Wardell Quezergue, American music arranger, producer and bandleader, died from heart failure he was 81.

Wardell Quezergue  was an American music arranger, producer and bandleader, known among New Orleans musicians as the “Creole Beethoven” died from heart failure he was 81..

(March 12, 1930 – September 6, 2011)

Wardell was born into a musical family with his father, Sidney Quezergue Sr., being a guitar player. Wardell was the second youngest of three brothers: Sidney Quezergue Jr., Leo Quezergue, and Arlen Quezergue. His oldest two brothers, Sidney (Trumpet) and Leo (Drums), were jazz musicians as well.

Career

After playing with Dave Bartholomew’s band from the late 1940s and serving as an army musician in Korea, he emerged as a bandleader in his own right in the mid-1950s with his Royal Dukes of Rhythm. He also worked as an arranger with the cream of New Orleans musicians, including Professor Longhair and Fats Domino.
In 1964, he formed Nola Records, and Robert Parker’s “Barefootin’” from the label reached number 2 on the R&B chart. Other artists on the label include Eddie Bo, Willie Tee and Smokey Johnson. Later, he recorded King Floyd’s “Groove Me” and Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff”. When major labels including Stax and Atlantic initially rejected them as uncommercial, Stax eventually released "Mr Big Stuff", and it became the biggest selling, most successful release on the Stax label (currently over 3 million copies), outselling Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and the other Stax acts. "Groove Me" was released on the Chimneyville label, a huge hit (King Floyd's biggest), and was covered by artists as diverse as Etta James and Tom Petty. Quezergue was also the keyboardist on both hits. Quezergue arranged and produced Dorothy Moore's "Misty Blue", which "crossed over" and also became the label's (Malaco) biggest seller.
At the same time, Wardell was charting, at Berry Gordy's request, stage arrangement for Stevie Wonder and other Motown acts.
As a result of these successes, Quezergue’s skills as an arranger, and Malaco’s studios, became in demand in the 1970s, and were used by artists as diverse as Paul Simon, Willie Nelson and B. B. King. He also worked with G.C. Cameron, former lead singer of The Spinners ("It's A Shame") and The Temptations, the Pointer Sisters, and many more.
Quezergue also produced and arranged the Grammy Award-winning Dr. John album Goin' Back to New Orleans in 1992. Already an award winning classical composer and conductor, in 2000 he created an extended composition entitled "A Creole Mass", drawing on his experiences in the Korean War.^[3]
In 2005, Wardell was awarded "Best Produced CD of the Year"(by the NY Blues and Jazz society) for his first sessions with singer-songwriter Will Porter. Also a Blues Foundation nominee, the sessions featured Billy Preston, Leo Nocentelli, The Louisiana Philharmonic Strings, and Nola's best musicians. The CD was awarded 4 stars by AMG, and received what Quezergue called "the best reviews of my career".
In 2005, by now legally blind, he lost most of his belongings as a result of Hurricane Katrina.^[4] The following year, benefit concerts were held in his behalf, led by Dr. John, with support from other leading musicians, including REM’s Mike Mills.^[5]
In May 2009, Wardell Quezergue received an honorary doctorate from Loyola University New Orleans for his selfless dedication to enhancing the careers of others, while remaining in the background; for his dedication to teaching others, especially the young aspiring musicians of the city, leading many great New Orleans musicians to refer to him as "my teacher;" and for his contributions to the sounds of the city, particularly the driving horn sounds of the 60s and 70s, for which New Orleans music became known.
On July 19, 2009, a tribute was mounted to Wardell Quezergue at the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. By all standards, the show was a triumph, its concept begat from Dr. Ike and the Ponderosa Stomp crew. A nine-piece band was assembled and imported from New Orleans to back up singers like Dr. John, Robert Parker, Jean Knight, and The Dixie Cups, just to name a few. Veteran writer/arranger/bandleader/producer Quezergue showed everyone that he still has it, as he conducted the whole concert.
In 2011 Quezergue finished work on what he called his "two most important works"; his classical religious work "The Passion" and the sophomore recording for Will Porter. On August 25, 2011, Quezergue approved final mixes of 15 tracks of the Will Porter project, featuring duets with Dr. John, Bettye Lavette, Barbara Lewis, jazz bassist Jimmy Haslip, Leo Nocentelli (all multiple Grammy nominees/awardees,) with, once again, the best of New Orleans, including the 12 last recordings of the late drummer Bunchy Johnson, and the Louisiana Philharmonic Strings. His next planned project, a duet CD with Will Porter and Dr John will continue without him, as he died September 6, 2011, age 81.


