obituaries 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
12/15/2020
James Flug, Who Helped Block Nixon Nominees and Investigated Watergate, Dies at 81
James Flug, an aide to Senator Ted Kennedy, played a significant role in Senate investigations and in the successful political opposition to Richard Nixon's Supreme Court nominations of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.
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SOURCE: Jacobin
12/5/2020
Stephen F. Cohen Helped Us Understand the Russian Revolution and Nikolai Bukharin
by Kevin Murphy
A fellow historian of Russia and the Soviet Union praises Stephen Cohen's scholarship and willingness to question orthodoxies in examining the internal diversity of revolutionary Communism.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
12/2/2020
Deb Price, First Nationally Syndicated Columnist on Gay Life, Dies at 62
Deb Price's columns were at the forefront of gay and lesbian journalists working openly in the news media and news outlets covering issues concerning LGBTQ Americans and communities with depth and nuance.
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SOURCE: Lexington Courier-Journal
12/2/2020
Beloved University of Kentucky History Professor Dies from COVID-19 Months into Retirement
Professor Bruce Holle of the University of Kentucky was a "student magnet" during his 45-year career. He passed away due to complications of COVID-19 on November 30.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/2/2020
David Hackett, Historian and Holocaust Expert, Dies at 80
Professor Hackett was noted for translating "The Buchenwald Report," made by German-speaking US military officers who described in detail their findings at the liberated concentration camp, preserving a key document for the fight against Holocaust denialism. He died of complications of the coronavirus.
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SOURCE: Cornell Chronicle
12/1/2020
American History Scholar Richard Polenberg Dies at 83
Colleagues remember Richard "Dick" Polenberg as a generous and compassionate colleague and mentor as well as an inspiring teacher and accomplished scholar of modern American history.
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SOURCE: Perspectives on History
10/30/2020
In Memoriam: Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote (1980–2020)
by Malinda Maynor Lowery
"Her contributions to historical scholarship, undergraduate teaching, and graduate mentorship will be remembered, and deeply missed, by all who knew her."
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SOURCE: The New Yorker
10/29/2020
The Long, Lonesome Roads of Jerry Jeff Walker
Music writer Amanda Petrusich remembers the iconoclastic songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker, who died this week at 78.
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10/17/2020
Vaughn Davis Bornet, 1917-2020
by Bornet Family
Vaughn Davis Bornet, a frequent contributor to HNN, was writing history into his 103rd year.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
10/13/2020
Edward C. Meyer, General who Revamped Post-Vietnam ‘Hollow Army,’ Dies at 91
by 10/13/2020
During a congressional hearing in 1980, Gen. Meyer used the memorable phrase “a hollow Army” to describe how the military branch had been beset by staffing problems, outdated equipment and general malaise after the Vietnam War.
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SOURCE: New York Times
9/18/2020
Stephen F. Cohen, Influential Historian of Russia, Dies at 81
Stephen Cohen did not shy from controversy, either in his scholarly claims (made at the height of the Cold War) that the Bolshevik revolution contained true democratic potential before being corrupted, or in his criticisms of American efforts to influence post-Soviet Russia.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
9/20/2020
Donald Kendall, Who Built Pepsico into a Soda and Snack-Food Giant, Dies at 99
The late president of Pepsi-Cola was a leader in bringing American products to the Soviet bloc and Communist China during the cold war and was influential in pushing Richard Nixon to support the CIA's coup against democratically-elected socialist Salvador Allende in Chile.
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SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
9/16/2020
Ed Bearss, Past Chief Historian Of National Park Service, Dies At 97
Ed Bearss was one of the most important figures in the preservation of Civil War battlefields as sites for the American public to learn about history.
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SOURCE: Legal History Blog
8/30/2020
Anne Fleming: Business Historians Remember
Anne Fleming is remembered as an outstanding scholar and generous colleague.
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SOURCE: Forward
8/24/2020
The Passing of Pioneering Historian Moses Rischin Marks the End of an Era
by Jonathan Sarna
Moses Rischin, the last survivor among the bold group of scholars who created the field of American Jewish history following World War II, died last week in San Francisco at the age of 94. His passing marks the end of an era.
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