MR. KOJO NNAMDIYou're tuned in to The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5. Welcome. Today we'll be remembering Washingtonians, who passed away this year and what we can take away from the legacy that they leave. Joining me in studio is Harrison Smith, Obituary writer for The Washington Post to talk about Washingtonians whose lives he has had this year the pleasure of writing about. Harrison, thank you for joining us.

MR. HARRISON SMITHThanks for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIHarrison, defense lawyer, Dovey Roundtree was born to a poor family in Charlotte, North Carolina, which she once described as segregated from birth to death. What path led her to life as a Civil Rights lawyer here in Washington D.C.?

SMITHThat's right. She was really a Civil Rights warrior, Kojo. When she grew up in Charlotte -- she was born there in 1914, this was the Jim Crow South. So she actually remembers being told to hide under the kitchen table when the Ku Klux Klan came thundering through the neighborhood. But her father who was a printer -- he died in the influenza pandemic when she was just a girl and she ended up growing up with her grandparents.

SMITHHer grandfather was a minister and her grandmother was a very very strong influential force in her life. So she later ends up working in the ministry. She becomes this pastor in Washington, quotes scripture in the court room. But coming out of Charlotte she gets a scholarship to Spelman College, a historically black woman's school in Atlanta.

NNAMDILet us hear her talk a little more about her life growing up in Charlotte. This is an exert from an interview with Dovey, which apparently touched on her childhood.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALEWhat kind of girl were you? What kind of little girl were you? We you mischievous? Were you obedient?

MS. DOVEY ROUNDTREENo. I had books and papers and I've had them all my life. I pity anybody who has to come behind me and deal with estate matters in my papers and things. I just pity them, because I write. If I wake up and think, that's where I write. If I'm in the bathroom, that's where I write. That's just the way I've always been through college, through law school, through the military, or OCS and wherever.

NNAMDIWell, obviously, that was about a lot more than her childhood. This was childhood all the way to adulthood. But when Dovey Roundtree began taking on clients here in the 1950s, the District Courthouse and the Women's Bar Association were segregated. She was barred from using the cafeteria, restrooms, or library at the District Courthouse. And the Women's Bar Association was not simply -- simply wouldn't accept her. How did she manage to succeed in a field that really didn't recognize her full humanity?

SMITHIt's really a remarkable story. I think a large part of that is just inner strength that she developed when she was a young girl with her grandmother like I mentioned, but also with these early mentors in her life. She actually worked as a research assistant for Mary McLeod Bathune, the first lady of the struggle, one of the leading Civil Rights figures in the first half of the 20th Century. She was sort of mentored by Thurgood Marshall and James Nabrit, who were preparing the Brown V Board of Education case when she was Howard Law School. And when she starts practicing law she makes a point of taking on clients who were poor and black and might not otherwise be able to find representation in the District.

NNAMDIA lot of times apparently she didn't get paid by her clients, because they simply couldn't afford to pay. Was there any particular case for which she was most famous?

SMITHWell, there were a couple of cases, Kojo. I think maybe the most important one as a point of law was the Sarah Keys case. This was a private in the Women's Army Corp who in 1952 refused to give up her seat to a white Marine on a bus while she was traveling home in North Carolina. She ends up taking that case to the Interstate Commerce Commission. And obtains a ruling that says, well, it's illegal to discriminate against passengers in interstate bus travel.

SMITHBut this other case that she was involved in and maybe one that was far better known in Washington was in the 1960s. It was a Georgetown socialite and painter named Mary Pinchot Meyer. She was shot twice and murdered on the towpath of The C&O Canal. And she defended an African American gentleman named Raymond Crump. All the newspaper stories at the time called him a simpleton and pretty much everyone believed that he had done it. The police found him on the scene, tied him to the crime. But she went into the courtroom and essentially tossed aside a bunch of circumstantial evidence. Said that, This doesn't make any sense. There's no way he could have done it. And secured an acquittal for Mr. Crump.

