Those We Lost — October 11

Honoring those we lost on October 11 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

Redd Foxx

Born December 9, 1922 — died October 11, 1991

Stand-up comedian, recording artist, and actor

Foxx built a career on the Black nightclub circuit and through dozens of comedy records before reaching a national television audience as Fred Sanford on Sanford and Son. His adult comedy albums helped expand recorded stand-up, while his television work made a Black working-class household central to a major network sitcom.

Spottswood W. Robinson III

Born July 26, 1916 — died October 11, 1998

Civil rights lawyer; Howard University law dean; federal judge

Robinson served as Southeast regional counsel for the NAACP from 1951 to 1960 and made the first argument on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Virginia school case, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, one of the cases consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education. He was dean of Howard University School of Law from 1960 to 1963. President Johnson appointed him to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 1964 and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1966. He was the first African American to serve on the federal district court in Washington and the first to serve on the D.C. Circuit, where he was chief judge from 1981 to 1986.

Janet MacLachlan

Born August 27, 1933 — died October 11, 2010

Actress; Television Academy governor

MacLachlan, a Harlem-born Hunter College graduate, began her screen career in 1965 and is best remembered for her key supporting role as the young teacher Camille Johnson in the 1972 film Sounder. She appeared in more than 75 episodes of television series including I Spy, Star Trek, The Rockford Files, All in the Family, Archie Bunker’s Place, Cagney and Lacey and The Golden Girls. She won a Los Angeles-area Emmy Award for her performance in the 1981 production Voices of Our People and served as a governor of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ performers peer group.

Joe Morgan

Born September 19, 1943 — died October 11, 2020

Baseball second baseman; broadcaster; Hall of Famer

Morgan played 22 seasons through 1984 for the Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies and Oakland Athletics. As the sparkplug of Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine he won back-to-back National League Most Valuable Player awards in 1975 and 1976, the seasons the Reds won consecutive World Series, and he finished with 2,517 hits, 268 home runs and 689 stolen bases. He was a 10-time All-Star and won five Gold Gloves. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1990 and later introduced himself to a younger generation of fans as a sportscaster for ESPN.

Charles Sherrod

Born January 2, 1937 — died October 11, 2022

Minister, SNCC organizer, educator, farmer, and voting-rights activist

Sherrod was SNCC’s first full-time field secretary, directed organizing in southwest Georgia, helped sustain the Albany Movement, and later cofounded the agricultural community New Communities. He modeled long-term grassroots organizing rooted in local leadership, land, education, nonviolence, and Black political participation.

Rudolph Isley

Born April 1, 1939 — died October 11, 2023

Singer, songwriter; founding member of the Isley Brothers

Isley was singing with his brothers O’Kelly, Ronald and Vernon in the family band, the Isley Brothers, by the time he was a teenager. The group’s first mega-hit was Shout, followed by Twist and Shout, and It’s Your Thing earned the Isley Brothers their first Grammy in 1969. He left the group in 1989 to serve as a Christian minister, fulfilling a lifelong ambition. The Isley Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and Rudolph Isley entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2022.