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Angioletta Coradini, Italian astrophysicist, died from cancer she was 65.

Dr. Angioletta Coradini  was an Italian astrophysicist, planetary scientist and one of the most important figures in the space sciences in Italy died from cancer she was 65. .
(1 July 1946- died 5 September 2011)

Biography

In 1970 she completed a Masters degree in Physics at the University of Rome, the city where she would do her research over her entire career—at first at the university, then from 1975 at the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), and finally at the National Astrophysics Institute of Italy (INAF). Her early geological research conducted in the Gulf of Cagliari earned her notable international recognition, so much so that her “Department of Planetology” at CNR was one of the early groups to be entrusted by NASA with the analysis of lunar samples brought back to the Earth by the Apollo Program. From 2001-10, Dr. Coradini served as director of the Institute for the Physics of Interplanetary Space of INAF. She was awarded the David Bates Medal of the European Geophysical Union in 2007.^[2] In 2010 NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory named her one of its Distinguished Visiting Scientists.

Participation in international scientific projects

• Co—investigator for NASA lunar and planetary research (1970–74);
• Member of the Joint Working Group (JWG) between the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Science Foundation (1983);
• NATO contractor for collaboration between Institute for Space Astrophysics (IAS) and UCLA (1984–87);
• Member of Solar System Working Group (SSWG) of ESA (1985–88);
• Member of the Phase A Assessment team for ESA Rosetta, third cornerstone (1985–93);
• PI for campaign of telemonitoring of active volcanic zones, organized jointly between CNR and NASA/JPL (1986);
• Member of the Science Team for data analysis of the ISM Sensor for the Soviet Phobos mission (1990–93);
• Member of the Italian Team for the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) and Omega Vnir spectrometer for the Soviet Mars 94/96 mission (1989–96);
• Member of the Science Team for the CIRS and VIMS instruments, and PI of the VIMS visible channel, Cassini-Huygens mission (1991–2011)
• Coordinator of the Moon Orbiting Observatory (MORO) proposal and member of the MORO science team (1993–96);
• Member of the Observing Time Allocation Committee (OTAC) for the ESA Infrared Observatory (ISO) mission (1994–96);
• Member of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) observing Program Committee, Panel F (1997–99);
• PI of the VIRTIS instrument for the ESA Rosetta mission (1996–2011);
• PI of the Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies (Ma-Miss) (1999–2011);
• Member of the Scientific Council of the Finnish Academy of Space Studies “Antares” (1999–2004);
• Member of the Scientific Council of the International Institute of Space Studies (ISSI), headquartered in Bern (1999–2002);
• Member of the ESA Science Program Committee (SPC) in the role of consultant for planetary science from the Italian delegation;
• Member of the High Scientific Committee of the Paris Observatory;
• PI of the VIR instrument for the NASA Dawn Discovery mission (2001–11);
• PI of the Jiram Instrument for the NASA New Frontiers Juno mission (2005–11);
• Member of the Space Advisory Group (SAG) of the European Community (2008–11);
• Past member, European Space Science Committee (ESSC);
• Past Secretary Division III, Commission 16 of the International Astronomical Union

Awards and Recognition

• David Bates Medal (2007) “In recognition of her important and wide ranging work in planetary sciences and Solar System formation, and her leading role in the development of space infrared instrumentation for planetary exploration”^[2]
• Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science
• Asteroid 4598 Coradini, shared with brother Marcello, for contributions given to the development of planetary science.
• Elected member, International Academy of Astronautics, in 2009.

