feels good to be black in America."
As political power shifts to Democrats on Capitol Hill, the grades are in for the outgoing 109th U.
S. Congress, and, according to the NAACP, lawmakers failed the nation miserably on civil rights.
Sonia Pierre, a tall, slender black woman who was born in the Dominican Republic, uses her activism to fight for immigrant and citizenship rights for Haitian-Dominicans.
The woman who says she's soul pioneer James Brown's widow said she doesn’t understand why she’s being kept from the family estate or why Brown's kids have turned against her. ..
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The only new congressional member who is a practicing Buddhist, Johnson said he’s already found an apartment on Capitol Hill and on weekends will commute to his family's home outside Atlanta.
There’s no more time to be wasted on debating.
And there are no more excuses for hiding behind technicalities to maintain what amounts to a national shame.
“What this is going to do is start a global awareness of the need for different strategies for the education of boys and girls,” Jane E. Smith of Spelman College told BlackAmericaWeb.
com.
Patrick, who will be the nation’s only black governor after he’s inaugurated on Thursday, began his term blazing on all cylinders Tuesday in a fight over a proposed ban on gay marriage.
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