Obituaries
Demond Wilson, the actor who brought Lamont Sanford to life on the iconic 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, has died at the age of 79. Wilson passed away on Friday, January 30, 2026, at his home in Palm Springs, California, due to complications from cancer, as confirmed by his son, Demond Wilson Jr. Wilson’s portrayal of […]
Harold’s Chicken Shack has long been a staple of Chicago food, with Kristen Pierce-Sherrod managing the chain since her father died in 1988.
Claudette Colvin was known for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus nine months before Rosa Parks.
Gospel legend Richard Smallwood, 8-time Grammy nominee, dies at 77 after kidney failure. Pioneered contemporary gospel sound.
Pioneering Black Park Ranger Betty Reid Soskin, 104, championed marginalized voices & ensured underrepresented histories were not forgotten.
As we’ve come to understand year after year, day after day even, death is unfortunately an inevitable part of life. Still, as much of a fact as that may be, the blow of experiencing loss never gets any easier, nor does reporting on the subject in Black culture.
Viola “Mother” Ford Fletcher, one of the last living survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, has died in Tulsa at the age of 111.
Jimmy Cliff’s international breakthrough came in 1972 after starring and recording the soundtrack for the cult classic film “The Harder They Come.”
Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, a Black revolutionary who preached armed resistance, dies at 82.
Activist, revolutionary, Black Panther Party leader and member of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), Assata Olugbala Shakur, has died at age 78, according to her daughter, Kakuya Shakur, meaning the ancestors have gained a fierce warrior in the fight against white supremacy. Shakur, born JoAnne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947, in the Flushing neighborhood of […]
Esaw Snipes-Garner became a community activist after her husband, Eric Garner, was killed in an act of police violence.
Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel died Monday at 94. He leaves behind a legacy of working to change the lives of Black people in America.