NNAMDIHer reputation as a lawyer was so wide spread that she was introduced to actress Cicely Tyson to help prepare Tyson for her role as the fictional Civil Rights lawyer Carrie Grace Battle in the 90s CBS legal drama "Sweet Justice." Tyson later received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Carrie. Dovey Johnson Roundtree passed away in May. She was 104 years old.

NNAMDIDr. Milton Edgerton was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1921. He followed in the footsteps of his father, who was also a physician. As you wrote for The Post, Harrison, when Dr. Edgerton first began operating as a plastic surgeon in the 40s, he was treating World War II veterans, whose bodies were scarred by shrapnel, bullets, or flames. But by the mid-60s he was treating transgender patients in Maryland. What was the landscape for these kinds of gender affirmation surgeries that he was doing back then?

SMITHThese surgeries really didn't exist at all in the United States actually. So if you were a transgender person in the 40s, in the early 50s and you wanted to get one of these surgeries done, you would have had to go to Europe or Mexico or Morocco. And often times these procedures were botched in horrible, horrible circumstances.

SMITHBut Dr. Edgerton really became interested in this after someone named Christine Jorgensen became the -- well, the first transgender celebrity in the United States probably. She had this procedure done in Denmark. He started learning a little bit about it speaking with patients. And ended up founding what was really the first dedicated sex reassignment surgery unit. We now call it a gender affirmation or gender confirmation unit at Johns Hopkins University in the 60s.

NNAMDILet's listen to Dr. Edgerton speak one of his -- speak of one of his greatest professional disappointments. He uses a term that was popular at the time. Transsexual, to describe what we now call transgender patients.

DR. EDGERTONOne of my big disappointments -- maybe one of my main professional disappointments is that although some American surgeons took up the treatment of the transsexual patient, very few did. And even today it's hard for American patients to find surgeons in this country to do it -- carry out their surgery.

NNAMDIBut despite the disappointment there was joy. Here he is describing his greatest professional joy.

EDGERTONEvery day starting the day scrubbing your hands and then going into the operating room knowing you have a chance to really improve the self-image of that particular patient, that made every day going home from the hospital a very happy feeling.

NNAMDIHarrison, he was doing this work long before most of the doctors and the public recognized gender affirmation surgery. How did Dr. Edgerton respond to criticism that his worked was unethical?

SMITHI think for him what was important was the patients themselves. Before he started doing these surgeries, he spent a lot of time talking with people and finding out why they decided to get this done. And what really stood out to him was the fact that no one and no matter how bad or how botched the procedure had been regretted having the operation performed. And for him that was a sign that this was truly important work. This was worthwhile work. These people were going to get that procedure done no matter what. And he wanted to help make this a safe worthwhile experience for them.

NNAMDICan you talk about another major surgery that he was known for?

SMITHYeah, this was a 13 year old girl named Debbie Fox. And in 1969 she had already had 36 operations to try and fix this craniofacial conditional that she was born with. She grew up in Tennessee. And essentially her eyes were on the sides of her face. So what he did was invent a new procedure -- or several new procedures. We said, there were no books to read about this kind of operation. But he was able to move her eyes about two inches allowing her to look in a mirror and actually see her full face for the first time in her life.

NNAMDIDr. Edgerton died at the age of 96 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Let's talk with John in Silver Spring. John, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOHNHello there.

NNAMDIHi there, John.

JOHNYes. Hello. I had you on speaker phone. Thanks for taking my call.

NNAMDIYou're welcome.

JOHNSo this brief story I have is -- I don't want to give away too much information, because I want the person to remain -- I want it to be anonymous. But I worked with some high school kids in the area. And one young woman was a senior in high school and she wanted to be a pilot and wanted to be in the Air Force. And she was very -- a bright young person. And she had had some trouble in the past -- difficulties. And she ended up committing suicide.

JOHNAnd this is not exactly a happy story to share I know. But it's real and I think it's important to share. And it opened my eyes up to the -- I didn't realize what a huge problem suicide has become among teenagers in this country. And it's inspired me to be a lot more aware of it and share that with -- that with other people. And it's not just the suicide that it brought to mind.