Death

Dr. Coradini died in 2011, aged 65, after a year-long battle with cancer.


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Charles S. Dubin, American film and television director (Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, M*A*S*H), died from natural causes he was 92.

Charles Samuel Dubin was an American film and television director.
From the early 1950s to 1991, Dubin worked in television, directing episodes of Tales of Tomorrow, Omnibus, The Defenders, The Big Valley, The Virginian, Hawaii Five-O, M*A*S*H, Matlock, The Rockford Files, Murder, She Wrote and among other notable series died from natural causes he was 92. .

(February 1, 1919 – September 5, 2011) 

Life and career

Dubin was born Charles Samuel Dubronevski^[2] in Brooklyn, New

From left, Charles S. Dubin with Mike Farrell, Alan Alda, Loretta Swit and David Ogden Stiers on the set of “M*A*S*H".

York, to a Russian family.^[3] He attended Samuel J. Tilden High School, and first became interested in the arts by wanting to pursue a career as an opera singer. After graduating from high school, he attended Brooklyn College, studying drama, and acted in a number of stage productions, before graduating in 1941.^[4] He then attended Neighborhood Playhouse in Manhattan studying stage managing and directing. He continued to act and sing in stage productions working as an understudy.^[4]
In 1950, he was hired by ABC, as an associate director and, within a few months, was soon promoted to head director, later going on to direct a number of notable series spanning 30 years. In 1958, Dubin was named in the Hollywood blacklist. He refused to testify and he was never cited for contempt.^[4]
He directed more episodes of the popular 1970s television comedy M*A*S*H than anyone else.^[5]
Dubin retired in 1991 at the age of 70, after 39 years in television and 48 years in entertainment. His last television directing credit was the series Father Dowling Mysteries starring Tom Bosley.^[4]

Marriage

He was married to Daphne Elliott until their divorce in 1975. Later he married author and filmmaker Mary Lou Chayes ^[6], with whom he had a daughter, and who survives him.^[4]

Death

On September 5, 2011, Dubin died of natural causes, he was 92 years old.^[7]


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Salvatore Licitra, Italian tenor, died from injuries from a motor scooter accident he was 43.

Salvatore Licitra  was an Italian operatic tenor died from injuries from a motor scooter accident he was 43..

(10 August 1968 – 5 September 2011)

Early life and debuts

Born in Bern, Switzerland, to Sicilian parents, Licitra grew up in Milan. He fell into opera by accident. As many tenors before him, he was not altogether confident about his vocal capabilities and started working as a graphic artist for Italian Vogue. At the age of 19 he began attending singing classes on a regular basis and enrolled at the Music Academy of Parma and the Corsi Verdiani. After 8 years of studies, initially as a choir vocalist, he left his voice teacher and enrolled at Carlo Bergonzi's voice academy in Busseto.
He debuted in Un ballo in maschera in Parma in 1998, in a performance for Bergonzi's students. His success led to a contract as cover in Ballo, Rigoletto and Aida in Verona, and he ended up singing them all. Buoyed by positive audience reception, he auditioned for Riccardo Muti at La Scala, who hired the young tenor for Alvaro in a new production of La forza del destino.^{[citation needed]}

