Those We Lost — November 5

Honoring those we lost on November 5 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

George Taylor

Birth date unknown — died November 5, 1918

Lynching victim, Wake County, North Carolina

George Taylor, a Black man accused of assaulting a white woman near Rolesville, North Carolina, was taken from officers by hooded men on November 5, 1918, held in a ravine until a mob of about 300 gathered, then hanged from a tree and shot more than 100 times. A jury said it could not identify any member of the mob. Rolesville, the Equal Justice Initiative and the Wake County Community Remembrance Coalition dedicated a marker to him in September 2024.

Hot Lips Page

Born January 27, 1908 — died November 5, 1954

Swing trumpeter and blues shouter from Kansas City

Oran ‘Hot Lips’ Page of Dallas toured behind Ma Rainey, played in Walter Page’s Blue Devils and in Bennie Moten’s and Count Basie’s Kansas City bands, was a featured soloist with Artie Shaw, and led his own bands in New York, where his blues singing and after-hours jam sessions were legendary. After a heart attack in October 1954, he died of complications from pneumonia in New York on November 5, 1954, at 46.

Art Tatum

Born October 13, 1909 — died November 5, 1956

Jazz piano virtuoso

Art Tatum, nearly blind from childhood, came out of Toledo, Ohio, to become one of the greatest technical virtuosos in jazz; classical pianists such as Vladimir Horowitz came to hear him. His 1933 ‘Tiger Rag’ and the solo recordings he made for Norman Granz from 1953 remain standards of the instrument. He died in Los Angeles on November 5, 1956, at 47.

Sam ‘Toothpick’ Jones

Born December 14, 1925 — died November 5, 1971

First Black pitcher to throw a major league no-hitter

Sam Jones pitched for the Cleveland Buckeyes of the Negro American League before reaching the majors in 1951. On May 12, 1955, pitching for the Chicago Cubs, he walked the bases loaded in the ninth and then struck out the side to finish the first no-hitter by a Black pitcher in the majors; he led the National League in strikeouts three times and won 21 games for the 1959 Giants. He died of cancer in Morgantown, West Virginia, on November 5, 1971, at 45.

Vinnette Carroll

Born March 11, 1922 — died November 5, 2002

First Black woman to direct on Broadway

Vinnette Carroll, a clinical psychologist turned actress, founded the Urban Arts Corps in New York in 1967 and in 1972 became the first Black woman to direct a Broadway production with Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope. That show and her gospel musical Your Arms Too Short to Box with God brought her Tony nominations for direction, the first for a Black woman. She died in Lauderhill, Florida, on November 5, 2002, at 80.

Shirley Verrett

Born May 31, 1931 — died November 5, 2010

Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano and soprano

New Orleans-born Shirley Verrett debuted at the Metropolitan Opera as Carmen in 1968 and became one of its leading stars; in 1973 she sang both Cassandra and Dido in Les Troyens there. She later taught at the University of Michigan. She died of heart failure in Ann Arbor on November 5, 2010, at 79.

Ernest J. Gaines

Born January 15, 1933 — died November 5, 2019

Novelist of ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ and ‘Miss Jane Pittman’

Ernest Gaines was born on the River Lake plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, and turned its people into the fictional Bayonne of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He received a MacArthur fellowship and the National Medal of Arts. He died in his sleep at his home in Oscar, Louisiana, on November 5, 2019, at 86.