Those We Lost — November 3

Honoring those we lost on November 3 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

Paul Jones

Birth date unknown — died November 3, 1919

Lynching victim of the Red Summer of 1919

Early on Monday, November 3, 1919, a white mob near Macon, Georgia, took Paul Jones from the sheriff and his deputies after a white woman accused him of attacking her the afternoon before. They shot him and burned his body; some accounts say he was still alive. The NAACP counted his killing among the lynchings of 1919, the year of the Red Summer.

July Perry

Birth date unknown — died November 3, 1920

Ocoee landowner lynched for defending Black voting

July Perry was a Black landowner and labor broker in Ocoee, Florida. On Election Day, November 2, 1920, after his friend Mose Norman tried to vote, a white mob came to Perry’s home; he was badly wounded in the gunfight and jailed in Orlando. Early on November 3 a mob took him from his cell, hanged him and shot his body. The mob burned Ocoee’s Black community and drove its Black residents out of town.

Amede Ardoin

Born March 11, 1898 — died November 3, 1942

Creole accordionist who shaped Cajun and zydeco music

Amede Ardoin, a Black Creole accordionist from near Eunice, Louisiana, first recorded in 1929 with the white fiddler Dennis McGee and became one of south Louisiana’s first great recording artists; his songs helped shape both Cajun and zydeco music. Around 1939 white men beat him after a white woman wiped his face with her handkerchief at a dance, and he never recovered. He died in the state mental hospital at Pineville on November 3, 1942, and was buried in an unmarked common grave.

William Leo Hansberry

Born February 25, 1894 — died November 3, 1965

Howard historian who founded African studies in America

William Leo Hansberry taught pioneering courses on ancient African civilizations at Howard University beginning in 1922 and spent nearly four decades building the field of African history against skepticism from white scholars. His students included Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president, and the University of Nigeria named its College of African Studies for him. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Chicago on November 3, 1965; he was the uncle of playwright Lorraine Hansberry.

Sandi Smith

Born December 25, 1950 — died November 3, 1979

Textile union organizer killed in the Greensboro massacre

Sandi Smith, a former Bennett College student body president and a founder of the Student Organization for Black Unity, was leading a union drive at Cone Mills’ Revolution plant in Greensboro. On November 3, 1979, Klansmen and American Nazis drove into an anti-Klan march in Greensboro and opened fire, killing her and four others. Two all-white juries acquitted the gunmen; a 1985 civil jury found police and Klan members liable for one death.

Lois Curtis

Born July 14, 1967 — died November 3, 2022

Lead plaintiff in Olmstead v. L.C., the disability rights landmark

Lois Curtis, a Black woman with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities, was in and out of Georgia institutions from age 11 and repeatedly asked to go home. Her lawsuit became Olmstead v. L.C., the 1999 Supreme Court ruling that needless institutionalization is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She later lived in the community as a working artist and died of pancreatic cancer at her home in Clarkston, outside Atlanta, on November 3, 2022, at 55.

Quincy Jones

Born March 14, 1933 — died November 3, 2024

Producer, composer and arranger; 28 Grammys; ‘Thriller’

Quincy Jones arranged for Count Basie and Frank Sinatra, scored dozens of films, produced Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad, and organized ‘We Are the World’. He won 28 Grammys, became a vice president at Mercury Records, one of the first Black executives at a major label, and founded Vibe magazine. He died at his Bel Air home on November 3, 2024, at 91; his death certificate listed pancreatic cancer.