At La Scala and other houses

In March 1999, he debuted at La Scala under Riccardo Muti in La forza del destino as Alvaro, then sang in Tosca and Madama Butterfly at the Arena di Verona in June and July, then Tosca at La Scala in March 2000, again with Muti. The performance was recorded and released on Sony Classical. In May he debuted in Madrid in La forza del destino, and in Verona, he was awarded the Premio Zenatello as tenor of the year, and sang in La forza del destino at the Arena in July. In September he traveled to Japan with the La Scala ensemble for performances of Forza. Milan honoured him with the Honorary Citizenship Medal, and Sony offered him an exclusive recording contract.
A controversial performance of Il trovatore, recorded and issued by Sony, opened the 2000/2001 season at La Scala and the centennial of Verdi's death, the Anno Verdi. The opera had not been performed at La Scala in 22 years and Muti, who was the conductor and who had personally hand-picked Licitra for the role of Manrico, forbade his tenor to sing the traditional, interpolated high C of the 3rd act cabaletta "Di quella pira". There was an uproar in the audience, who booed the maestro's decision. Six months later Licitra sang the part again in Verona to great acclaim. Prior to Il trovatore in Verona, he had performed in Un ballo in maschera at La Scala under Muti, then repeated the success in Rome in December. In November he made his American debut as a guest soloist at the 26th annual Richard Tucker Music Foundation Opera Gala in New York. In December he left for Vienna and the Wiener Staatsoper to sing in Tosca, then Manrico in Il trovatore at the Sao Carlos in Lisbon in January 2002 and Alvaro (Forza) in Turin in February.^{[citation needed]}

The Met and beyond

The Metropolitan Opera followed unexpectedly on 12 May 2002 when he appeared in Tosca, substituting for Luciano Pavarotti, then 66, who had cancelled the performance two hours before curtain time. Licitra, who was not scheduled to debut there until 2004, was flown in by the Met as a back-up singer and eventually received a 43-second ovation at the conclusion of "Recondita armonia" and a 46-second ovation at the conclusion of "E lucevan le stelle". In the short time since his debut in 1998, Licitra was dubbed the New Pavarotti, a tenor "worthy of the great Italian tradition". The New York Times reported after his American debut with the Richard Tucker Gala: "... an Italian tenor with a deep baritonal lower range, a brighter upper register, and strong secure high notes [...] in true Italian tenor tradition [...] If he can withstand the inevitable "fourth tenor" hype, he could be one to watch". He subsequently added the title roles in Andrea Chénier, Ernani, Don Carlos, Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana, Canio in Pagliacci, and Luigi in Il tabarro, to his repertoire.^{[citation needed]}
Licitra's final public appearance was a concert performance of Puccini's Tosca with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival on July 30, 2011. James Conlon conducted, and the cast included Patricia Racette and Bryn Terfel.^[2]

Death

On 27 August 2011, Licitra sustained severe head and chest injuries when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while riding his motor scooter and crashed into a wall in Donnalucata, Scicli, Ragusa Province, Sicily. He remained in a coma for nine days in the Garibaldi Hospital in Catania and was pronounced dead on 5 September 2011. His body was taken to lie in state in Catania's opera house, the Teatro Massimo Bellini.
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Vann Nath, Cambodian painter, died he was 66.

Vann Nath  was a Cambodian painter, artist, writer and human rights activist who was one of a diverse group of writers from 22 countries to receive the prestigious Lillian Hellman/Hammett Award which recognizes courage in the face of political persecution which he faced during the Khmer Rouge died he was 66.. He was the eighth Cambodian to win the award since 1995.

(1946 – September 5, 2011)

Biography

Vann Nath was born in Phum Sophy village, Srok Battambang district, Battambang Province in northwestern Cambodia. The exact date and year of his birth was unknown, but it was common for poor Cambodians born in rural areas not to have a proper birth certificate. He was educated at Wat Sopee pagoda as a child. His parents were separated, and he had two brothers and an older sister. They earned a living by selling a type of Khmer white noodles called 'num banhchok'. They were so poor that Nath had no chance to get a proper education. By the time he was 14 or 15, he was working at factory jobs for 500-600 riel a month (less than 25 cents).
Nath became interested in painting while he was studying at Wat Sopee pagoda. "I became very attracted to painting when I went into the pagoda and I saw people painting a picture on the side of the wall of a temple." Instead of pursuing painting, he served as a monk from the age of 17 to 21. "Every family has a son...one of the sons must go and serve as a monk — it is considered bad for the Cambodian family to not have a son who is a monk", says Vann Nath.
When his sister died, Vann Nath left the monkhood to start working to help support the family. He enrolled in a private painting school in 1965. "School was far from my house, and I couldn't afford a bicycle. Because our family life was hard, only my mother was working to support the whole family and she became older and older and I had to pay the tuition for the painting school." Later, the school allowed Vann Nath to work there in exchange for the tuition fee. After two years, he was able to profit from his own painting work.