JOHNBut really just the kind of challenges young people are having these days in growing up in the kind of disconnected society we have. So it's just -- I'm sharing that with everyone just as a way to hopefully inspire any folks to be aware of it, in mental health among teenagers.

NNAMDIIndeed, John, thank you for sharing that with us. Harrison, historian Ira Berlin, who taught at the University of Maryland was not always a student of history. He initially studied chemistry as an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin. How did he pivot from science to wanting to understand the institution of slavery?

SMITHThat's right he was a chemistry student at Wisconsin Madison and got involved in the Civil Rights Movement there. This would have been in the late 50s early 60s. And as he started seeing what was happening on campus, participating in marches, he decided he wanted to learn a little bit more about the history essentially of the African American experience in the United States. What it was that lead up to this moment. Part being a chemist is figuring out what is it that drives these molecules. How do they form different substances? How do you get from A to B? And for him to understand the Civil Rights Movement, to really engage in it in a meaningful way, required going back to this history of the Civil War, of slavery.

NNAMDIHow did a visit to the National Archives right here in Washington D.C. change his career?

SMITHWell, he had just finished a book. His work called "Slaves without Masters" and he was sort of noodling around for a new project. And was visiting the Archives when one of the staffers there -- a woman named Sarah Dunlap Jackson walked him into this back room and essentially showed him where these documents were kept, these documents from the Freed Men's Bureau, which was created at the close of the Civil War.

SMITHWhat she did was open this door to first person accounts of what it was to be a slave, to be a freed slave, to be a plantation owner at this pivotal moment in American history. And essentially what he did was for the rest of his career he helped bring those documents to life to bring them out of the archives and help people understand what had happened in the country.

NNAMDIIn addition to all of that, Ira Berlin advised on films like "Twelve Years a Slave" and the HBO documentary "Unchained Memories." One of his last projects was to push for a square dedicated to Frederick Douglas with a statue at the center on the University of Maryland's campus. It was dedicated in 2015. Ira and a group called "The North Star" envisioned it as a center for rallies and social justice activities, which it is now. Ira Berlin died in Washington D.C. in June. He was 77.

NNAMDIFounding member of the iconic D.C. Go-Go band Rare Essence, Rory "DC" Felton, was born in Virginia and moved from Halifax County to D.C. when he was a teenager. How did the music here make DC feel at home in D.C.?

SMITHYeah, he was a little bit of a misfit and it was only when he started playing in the marching band at Ballou High School in southeast that he found his home, found his community. He actually became friends with a drummer in the band. A guy named Quentin "Footz" Davidson. And it was Footz who --

NNAMDIDC. and Footz, yeah. Go ahead.

SMITHYeah. Yeah, Footz invited him to join Rare Essence actually. This was around 1977. And as he got into this group and it became a big part of the D.C. music scene, he found his home. And his nickname became, of course, "DC".

NNAMDIWhat was his signature sound? Flare? Style? How did it add to the local Go-Go thing?

SMITHYeah, so he was a saxophone player and, you know, the kind of sound that made you want to get up and dance at one or two in the morning when they were playing these hours long concerts. But he also was a cowbell player. I mean, people talked about how he would hit that cowbell so hard he could make a dent. He was laying down the beats on a lot of their songs. He was coming up with new sounds and styles inspired in part by Parliament Funkadelic or by Chuck Brown. And in some ways he was the backbone of this group when he was banging on that cowbell.

NNAMDIHowever, DC as he was known struggled with addiction. How did that play out in his relationship with the band and the music?

SMITHWell, his band members actually wrote a song that they said was inspired by him called "Cat in the Hat."

NNAMDIYep.

SMITHIt was about someone using crack and they said they wrote it because they were trying to convince him to go straight, which he did. The guy was really a warrior, though, Kojo. He was actually shot in the head in 1992, went into a coma. People thought that he was a goner, but he woke up a few months later and within a matter of weeks he was playing again.

