Massachusetts is mourning the death of Setti Warren, the first Black person elected mayor of Newton and a prominent voice in public service. He was 55. Harvard University announced Warren’s passing on Nov. 2. The school did not disclose a cause or time of death. “Setti was a beloved member of our community, and we […]
Marcyliena H. Morgan, linguistic anthropologist and founding director of Harvard University’s Hiphop Archive & Research Institute, has died at 75 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease. Harvard and family colleagues said she passed on Sept. 28, 2025; the University has since renamed the archive in her honor. Born in Chicago in 1950, Morgan spent her career […]
D’Angelo was a defining voice of late-20th- and early-21st-century R&B, an artist whose work helped shape the sound and sensibility of neo-soul. Across three landmark albums, Brown Sugar, Voodoo and Black Messiah, he fused church-honed musicianship with hip-hop rhythm and classic soul, influencing a generation of singers, producers and bands. Despite his impact, D’Angelo remained […]
Assata Shakur, the Black Liberation Army member convicted in the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, fugitive since 1979, and the first woman placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, has died at 78. Cuba’s Foreign Ministry and Shakur’s family confirmed she died in Havana on Sept. 25, 2025. Born JoAnne […]
Dr. Quintard Taylor, the distinguished historian of African American history and founder of BlackPast.org, has died at 77. Born in Brownsville, Tennessee, Taylor built a towering academic legacy documenting Black life across the United States, especially in the American West. His scholarship includes the Pulitzer Prize–nominated Search for the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the […]
