Those We Lost — September 4

Honoring those we lost on September 4 — remembered for what they gave, and for what they left behind.

Buddy Young

Full name: Claude Henry Young Sr.

Born January 5, 1926 — died September 4, 1983

Football star and pioneering NFL executive.

At five-foot-four, Young was an All-American sprinter and halfback at Illinois and a Pro Bowl runner whose number was among the first retired for a Black player. In 1964 he became the NFL’s director of player relations — the first Black executive in a major league office — and died in a car accident returning from a former player’s funeral, serving the men of the game to his final day.

Fuquan Johnson

Born in 1978 — died September 4, 2021

Comedian and writer.

Johnson was a rising Los Angeles stand-up and television writer whose sharp, generous humor made him a fixture of the comedy scene. He died at forty-two after unknowingly ingesting fentanyl-laced cocaine at a gathering — a loss that put a comedian’s face on the poisoning epidemic devastating communities nationwide.