NNAMDIAmazing guy. Rory "DC" Felton was killed in May. His murder is still unsolved. He was 57 years old. When we come back we'll remember local journalists who lost their lives this year. For now, let's late the late D.C. Felton play us out with his signature sax solo in Rare Essence's song "A Little Ride in the City."

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're discussing people who died in the year 2018 who had a significant impact on this region. We're talking with Harrison Smith. He's an obituary writer for The Washington Post. Also joining me in studio is Dannielle Ohl. She is a reporter at the Capital Gazette. Danielle, thank you for joining us.

MS. DANIELLE OHLThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIOn June 28 of this year a gunman with a vendetta against the Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland shot his way into the Annapolis newsroom and opened fire on employees. Five were killed, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendy Winters. Of course, reporter, Danielle Ohl was one of their colleagues. You wrote about how editor, Rob Hiaasen mentored you when you were an intern at the Capital. What did you learn from him?

OHLRob was one of those really rare editors that a young journalist hopes to have when they join their first newspaper job. He had this iconic dead words list that he sent to every new reporter as one of the first communications you got from him, but it was always done with a lot of love. He would really try to get those dead words out of your copy. But beyond just that kind of very newspaperly editing, Rob really, really cared about words and stories and making sure that you were conveying exactly the intent of your story, of your sources, the people behind it. So he would ask, you know, Why does this matter, in a way that would really prompt you to think about why the readers care about it, but why you personally cared about it.

NNAMDIYeah. You're writing it because you think it's interesting and he's going like, Well, who actually cares about this?

OHLYes. Yes. Exactly.

NNAMDIAnd you got to prove it. What kind of writing was reporter, Wendy Winters known for and what did you learn from her?

OHLOh, gosh. Wendy, she knew absolutely everybody in our community and it's because she was known for the writing that really took her into people's homes, into their classrooms, behind the scenes at their plays, at their high school basketball games. You know, if it was a teen, she was spotlighting. She did columns, "Teen of the Week," "Home of the Week," where she went and talked to people about the things that made their life special.

OHLShe also did a very cherished column called "Off Limits" were she went to the places where you weren't allowed to go, because that is what Wendy liked to do. She climbed water towers and domes and went underground in tunnels and really explored all of the places that she was told she couldn't, but she wanted to.

NNAMDIIn many obituaries about sports editor John McNamara or Mac, he is described as old school. What did this mean in the Capital newsroom?

OHLI think it means John was always kind of your consummate newspaper man. He was able to report on sports, which was absolutely his passion. But as our newspaper shrunk and jobs shifted around, he really had to take over other jobs, so editing jobs, reporting jobs. He was really, really well respected in Bowie, Maryland where he reported for the Bowie Blade News.

OHLAnd he was just always somebody that would come over and kind of share a curmudgeonly war story, I mean, war story from back in the day. We went to the same university and graduated from the same newspaper The Diamondback at University of Maryland. So he was always very kind, but with kind of rye wink that you expect from a veteran newspaper reporter.

NNAMDIWhy were you looking at me when you saying curmudgeonly war story?

NNAMDIYou described Gerald Fischman as, The best writer I have ever had the privilege to know.

OHLMm-hmm.

NNAMDIWhat stories of his were the most memorable for you?

OHLI think I said that, because Gerald had this habit of sending us all his columns for fact checking really late at night. And it, you know, I think at the time I might have been a little peeved, but whenever I got into them they were just so incisively written. I would have written that week about the dullest city council story. And Gerald would come back with a take about, you know, zoning arguments or, you know, the budget debates that really make me think more about why I was writing it and why the community cared.

OHLBut he was funny too. He -- in preparation for this I was looking back at some of his columns and in 2013 he rewrote "Night before Christmas" reflecting on all of the issues at the time. The NSA surveillance, Amazon introducing drones, and he reimagined Santa as being carried by a drone bought by Jeff Bezos, because Pita made him send back the reindeer. So that was kind of the guy he was.