Living Under Khmer Rouge Regime

At the time of his arrest on January 7, 1978, Vann Nath was working in a rice field in his home province of Battambang like many other Battambang locals. The Khmer Rouge took him to Wat Kandal, a Buddhist temple used as a detainment center. They told him that he was accused of violating the moral code of the organization of Communist Party of Kampuchea|Angkar. He did not understand what that meant.
Subsequently, he was transferred and deported to a security prison in Phnom Penh. This security prison is known as S-21 by the Khmer Rouge and it was formerly a high school known as Tuol Sleng high school. There, people are interrogated and executed on a daily basis. Towards the fall of the Khmer Rouge and the invasion of the Vietnamese army in 1979, only seven prisoners made out of the prison alive. Vann Nath was one of them.

Career

Vann Nath was a painter and writer whose memoirs and paintings of his experiences in the infamous Tuol Sleng prison are a powerful and poignant testimony to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.
Vann Nath was an outspoken advocate for justice for victims of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and this is reflected in his writing. His 1998 memoir A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge's S-21 Prison, about his experiences at S-21 is the only written account by a survivor of the prison. It has been translated from English into French and Swedish.
Vann Nath was one of Cambodia's most prominent artists. His life was only spared by his captor, Comrade Duch, so that he could be put to work on painting and sculpting portraits of Pol Pot.^[3] He played an important role in helping to revive the arts in Cambodia after decades of war and genocide.
During 2001 and 2002, Vann Nath worked intensively with Cambodian film director Rithy Panh in the preparation of a documentary film entitled S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine.^[4] Vann Nath was interviewed in the film, in which Panh brought together former prisoners and guards of the former Tuol Sleng prison. Vann Nath confronted and questioned his former torturers in the documentary film. To recognize their work, both, Vann Nath and Rithy Panh have been conferred the title of Dr. honoris causa by the University of Paris VIII on May 24, 2011.

Illness

Despite battling long-standing health problems, including chronic kidney disease, Vann Nath continued to paint and write about his experiences under the Pol Pot regime. He suffered from heart attack and went into a coma. He died on 5 September 2011 at the Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh.^[1] He was approximately 66 years old.


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John Alderson, British police officer and media commentator, Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Constabulary (1973–1982), died he was 89.

John Cottingham Alderson CBE QPM was a senior British police officer and expert on police and penal affairs.

(28 May 1922 – 7 October 2011) 

Alderson was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, and educated at Barnsley Technical College. In 1938 he enlisted in the Highland Light Infantry as a boy soldier and reached the rank of Corporal before transferring to the Army Physical Training Corps in 1941. He served with the APTC in North Africa and Italy and left the Army in 1946 with the rank of Warrant Officer Class II.
He then joined the West Riding Constabulary as a Constable, representing the force in boxing and rugby. He attended the National Police College in 1954 and was promoted Inspector in 1955 (after the statutory minimum nine years' service) and Superintendent in 1960. In 1956 he was a British Memorial Foundation Fellow in Australia and that year he was also called to the bar by the Middle Temple. He attended the Senior Command Course at the Police College in 1963–1964 and was then appointed Deputy Chief Constable of Dorset.
In 1966, he transferred to the Metropolitan Police in London as Deputy Commander (Administration and Operations) and in 1967 became second-in-command of No.3 District (North-East London). In 1968 he became Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Training) and in 1970 was seconded as Commandant of the National Police College. In 1973 he returned to London as Assistant Commissioner "D" (Personnel and Training),^[1] but remained in the post less than a year before being appointed Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall in November 1973,^[2] where he remained until his retirement in May 1982. While Chief Constable he acquired a reputation for radical ideas which were not always popular with other senior police officers, who regarded him as "soft", and was also a champion of community policing.^[3]
He was awarded the Queen's Police Medal (QPM) in 1974 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1981.
He became a Fellow Commoner of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and a fellow of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology in 1982 and was also Gwilym Gibbon Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford from 1982 to 1983. He was Visiting Professor of Police Studies at the University of Strathclyde from 1983 to 1989 and a research fellow at the Institute of Police and Criminological Studies at the University of Portsmouth from 1994 to 2000. He returned to Australia in 1987 as Australian Commonwealth Fellow with the Australian Government. He often commentated on police matters in the media.
Alderson was a member of the Liberal Party and unsuccessfully contested the Devon parliamentary seat of Teignbridge in 1983. He served as a consultant on human rights to the Council of Europe from 1981 and was a member of the BBC General Advisory Council from 1971 to 1978. He also served on the committee of the Royal Humane Society from 1973 to 1981 and was president of the Royal Life-Saving Society from 1974 to 1978.
Alderson married Irené Macmillan Stirling in 1948; they had one son.
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Derrick Bell, American law professor (Harvard University), originated critical race theory, died from carcinoid cancer he was 80.

