We are saddened to report the passing of Frank M. Snowden Jr., AHA member and authority of the lives of blacks in the ancient world, on February 18, 2007. Snowden was 95.

Dr. Snowden was distinguished professor of history emeritus at Howard University, where he taught for half a century. Snowden’s scholarship focused on Greek and Roman encounters with black Africans from the sixth to the third centuries BC. His works include Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (1970), The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (1976), and Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (1983). Snowden also served as the United States cultural attaché in Rome, the first African American to hold the position. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2003 by President George W. Bush.

A full In Memoriam essay for Snowden is being solicited for a future issue of Perspectives.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.