NNAMDIWell, those late night calls just remind you you're in the newspaper business. You wrote that Rebecca Smith a recent Capital hire, who worked in the newspaper sales department, quoting here, "Battled fiercely in her personal life and never once let it falter her kindness." What did you mean by that?

OHLSo I didn't actually find out until after the attack. But Rebecca was a fierce, fierce advocate for Women's Awareness of Endometriosis online. Something she herself battled against. But I said it never let it falter her kindness, because I never knew, you know, it was something that required her to be out to have multiple procedures. But she was somebody, who really wanted you to have a good day, who was the first person you saw and always smiled. And asked you how you were doing. So she really was both, you know, the fierce advocate advocating for herself and others battling this illness and this problem, but at the same time was always such a light in our newsroom.

NNAMDIHas this shooting and the loss of your colleagues affected how you approach your day to day job? Now you're in the beginning of your new career, how has it impacted how you view local journalism?

OHLI think it makes us all find it a little bit more important -- of course, there are days when it's, you know, tough. The trauma affects everybody in their own way. But you see your job as that much more vital, because you want to keep going especially for those that we lost. I personally never considered doing anything else even afterward. And every day I come in I'm trying to do the best that I personally can because of Rob and Wendy and Gerald and John and Rebecca.

NNAMDIAnd that seems to be the spirit and the determination of everybody at the Capital Gazette. Danielle Ohl is a reporter at the Capital Gazette. Joining us by phone is Karl Vick. He's an editor at large at Time Magazine. Karl Vick, thank you for joining us.

KARL VICKHappy to be here. Thank you.

NNAMDICarl Jamal Khashoggi, columnist for the Washington Post, was another locally-based journalist who lost his life this year. He and the Capital Gazette staff were honored with other journalists in Time Magazine's Person-of-the-Year issue as the guardians of truth. You wrote Time Magazines' cover story as editor at large. How -- first, how did Time decide to honor slain journalists with this year's person-of-the-year issue?

VICKIt's a process. The final call is made by the editor in chief, Edward Felsenthal. But every year, you know, starting early in September with a big staff meeting where people sort of nominate possible POYs, we say, Person of the Year candidates, it's been kind of refined. And when I got the assignment a month and a little more ago, I was kind of surprised. I hadn't seen this coming. At that point it was -- we hadn't come up with the word guardians, but it was basically, you know, independent press, free press but it clicked in. It felt right.

VICKI knew it would be a bit difficult to articulate and it was. (laugh) It took most of the month to write, but it was -- it was the fact that two things had aligned at this -- at this year. Three really if we count the death of Khashoggi. One was the sort of confusion that social media has rained upon the communications process. This sort of filter between -- between newsmakers and news readers, news producers, journalists and those we're trying to inform.

VICKAnd at the same time there was a rise of autocrats and authoritarian rulers, some of them democratically elected, who try to exploit confusion and try to create murk and use confusion and uncertainty to their advantage. And it's something we'd seen happening more and more around the world in the last couple of years. And it really did come to a head this year with the death in Turkey of Jamal Khashoggi.

NNAMDIIndeed, your cover story for Times Person of the Year issue, did focus on the importance of trust and independence in the media. How would this year's local honoraries, the Capital Gazette newsroom and Jamal Khashoggi examples in your view of these ideals?

VICKOh very -- very much in the same tradition and yet -- and sort of like in opposite ends of the spectrum where the Gazette, the Capital people, you know, as community journalists are working at the most intimate community level. And as Danielle is explaining, people like Wendy Winters, you know, writing what the local -- week (stammers) that I worked at when I was a kid and grew up reading, were called locals and literally writing about who went to whose house that day.

VICKThis capillary level, this intimate communication, that's -- on one level just sort of helps to sustain a community on the other hand -- at another level is totally essential to democracy, because it's about information. You have to have free flow of information and the information has to be trusted. At the community level if you don't understand or you don't -- if you have a doubt about a story you call up the newsroom and you talk to the reporter, because you'll see them. They're your neighbor.