Derrick Albert Bell, Jr. ^[2] was the first tenured African-American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory. He was a Visiting Professor at New York University School of Law^[3] from 1991 until his death.^[4] He was also a former Dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.^[5]

(November 6, 1930 – October 5, 2011)

Education and early career

Born in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Bell received an A.B. from Duquesne University in 1952. He was a member of the Duquesne Reserve Officers' Training Corps and later served as an Air Force officer for two years (stationed in Korea for one of those years).^[2] In 1957 he received an LL.B. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. After graduation, and after a recommendation from then United States Associate Attorney General William P. Rogers, Bell took a position with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. He was one of the few black lawyers working for the Justice Department at the time. In 1959, the government asked him to resign his membership in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because it was thought that his objectivity, and that of the department, might be compromised or called into question. Bell resigned rather than giving up his NAACP membership.^[6]
Soon afterwards, Bell took a position as an assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), crafting legal strategies at the forefront of the battle to undo racist laws and segregation in schools. At the LDF, he worked alongside other prominent civil rights attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall, Robert L. Carter and Constance Baker Motley. Bell was assigned to Mississippi. While working at the LDF, Bell supervised more than 300 school desegregation cases and spearheaded the fight of James Meredith to secure admission to the University of Mississippi over the protests of Governor Ross Barnett. ^[7]

"I learned a lot about evasiveness, and how racists could use a system to forestall equality," Bell was quoted as saying in The Boston Globe ... "I also learned a lot riding those dusty roads and walking into those sullen hostile courts in Jackson, Mississippi. It just seems that unless something's pushed, unless you litigate, nothing happens."^[8]

In the mid-1960s Bell was appointed to the law faculty of the University of Southern California as executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Academic career

Harvard Law School

In 1969, with the help of protests from black Harvard Law School students for a minority faculty member, Bell was hired to teach there. At Harvard, Bell established a new course in civil rights law, published a celebrated case book, Race, Racism and American Law, and produced a steady stream of law review articles. But Bell, who became the first black tenured professor in Harvard Law School's history in 1971, polarized others with his accusations of racism, which some saw as principles and others as too quick to accuse others of bigotry.^[8]

