obituaries

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  4/22/2021
  

  Walter Mondale Remade the Vice Presidency

  by Stuart E. Eizenstat

  "Walter Mondale created the modern vice presidency out of a position that was an afterthought at the Constitutional Convention. Mondale was a great public servant and a decent man, and his death comes at a time when his progressive politics have gotten a second breath in the Democratic Party."

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  

  Walter F. Mondale, Carter’s Vice President Who Lost White House Bid, Dies At 93

  "Years later, in an interview with the University of Minnesota Foundation, he begged off reflecting on his legacy. 'Well, you know, Minnesota doesn’t believe much in bragging. I did the best I could'."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/10/2021
  

  Marshall D. Sahlins, Groundbreaking Anthropologist, Dies at 90

  Marshal Sahlins was an innovator in the practice of campus "teach-ins," developed as a way for he and colleagues to protest the war in Vietnam without disengaging from contact with their students. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/30/2021
  

  G. Gordon Liddy, Undercover Operative Convicted in Watergate Scandal, Dies at 90

  "Mr. Liddy’s combination of can-do ruthlessness, loyalty to Nixon and ends-justify-the-means philosophy made him a natural fit in a White House determined to get even with its political enemies."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/26/2021
  

  Morris Dickstein, Critic and Cultural Historian, Dies at 81

  Morris Dickstein was a fierce advocate for the necessity of cultural criticism as part of public discourse, to elevate public understanding of art above the vagaries of hype and trend. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  3/26/2021
  

  Beverly Cleary, Legendary Children's Author Who Quietly Revolutionized Kid Lit, Dies at 104

  "She often credited one young library patron for launching her literary career after the boy stubbornly lamented––as she once did––that he couldn’t find any books about kids 'like us'."

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3/21/2021
  

  Jonathan Steinberg: Wrote Influential English Study of Bismarck's Germany

  Jonathan Steinberg's scholarly work ranged from evaluating participation in the Holocaust to a biographical study of the influential German chancellor, and his teaching work resulted in him supervising the Prince of Wales in his undergraduate history studies. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/17/2021
  

  The Quintessential Institutionalist

  by Donald Alexander Downs

  Walter LaFeber's legacy goes beyond scholarship to his work as a champion of academic freedom and open debate, writes his former colleague political theorist Donald Alexander Downs. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/10/2021
  

  Charles Hill, Detective Who Found ‘The Scream,’ Dies at 73

  Charles Hill of Scotland Yard was without peer in recovering stolen art masterpieces. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/10/2021
  

  Walter LaFeber, Historian Who Dissected Diplomacy, Dies at 87

  Walter LaFeber was an influential scholar of diplomacy whose work balanced analysis of institutions and individual influence, challenged views of American exceptionalism, and even capably wrote about how Michael Jordan explained globalization. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/26/2021
  

  Shelia Washington Dies at 61; Helped Exonerate Scottsboro Boys

  Shelia Washington read the story of the Scottsboro Boys as a teen, dedicated her life to preserving knowledge of their case, and finally spearheaded an effort that led the state of Alabama to exonerate the wrongly convicted men. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  2/23/2021
  

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti Obituary

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti's influence lasted long past the Beat Generation (of which he was perhaps the last survivor) through his ownership of the landmark independent City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.

• 
• SOURCE: Radical History Review
  2/19/2021
  

  His Ignominy Is His Triumph: a Counter-Obituary of Rush Limbaugh

  by A.J. Bauer

  "You’d be hard pressed to find a better popularizer of the concept of counter-hegemonic struggle (“culture war” in the vernacular), albeit on the right, or a more “organic intellectual” of the U.S. white upper middle class."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/14/2021
  

  James Ridgeway, Hard-Hitting Investigative Journalist, Dies at 84

  The journalist James Ridgeway exposed malfeasance by corporate polluters and politicians, but dedicated his greatest energy to his last crusade, to end the practice of solitary confinement in prisons. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/8/2021
  

  Robert L. Herbert, 91, Dies; Saw Impressionism With a Fresh Eye

  Robert Herbert's studies of impressionism revitalized the field by situating the work of artists in the context of theri social lives. 

• 
• SOURCE: ESPN
  1/22/2021
  

  Hank Aaron's Lasting Impact is Measured in More than Home Runs

  by Howard Bryant

  Hank Aaron biographer Howard Bryant shared common experiences with the baseball legend as a Black man in the sports industry. He writes about the legacy of the slugger who lived through the Jim Crow and civil rights eras and died at age 86 today. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/17/2021
  

  Tom Lankford, 85, Dies; Southern Journalist With Divided Loyalties

  Tom Lankford took many iconic photographs in Birmingham that publicized the cause of Civil Rights protestors. But he worked behind the scenes to cultivate relationships with the city's notorious Bull Connor to buttress the reputation of the police force while working with his publisher to squelch local demands for change that threatened the business community.

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  1/4/2021
  

  The Bravery of William Winter

  by Stuart Stevens

  Former Mississippi Governor William Winter should be remembered for facing down extremists and advancing a moderate vision of change in Mississippi that centered on education. He died at 97 on December 18. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/3/2020
  

  Brian Urquhart, a Foundational Leader at the United Nations, Dies at 101

  "In the mid-1950s, as the lone official in Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold’s inner circle with military experience, Mr. Urquhart helped invent the practice of U.N. peacekeeping through the establishment of the U.N. Emergency Force."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/29/2020
  

  Ted DeLaney, Conscience of a Roiled University, Dies at 77

  Ted DeLaney worked as a custodian at Washington and Lee before graduating at age 41,  returned as a professor, became the school's first Black department chair, and pushed the school to confront the moral and ethical implications of venerating Robert E. Lee.