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Letter to the editor

Obituaries

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 15, 2007

Charles Tisdale, 80, who fought for civil rights as owner and publisher of Mississippi's oldest black-owned newspaper, died July 7 in Jackson, Miss. Mr. Tisdale purchased the Jackson Advocate, an innocuous, nearly defunct weekly newspaper, in 1978 and transformed it into a strident voice for blacks and poor whites in Mississippi. The newspaper's office was firebombed at least twice.

Robert Simone, 73, one of Philadelphia's top defense attorneys for 40 years, died Tuesday. Mr. Simone defended clients from the glamorous to the infamous, including crime boss Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo in numerous federal and city cases - developing a friendship close enough that he appeared on FBI surveillance photos at Scarfo's home and on his yacht, Usual Suspects, in Florida in the early 1980s.

Alfonso Lopez Michelsen, 94, whose Colombian presidency in the 1970s was marked by turbulence and who dedicated his final years to advocating for an agreement to free Colombia's hostages, died Wednesday. The son of a president, Mr. Lopez Michelsen abandoned his career as a lawyer to enter politics, eventually winning the presidency in 1974 as the centrist Liberal Party candidate. He led Colombia through turbulent times - a national strike and rioting in Bogota - and left office with little popular support.

Corbin Harney, 87, a spiritual leader of the Western Shoshone who challenged the federal government - and once his own tribe - to oppose nuclear weapons on American Indian land, died Tuesday near Santa Rosa, Calif., where he had hoped to finish a book, according to his family. Mr. Harney was a fixture at antinuclear rallies.

Vivienne Nearing, 81, a lawyer who was one of the contestants embroiled in the quiz show scandal of the late 1950s, died July 4 in East Hampton, N.Y. She made headlines in 1957 when she dethroned Charles Van Doren as champion on Twenty-One, a popular quiz show on NBC. She won $5,500 in four appearances before she was defeated. Fourteen contestants, including her, were charged in 1960 with second-degree perjury after falsely telling a grand jury that they had not been fed answers. She pleaded guilty and was disbarred for six months.

[Last modified July 15, 2007, 00:30:33]