Mary Ruth Lee

A sharecropper’s daughter, she joined the voter-registration fight before becoming the first black woman elected a mayor in Mississippi.

Mr. Nozkowski rejected the grandiose Abstract Expressionism of his youth and created modest, colorful and self-contained abstract works with his own stamp.

In Oak Park, bordering Chicago’s West Side, she fought for a fair housing law and helped curb white flight using a strategy that became a model.

Ms. Kyo, whose dedication to her craft left Akira Kurosawa “speechless,” rose to fame during an extraordinarily creative period in Japanese filmmaking.

His critics could be brutal, but he enthralled millions of readers with novels like “The Winds of War,” “The Caine Mutiny” and “Marjorie Morningstar.”

His critics could be brutal, but he enthralled millions of readers with novels like “The Winds of War,” “The Caine Mutiny” and “Marjorie Morningstar.”