VICKKhashoggi believed in the very same traditions, but he was working in another country at a level of -- he was sort of a national journalist. And when I was asking somebody who knew him and worked with him she said, you know, he's kind of like the Thomas Friedman of Saudi Arabia. Sort of like a journal -- you know, somebody who really had their chops and made their bones as a journalist. And then -- but we sort of morphed into more of a commentary sort of a trusted voice...

NNAMDII'm glad you brought that up, because if indeed Jamal Khashoggi was that kind of Thomas Friedman type trusted voice, he was a Saudi-born journalist. He wrote about Saudi politics and U.S. Saudi relationship, but what circumstances therefore brought him to the U.S., Virginia in particular, in 2017?

VICKWell, you know, it was the rise of this crowned prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who's essentially running behind his father -- his ailing father and he's been empowered by the king, King Salman, to run the country and who's pitched himself -- remember a year ago he was touring the U.S. He spent three weeks in the U.S. sort of pitching the new Saudi Arabia, the new vision youthful and one that's gonna be about more than oil and you should come and invest. And it was a charm offense.

VICKBut while he was in some ways a reformer, because he, you know, allowed women to drive and trying to reduce the influence of the religious police there, he also demands -- it's an absolute monarchy there and he demands absolute fealty. And even if you agree with him, if you don't sort of agree to like run your words by him first or be under his thumb, he regards you as an enemy. And that was Khashoggi's role. So he welcomed the reforms, Jamal did, but he said, we have to be able to operate as journalist. I have to answer to the people, not only to the ruler.

VICKAnd this is somebody who's been an establishment journalist in Saudi Arabia. I mean, he's also worked for the government. He'd been like a spokesman for an ambassador in Washington and New York. He was -- he knew how the game was played in that country but he still was true to these principles that all journalists are. And when -- he was seeing enough of his friends being called in and detained. He was getting enough warnings that he was -- he needed to come into the fold or he'd be in trouble and maybe in jail like a lot of people are there.

VICKAnd he made the decision, you know, about a year-and-a-half ago to pull up roots and move to the condo he had bought in suburban Virginia a few years earlier.

NNAMDIIn October Khashoggi traveled to Turkey to obtain paperwork for a marriage license. He was last seen in Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul where the world later learned he was tortured and then killed. The hit job, U.S. intelligence believes, was ordered by Saudi Crowned Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Thank you so much for joining us, Karl Vick.

VICKMy pleasure.

NNAMDIKarl Vick is the editor at large -- is an editor at large at Time Magazine. Also, thank you for joining us Danielle Ohl.

OHLThank you.

NNAMDIDanielle Ohl is a reporter at the Capital Gazette. We're gonna take a short break. When we come back, more of the people, who influenced Washington who passed this last year. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're talking about people who died who had an impact on this region, people, who died in the year 2018. Our guest is Harrison Smith. He's an obituary writer for the Washington Post. Here is Louie in Washington. Louie, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

LOUIEThank you, Kojo, so much. I'm calling about a man I knew for 40 years, William Henry Blum. He died at age 85 on December 9th. He was an historian of the first order. He wrote five books on U.S. foreign policy. He was an outstanding, well-known critic internationally known. He had a blog called the Anti Empire Report which had over 11,000 readers around the country and around the world. He was well known as the man who would always have -- he was very funny in a way that he wrote.

LOUIEOne of his -- the last public presentation he made in September was about the United States foreign policy, which he said, many Americans believe that the United States means good, means well despite the bombings, despite overthrowing dozens of governments, despite the, you know, U.S. interventions around the world. And for that he got a notice of his -- one of his books was called "Rogue State," which was about the United States policies.

NNAMDIYep.

LOUIEAnd it was mentioned by Osama Bin Laden.

NNAMDIYep.

LOUIEHe had two obituaries, one in the New York Times, one in the Washington Post and another one in the London Guardian. So he was not...

