19
DIED
Former South Korean
President Roh
Tae-woo, who ruled
the country from
1988 to 1993, at 88
on Oct. 26.
> Mort Sahl (right),
stand-up comedian
and satirist, at 94 on
Oct. 26.
ELECTED
Sandra Mason as
the first President
of Barbados—who
in November will
replace Queen
Elizabeth II as the
country’s head of
state—on Oct. 20,
in a break from the
island’s colonial past.
DETECTED
A potential
exoplanet 28 million
light-years away
in the Whirlpool
Galaxy—the first
identified outside
our galaxy, the Milky
Way—according to
an Oct. 25 NASA
press release.
KIDNAPPED
A group of 17
missionaries and
family members
in Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, on Oct. 16.
The gang believed
to be responsible
has asked for a
$17 million ransom
payment.
FILED
A lawsuit on
Oct. 19 by a woman
seeking $5 million
from cereal brand
Kellogg’s for
allegedly misleading
customers over how
much strawberry its
strawberry Pop-Tarts
actually contain.
Pinkney at work in his home studio on Aug. 6, 2001
DIED
Jerry Pinkney
Brought Black
beauty to life
By Jason Reynolds
Children’s-book illustrator
Jerry Pinkney, who died on Oct. 20
at the age of 81, was a cultural
touchstone. Whether with tales
of the Rev. Martin Luther King
or Black cowboys, I don’t know if
anyone has accomplished bringing
Black history and culture—and
Black beauty—to life through
illustrations with the consistency
and vigor that Pinkney did, and
for as long he did.
Among his most stunning
works was The Lion & the Mouse,
an adaptation of the classic Aesop
fable, which in 2010 won the Ran-
dolph Caldecott Medal for out-
standing illustration.
Pinkney’s work always had
a certain kind of whimsy to me,
which is so rare when it comes
to the representation of Black
people. I think our lives are often
thought of as heavily laden;
Pinkney’s work is about showing
us, even in our toughest moments,
with a certain element of light.
When I look at his illustrations, I
don’t feel the weight of our history.
I know it’s there, but it doesn’t feel
like that. It feels lighter.
Pinkney has surely inspired
and spawned hundreds of Black
artists. We talk about legacy so
cavalierly these days, but we have
to acknowledge that Jerry Pinkney
will go down as a legend. The
thing about Black illustrations in
children’s books is that they create
a palette for children; the first art
they see is in those books. They
create taste.
Reynolds is an award-winning
author and the current Library of
Congress National Ambassador for
Young People’s Literature
DIED
James Michael Tyler
James miChael tyler, who played the
scene-stealing Central Perk barista Gunther on
all 10 seasons of the NBC sitcom Friends, died
on Oct. 24 at the age of 59.
Tyler was working at a real coffee shop in
L.A. in 1994 when he snagged the part. He began
as a background actor but leveraged small mo-
ments of mooning after Jennifer Aniston’s Ra-
chel into a long- running gag. In his most iconic
scenes, Tyler, a talented physical comedian,
often didn’t speak, but rather glowered at Ra-
chel’s love interests—in particular Ross (David
Schwimmer)—or endured scratches from her
demonic cat. In time, Tyler became the honor-
ary seventh friend; by its finale in 2004, he had
appeared in a majority of Friends’ 236 episodes.
Tyler’s doctor diagnosed his prostate can-
cer during a routine checkup in 2018, and he
dedicated the last years of his life to spreading
awareness about cancer screenings. “My goal
this past year was to see my 59th birthday. I did
that,” he said on the Today show in June. “My
goal now is to at least save one life.”
—eliana doCkterman
Tyler at a Friends anniversary event in 2014
Milestones
HIPPOS: RAUL ARBOLEDA—AFP/GETTY IMAGES; PINKNEY: JOYCE DOPKEEN—THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX; TYLER: PAUL ZIMMERMAN—GETTY IMAGES
