15 Famous Black People Who Passed Away in 2014

Jimmy Ruffin The voice behind "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted" died in Las Vegas on Nov. 17 at the age of 78. Older brother to Temptations member David Ruffin, Jimmy Ruffin had a 50-year performance career and was with Motown Records during its peak in the 1960s. Marion Berry The civil rights activist and former mayor of Washington, D.C., passed away Nov. 23 at the age of 78. Maya Angelou The world renowned author and poet died on May 28 at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C. The 86-year-old had been a professor of American studies at Wake Forest University since 1982. Her 1969 memoir, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. Henry Jackson (center) Henry 'Big Bank Hank' Jackson One of the founders of the Sugarhill Gang, Jackson died at the age of 57 on Nov. 11 from kidney complications resulting from cancer. Juanita Moore The former actress was 99 years old when she passed on Jan. 1 at her home. Moore received a best supporting actress Academy Award nomination for her role in the 1959 film Imitation of Life, in which she played opposite Lana Turner in a story about two single mothers, one Black and one white. It was only the fifth time an African-American performer had been nominated for an Oscar, according to The New York Times. Comer Cottrell The Black hair care entrepreneur, who brought the Curly Kit into the homes of Blacks trying to get a Jheri curl, died Oct. 3 at the age of 82. Geoffrey Holder The Tony Award winner was 84 when he died of pneumonia Oct. 5. The Trinidadian-American actor won his Tony Awards for direction and design of the costumes in the all-Black performance of the Wizard of Oz. Wayne Pharr The former Black Panther, who fought the Los Angeles Police in a historic gun battle in 1969, passed away Sept. 6 at age 64. Alice Coachman Davis The first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal died July 14 in south Georgia at the age of 90. Davis won Olympic gold in the high jump at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. Bobby Womack Womack's career spanned seven decades and included the 1980s hit "If You Think You're Lonely Now." Womack began his career in the early 1960s as the lead singer of his family musical group The Valentinos. He died June 17 at the age of 70. Tony Gwynn The Hall of Fame first baseman and one of the greatest hitters Major League Baseball has ever seen died at the age of 54 from oral cancer. "Mr. Padre" passed away on June 6. Ruby Dee The acclaimed actress and civil rights activist, whose versatile career spanned stage, radio, television and film, died at age 91 on June 11. Dee died of natural causes at her home in New Rochelle, N.Y. Lee Chamberlain The Electric Company star died of metastatic cancer at the age of 76. The actress, who lived in Paris, passed away on May 25 in Chapel Hill, N.C., while visiting her son, Matthew. Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter The middleweight title contender, whose murder convictions became an international symbol of racial injustice and inspired a Bob Dylan song and a Hollywood film, died April 20. He was 76. Carter, who had suffered from prostate cancer, died in his sleep at his home in Toronto. Amiri Baraka "The poet and playwright of pulsating rage, whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others," according to The New York Times, died on Jan. 9 in Newark, N.J. He was 79.

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