John Gonzales died of natural causes on Wednesday, December 6, at his home in Dana Point, California. He was the founding president of the Los Angeles council of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and in the 1940s helped organize LULAC councils throughout California. Early in 1945, as the organization's vice president general, Gonzalez helped organize a class-action lawsuit against four Orange County school districts forcing Mexican children to attend schools separate from whites. The case was Mendez vs. Westminster School District of Orange County and it led to the end of segregation in California schools on April 14, 1947. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown vs. Board of Education decision declared the racial segregation of public schools in America unconstitutional. Gonzalez was 91.

Sources: mendezvwestminster.com, Yahoo! News, Lulac.org, brownvboard.org

Presbyterian minister Robert Bilheimer died Sunday, December 17, in Canandaigua, New York, from complications from a hip fracture and the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. As a student, he was inspired by the leader of the Student Christian Movement at Yale University, and went on to receive his master's degree from the divinity school in 1945. Bilheimer organized the first meeting of the World Council of Churches in 1948 in an effort to unite Christians of all different faiths. 340 churches from over 100 countries make up the council. He was also instrumental in organizing the second (1954) and third (1961) councils. In 1960, Bilheimer organized a mission for the council's South African members, which led to a proclamation rejecting all religious arguments supporting apartheid. In 1971, Bilheimer organized Christian and Jewish leaders in opposition to the war in Vietnam. He was executive director of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville, Minnesota, from 1974 until his retirement in 1984. He was 89.

Sources: wcc-coe.org, Associated Press, NYTimes.com, Yale.edu

Braguinha, who penned some of Brazil's most famous Carnival songs, died on Sunday, December 24, in Rio de Janeiro from multiple organ failure brought on by a generalized infection. Braguinha, whose full name was Carlos Alberto Ferreira Braga, was born on March 29, 1907, in Rio de Janeiro. While he was studying architecture, the young Braga began writing songs under the pseudonym "João de Barro," his father not wanting the family name associated with samba and popular music. In 1930, Braga, in partnership with Henrique Brito as Bando de Tangarás, scored his first big hit with "Na Pavuna." Braga was active during Carnival's golden era of the 1930s and '40s, singing and composing more than 500 songs, including "Yes, Nos Temos Bananas," "Copacabana," and "Carinhoso," one of the most recorded songs in Brazilian history. He was 99.

Sources: Associated Press, Wikipedia, ArtistDirect.com

Actor and writer Mike Evans died of throat cancer on December 14 in Twentynine Palms, California. Evans was born in Salisbury, North Carolina. His family moved to Los Angeles when Evans was a child and he studied acting at Los Angeles City College. In the early 1970s, Evans landed the role of Lionel Jefferson, the son of George and Louis Jefferson, who were Archie Bunker's neighbors on the comedy All in the Family. The Jeffersons were spun off into their own successful sitcom. During this same period Evans co-created with Eric Monte another popular sitcom, Good Times (1974-1979), featuring Jimmy "J.J." Walker and Esther Rolle in a family comedy set in the Chicago housing projects. Evans' work on Good Times prompted him to leave The Jeffersons, where he was replaced for four years by Damon Evans. Mike Evans returned to the role from 1979 to 1981. Evans also appeared in Love, American Style, The Streets of San Francisco, Rich Man, Poor Man, and Walker, Texas Ranger. He was 57.

Sources: Yahoo! News, IMDB

Herman Klurfeld died at his Boca Raton home of a heart arrhythmia on Monday, December 18. Klurfeld's talent for writing caught the attention of pioneering gossip columnist Walter Winchell at the New York Daily Mirror. From 1936 to 1965, Klurfeld wrote two to four of Winchell's columns a week and at one point wrote large segments of Winchell's Sunday evening broadcasts that were simulcast on radio and NBC's Blue Network (later ABC). He also wrote numerous books, including a memoir of Winchell that was turned into an HBO film. The New York Post revealed Klurfeld as Winchell's ghostwriter in 1952. James Klurfeld, vice president and editorial page editor of Newsday, said his father was most proud of the work he and Winchell did in the 1930s warning Americans of the rising threat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Klurfeld was 90.