Protests over faculty diversity

In 1980, he started a five year tenure as dean of the University of Oregon School of Law, interrupted by his resignation after an Asian-American woman he had chosen to join the faculty was refused by the university. ^[2][9]
Returning to Harvard in 1986, after a year-long stint at Stanford University, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office to protest the school's failure to grant tenure to two professors on staff, both of whose work promoted critical race theory. ^[2] The sit-in was widely supported by students, but divided the faculty, as Harvard administrators claimed the professors were denied tenure for substandard scholarship and teaching.^[8]
In 1990, Harvard had 60 tenured professors. Three of these were black men, and five of them were women, but there were no black women among them, a dearth Bell decided to protest with an unpaid leave of absence.^[10].^[8] Students supported the move which critics found "counterproductive", while Harvard administrators cited a lack of qualified candidates, defending that they had taken great strides in the previous decade to bring women and black people onto the faculty.^[8] The story of his protest is detailed in his book Confronting Authority.
Bell's protest at Harvard stirred angry criticism by opposing Harvard Law faculty who called him "a media manipulator who unfairly attacked the school", noting that other people had accused him of "depriv[ing] students of an education while he makes money on the lecture circuit".^[11]
Bell took his leave of absence and accepted a visiting professorship at NYU Law starting in 1991. After two years, Harvard had still not hired any minority women, and Bell requested an extension of his leave which the school refused, thereby ending his tenure.^[2] It took until 1998 for Harvard Law to hire civil rights attorney and U.S. Assistant Attorney General nominee, Lani Guinier, who became the law school's first female African-American tenured professor.^[2][12]
In March 2012, five months after his death, Bell became the target of conservative media, including Breitbart.com and Sean Hannity, in an attack against President Barack Obama. The controversy focused on a 1991 video of Obama introducing Bell at a protest by Harvard Law School students over the lack of diversity in the school's faculty. Bell's widow stated that Bell and Obama had "very little contact" after Obama's law school graduation. She said that as far as she remembers, "He never had contact with the president as president".^[13]

NYU School of Law

Bell's visiting professorship at New York University began in 1991. After his two year leave of absence, his position at Harvard ended and he remained at NYU where he continued to write and lecture on issues of race and civil rights.

Scholarship

Bell is arguably the most influential source of thought critical of traditional civil rights discourse. Bell’s critique represented a challenge to the dominant liberal and conservative position on civil rights, race and the law. He employed three major arguments in his analyses of racial patterns in American law: constitutional contradiction, the interest convergence principle, and the price of racial remedies. His book Race, Racism and American Law, now in its sixth edition, has been continually in print since 1973 and is considered a classic in the field.
Bell continued writing about critical race theory after accepting a teaching position at Harvard University. Much of his legal scholarship was influenced by his experience both as a black man and as a civil rights attorney. Writing in a narrative style, Bell contributed to the intellectual discussions on race. According to Bell, his purpose in writing was to examine the racial issues within the context of their economic and social and political dimensions from a legal standpoint.
For instance, in The Constitutional Contradiction, Bell argued that the framers of the Constitution chose the rewards of property over justice. With regard to the interest convergence, he maintains that "whites will promote racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest." Finally, in The Price of Racial Remedies, Bell argues that whites will not support civil rights policies that may threaten white social status. Similar themes can be found in another well-known piece entitled, Who's Afraid of Critical Race Theory?^[14]
His 2002 book, Ethical Ambition, encourages a life of ethical behavior, including "a good job well done, giving credit to others, standing up for what you believe in, voluntarily returning lost valuables, choosing what feels right over what might feel good right now".^[15]

Science fiction

Bell also wrote science fiction short stories, including "The Space Traders", a story in which white Americans trade black Americans to space aliens in order to pay off the national debt and receive advanced technology. The story was adapted for television in 1994 by director Reginald Hudlin and writer Trey Ellis. It aired on HBO as the leading segment of a three-part anthology entitled Cosmic Slop, which focused on minority-centric Science Fiction.^[16]

Death

On October 5, 2011, Bell died from carcinoid cancer at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, at the age of 80. "^{[2][17][18][19]} At the time, the Associated Press reported: "The dean at NYU, Richard Revesz, said, 'For more than 20 years, the law school community has been profoundly shaped by Derrick's unwavering passion for civil rights and community justice, and his leadership as a scholar, teacher, and activist.'"^[20]

Selected bibliography

• Race, Racism and American Law (1973, Little Brown & Co.; 6th ed., 2008)
• Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (Oxford University Press, 2004)
• Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth (Bloomsbury, 2002)
• Afrolantica Legacies (Third World Press, 1998)
• Constitutional Conflicts (Anderson Press, 1997)
• Confronting Authority: Reflections of an Ardent Protestor (Beacon Press, 1994)
• Gospel Choirs (1996)
• Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (1992)
• And We Are Not Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice (1987)

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