Remembered Lives

Looking back to the year that was 2005, “Remembered Lives” devotes its first column of the New Year to a more expanded list of notables left behind. Of course, any such undertaking is enormously unwieldy and yet unpredictable. Our sincerest pardon for any significant omissions. RS

Obie Benson – Member of the Four Tops

Lamont Bentley – Actor (Hakeem on Moesha)

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown – Bluesman

Oscar Brown, Jr. – Musician, Songwriter, Playwright

R.L. Burnside – Mississippi Bluesman

Shirley Chisholm – Congresswoman

Kenneth Clark – Psychologist, Educator, New York State Board of Regents

Donn Clendenon – Mets M.V.P., 1969

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. – Attorney

Lyn Collins – Singer

Sonji Clay – First wife of Muhammad Ali

Ossie Davis –Actor, Humanitarian

Ray Davis – A Parliament-Funkadelic, founding member

Tyrone Davis – Soul Singer

Edward Dudley— Former Manhattan Borough President and Judge

Sadie Feddoes – Columnist, for New York Amsterdam News

Ibrahim Ferrer – Cuban singer, “Buena Vista Social Club”

Arthur Fletcher – Presidential Advisor to Richard Nixon

Shirley Horn – Pianist, Jazz Legend

Willie Hutch – R&B Singer, Composer

John H. Johnson – Founder, Johnson Publishing Company Ebony and Jet

Johnnie Johnson – Pianist, (Played with Chuck Berry, R&B Pioneer)

Vivian Malone Jones – University of Alabama, a first to integrate

Constance Baker Motley – Civil Rights Lawyer, First Black woman Federal Judge

Milton Obote – Two-time President of Uganda

Rosa Parks – Civil Rights Activist

Brock Peters – Actor

John Procope – (Businessman, Publisher of the Amsterdam News)

Richard Pryor – Comedian, Actor

Eugene Record – Lead Singer, Chi-Lites

Nipsey Russell – Comedian, Actor

Bobby Short – Cabaret Singer

Jimmy Smith- Jazz Musician, “King of the Hammond B3 Organ”

C. Delores Tucker – Founder, National Congress of Black Women

Luther Vandross –(Singer, Songwriter)

Stanley Tookie Williams – Author, Reformed Founder of Crips

August Wilson – (Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright)

Ronald Winans – Gospel Singer

Bruce Wright – Famed New York Judge