Sources: Radio Hall of Fame, Associated Press, Wikipedia

Catherine Pollard, who became the Boy Scouts of America's first female U.S. scoutmaster, died Wednesday, December 13. Pollard oversaw a Boy Scout Troop in Milford, Connecticut, from 1973 to 1975 when no men volunteered. The Boy Scouts, however, denied her leadership application on the grounds that women were not good role models for young boys enrolled in scouting. Pollard received support from the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, but the state Supreme Court in 1987 upheld a lower-court ruling that boys need the guidance of men. In February 1988, the national organization did away with all gender restrictions and the 69-year-old Pollard became a scoutmaster in Milford. From the Associated Press, Pollard's statement praising the national leadership: "I do think that this is marvelous because there have been women all over the United States, in fact all over the world, that have been doing these things for the Boy Scouts because they could not get a male leader but we could not get recognition for the things we've done." Pollard was 88.

Sources: Associated Press, Boy Scouts of America

Paul Arizin, chosen one of the 50 greatest NBA players, died Tuesday, December 12, in his sleep. Arizin was cut from his high school basketball team, but found success at Villanova University where he was named The Sporting News College Player of the Year in 1950. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Warriors, and by his second year, led the league in scoring. Following two years serving in the Marines during the Korean War, Arizin returned to Philly and in 1956 led them to the NBA championship on the strength of his jump shot, a recent evolution in the game. Arizin retired a ten-time NBA All Star in 1962 at age 34 when the Warriors moved to San Francisco. In 1978 he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Arizin was 78.

Sources: HoopHall.com, Yahoo! News, NBA.com

Emmy-winning television writer Chris Hayward died of cancer Nov. 20 at his Beverly Hills home. Hayward moved to Los Angeles from Bayonne, New Jersey, at age 17 and took night classes to learn script writing. He went into television and in 1959 got a job writing for ABC's Rocky and Friends, featuring shorts starring Rocky and Bullwinkle, Sherman and Mr. Peabody, and Dudley Do-Right. The program moved to NBC in 1961 and was retitled The Bullwinkle Show. With writing partner Allan Burns, Hayward also created 1960s sitcoms The Munsters and My Mother the Car. Hayward won an Emmy for the short-lived CBS sitcom entitled He & She, and also wrote for Get Smart, Alice, and Barney Miller. He was 81.

Sources: IMDB, Associated Press, Don Markstein's Toonopedia

Welcome to those of you who have arrived at Corpus Obscurum via Yahoo's Pick of the Day for December 13, 2006. When famous celebrities, athletes, and politicians pass away, the remembrances are splashed across television screens, newspaper headlines, and in news and entertainment weeklies. But what about the first black Navy diver, the man who invented the blue screen, or the only American woman to participate in the Second Vatican Council? Corpus Obscurum (www.corpusobscurum.com) remembers those scientific researchers, songwriters, civil rights pioneers, character actors, war heroes, and other significant contributors to our culture who's faces and names never graced a magazine cover Thank you all for dropping by and thanks to Yahoo! for the nod.

Martin Nodell, the creator of comic book superhero Green Lantern, died of natural causes at a nursing home in Muskego, Wisconsin. Nodell was born in Philadelphia and attended art schools in Chicago and New York. A subway train operator swinging a lantern with a green light inspired the young Nodell, who envisioned a train crash survivor who discovers a green meteor embedded in an ancient lantern. The survivor, a young engineer named Alan Scott, fashions the lantern into a ring and in July 1940 Green Lantern appeared in the pages of All-American Publications, a precursor to DC Comics. Nodell drew the series until 1947. The original run of the character ended in 1949, but has been revived again and again. Green Lantern was also a charter member of the Justice Society of America. Nodell soon left the comics industry for an advertising career. Nodell was 91.

Sources: Associated Press, Don Markstein's Toonopedia, Wikipedia