obituaries

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/18/2021
  

  Colin Powell Dies at 84; Career of Military and Diplomatic Leadership Featured Controversial Support for Iraq Invasion

  “I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world,” Mr. Powell said, acknowledging that his presentation “will always be a part of my record.”

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Sun-Times
  10/13/2021
  

  Timuel Black, Historian and Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 102

  Among those expressing sadness at Mr. Black’s death was Barack Obama, who said “the city of Chicago and the world lost an icon with the passing of Timuel Black."

• 
• SOURCE: Dissent
  9/24/2021
  

  The House that Charles Built: Moral Clarity for Racial Justice

  by Jared Loggins

  Beginning with 1997's "The Racial Contract," Mills unsparingly examined the intimate connections of racism and the liberal tradition; but his goal was always to reconstruct a truly inclusive version of liberalism.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/24/2021
  

  Charles Sellers, 98, Historian Who Upset the Postwar Consensus, Dies

  Charles Sellers was an influential figure in explaining how the rise of market capitalism disrupted all aspects of American life, and argued this change was not for the better. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/19/2021
  

  Jonathan Mirsky: Historian Turned Beijing Correspondent, Mao Fan turned Critic of Beijing

  After beginning an academic career in east Asian history, Mirsky reported on the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the Tiananmen demonstrations and massacre, letting the facts he observed change his assumptions.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2021
  

  Phil Schaap, Grammy-Winning Jazz D.J. and Historian, Dies at 70

  “They say I’m a history teacher,” he said in a video interview for the National Endowment for the Arts, which this year named him a Jazz Master, the country’s highest official honor for a living jazz figure, but he viewed his role differently. “I teach listening.” 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/1/2021
  

  Robert Middlekauff, Historian of Washington and His War, Dies at 91

  Robert Middlekauff wrote what was long considered the best single-volume study of the American Revolution, "The Glorious Cause." 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/27/2021
  

  Stephen B. Oates, Civil War Historian, Dies at 85

  In his best-known works, Dr. Oates explored the lives of four prominent figures — John Brown, Nat Turner, Lincoln and Dr. King — in what he called his “Civil War quartet.”

• 
• SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
  8/25/2021
  

  Noel Swerdlow, U. of C. Professor who Won a Macarthur ‘Genius Grant,’ Dies at 79

  Noel Swerdlow wove together the humanities and the sciences through his study of the history of science.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/21/2021
  

  Historian Gary Nash, Who Fought to Update History Teaching, Dies at 88

  Dr. Nash led a project to update national history teaching standards which was denounced by Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives, after a long career as an influential scholar of early American history who reconstructed the lives of ordinary Americans.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/20/2021
  

  James W. Loewen, Who Challenged How History Is Taught, Dies at 79

  James W. Loewen, a sociologist and civil rights champion, took high school teachers and textbook publishers to task for distorting American history.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/22/2021
  

  Lucille Times, Who Inspired the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dies at 100

  “You’ve got to fight,” Mrs. Times said in 2017. “You don’t get nothing for free. I’ve been a fighter all of my days.”

• 
• 8/20/2021
  

  HNN Honors James W. Loewen, 1942-2021

  by HNN Staff

  HNN honors the life and work of James W. Loewen, author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and numerous other books, and an HNN contributor. He passed at the age of 79 on August 19. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/14/2021
  

  Leon Litwack, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Scholar of America’s Racial Divide, Dies at 91

  "History teaches, after all, that it is not the rebels, the iconoclasts, the curious, the dissidents who endanger a democratic society but rather the accepting, the unthinking, the unquestioning, the docile, the obedient, the silent, and the indifferent.”

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/10/2021
  

  Ying-shih Yu, Renowned Scholar of Chinese Thought, Dies at 91

  "Professor Yu often returned to the theme that China’s long traditions could be a wellspring, not an enemy, of enlightenment, individual dignity and democracy."

• 
• SOURCE: Yale News
  8/10/2021
  

  Yale, Historians Honor the Contributions of Donald Kagan

  Donald Kagan is remembered as a prolific and influential scholar of Ancient Greece and an engaging teacher with a gift for narrative and storytelling. He was also a key figure in the linkage between political conservatism and classical tradition.

• 
• SOURCE: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
  7/8/2021
  

  Marquette's Athan Theoharis Used Hoover's Secret Files to Document the FBI's Illegal Actions

  "Theoharis' research proved or verified many episodes of FBI skullduggery, including multiple instances of Sen. Joseph McCarthy enlisting the FBI to seek sexual or political dirt on government officials and workers, even President Dwight D. Eisenhower himself."

• 
• SOURCE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
  7/8/2021
  

  Obituary: Henry Parham, Last of A Black Unit that Fought at D-Day, Dies at 99

  “'We landed in water up to our necks,' Mr. Parham said, recalling a shorter man in his unit who had to be carried onto the beach because the water was over his head and he couldn’t swim."

• 
• 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'."