Those We Lost — September 6

Honoring those we lost on September 6 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

Hale Woodruff

Full name: Hale Aspacio Woodruff

Born August 26, 1900 — died September 6, 1980

Painter, muralist, and educator.

Woodruff’s Amistad murals at Talladega College placed the 1839 slave ship rebellion at the center of American art, and his teaching at Atlanta University and NYU — along with the exhibitions he founded for Black artists — built institutions where the art world offered none.

Lou Brock

Full name: Louis Clark Brock

Born June 18, 1939 — died September 6, 2020

Baseball Hall of Famer and base-stealing king.

Brock collected 3,023 hits, won two World Series with St. Louis, and retired as baseball’s all-time stolen-base leader with 938 — the record he set after breaking Maury Wills’s single-season mark in 1974. The Arkansas sharecropper’s son turned speed into an art form.

Michael K. Williams

Full name: Michael Kenneth Williams

Born November 22, 1966 — died September 6, 2021

Actor.

Williams’s Omar Little on The Wire — the shotgun-carrying outlaw with an iron moral code — became one of television’s most iconic characters, and his work in Boardwalk Empire, When They See Us, and Lovecraft Country matched it. Openly candid about his addiction struggles, he served justice-reform causes with the same honesty he brought to every role.

AJ Johnson

Full name: Anthony Johnson

Born in 1965 — died September 6, 2021

Comedian and actor.

Johnson’s Ezal in Friday and E.Z.E. in House Party made him one of Black comedy’s most quoted scene-stealers, a master of physical humor sharpened in South Central stand-up rooms. He passed the same week as Michael K. Williams, a double blow to Black film lovers.