Those We Lost — October 2

Honoring those we lost on October 2 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

R. Nathaniel Dett

Born October 11, 1882 — died October 2, 1943

Composer, pianist, organist, choral director, and music professor

Born in Canada and raised in the United States from age eleven, Dett built choral and piano works on African American folk songs and spirituals and performed as a pianist at Carnegie Hall and Boston’s Symphony Hall. He was a leading Black composer of his time and among the first Black composers in ASCAP.

Hazel Scott

Born June 11, 1920 — died October 2, 1981

Pianist, singer, actor, television host, and civil-rights advocate

A classical and jazz virtuoso, Scott became a major nightclub and film performer and, in 1950, the first Black American woman to host her own television program. She challenged segregated venues and stereotyped screen roles, defended Black artists, and paid a professional price after confronting the House Un-American Activities Committee.

August Wilson

Born April 27, 1945 — died October 2, 2005

Playwright and poet

Wilson’s ten-play Century Cycle dramatized Black life across each decade of the twentieth century, especially through the people, language, memory, and social changes of Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Fences and The Piano Lesson won Pulitzer Prizes, and his body of work permanently expanded the American theatrical canon and opportunities for Black performers and directors.

Nipsey Russell

Born September 15, 1918 — died October 2, 2005

Comedian, actor, and television personality

Russell was a panelist on television game shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, including Match Game, Password, Hollywood Squares, To Tell the Truth, and Pyramid, and he played the Tin Man in the film The Wiz. The short humorous poems he recited on air earned him the nickname “the poet laureate of television.”

Tamara Dobson

Born May 14, 1947 — died October 2, 2006

Actress and fashion model

Dobson began as a fashion model in the late 1960s and became best known as government agent Cleopatra “Cleo” Jones in Cleopatra Jones (1973) and its 1975 sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold.

Bob Gibson

Born November 9, 1935 — died October 2, 2020

Baseball pitcher; Hall of Famer

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Gibson briefly played for the Harlem Globetrotters and then pitched his entire major-league career for the St. Louis Cardinals, from 1959 to 1975, with 251 wins, 3,117 strikeouts, and a 2.91 earned run average. A nine-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, he won two Cy Young Awards and the 1968 National League Most Valuable Player Award.