NNAMDIIndeed. I hate to interrupt, because we don't -- we have limited time here but William Henry Blum was very well known in Washington, as you pointed out, As a critic of U.S. foreign policy. In the break we were discussing the Osama Bin Laden episode there, but thank you very much for reminding us of that, Louie.

NNAMDIHarrison Smith, Taekwondo Grand Master Jhoon Rhee was born in South Korea in 1931, moved here to DC in the sixties after a brief stint in Texas, opened his first martial arts studio on K Street in downtown DC, which is where I took my two sons, as a matter of fact. (laugh) Who did he originally reach out to in the hopes that they'd become students of Taekwondo?

SMITHHe had quite a marketing strategy, Kojo. So he decided that he was going to reach people with this new martial art Taekwondo, which was not yet popular in the U.S. He would first try with foreign ambassadors in D.C. He wrote all these ambassadors letters promising that he can improve their young son or daughter discipline through the study of Taekwondo. This wasn't a, I'm-going-to-attack-you-and-go-after-you style of martial art. He is -- his philosophy was truth, beauty and love and he promised you that you'd be able to fend off school bullies, which is exactly what drew him to Taekwondo in the first place.

NNAMDIWell, after he sent letters to ambassadors he then turned to ads in the Washington Post sports section. Then he turned to TV and that's how so many people who grew up in this area were first introduced to him and how we remember him. Let's listen to one of his TV commercials that became something of a cult classic.

NNAMDIThank you. That's an earworm that's gonna last me for another 50 years. That commercial starred his son Chun and daughter Meme. The music was composed by Nils Lofgren now known as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. I think we had Meme on this broadcast discussing that song at one point. Jhoon Rhee was not only an authority on the sport, but he's widely credited with popularizing the martial art in the U.S. and abroad. Who were some of his more famous students?

SMITHWell, he gave tips to Muhammad Ali. He actually worked as one of Ali's trainers in the 1970s and taught him this move called the acupunch, which was, supposedly at least, so fast that opponents couldn't even see it. He worked with Bruce Lee and said that Lee helped him with his punch and he helped Lee with his kick. And other clients included Jack Anderson, the newspaper columnist, Chuck Norris and Redskins' coach George Allen. But he also had this whole separate side business on capitol hill...

NNAMDIPoliticians.

SMITHYeah, so he helped more than 250 lawmakers learn Taekwondo. Newt Gingrich, Joe Biden, James Jeffords, these were all clients who came down to a basement on the capitol each week, maybe two or three times a week actually.

NNAMDIAnd so Jhoon Rhee helped them a lot. In his later years he maintained a level of fitness that seemed amazing, stunning for a man of his age. What was his daily workout like?

SMITHHe did ten sets of 100 pushups every day into his eighties. In fact, for his 80th birthday he went to one of the House office buildings and did a set of 100 pushups in 50 seconds before a crowd there. He was a remarkable guy. I mean, he could balance a Coke glass on his head while breaking a board with his foot.

NNAMDIAn amazing guy, Jhoon Rhee died in April in Arlington Virginia. He was 86 years old. Here's Paula in California. Paula, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

PAULAHi. My mom Jacquelyn Delores Toliver-Hines graduated from Virginia State University and then she started working in the District at a middle school. And then when we moved to Maryland, she started teaching at Potomac High School. And then when she retired she was at Randall High School in Clinton. She was well known in the Fort Washington area as a teacher, but also for her community work. For the last five years she lived with me in California and here's where she died on September 30th. But I know the friends and people in the community still remember my mom Jackie.

NNAMDIThank you very much for sharing that with us, Paula. And let's talk a little more about a teacher. Here's Ellen in Bethesda, Maryland. Ellen, your turn.

ELLENHi, Kojo. Yeah, my mom too, interesting sequel. She grew up in the Midwest and then got the privilege of a master's degree in Oakland, California in counseling and guidance. Her passion was children and giving back to those who were less fortunate than her. And so she ended up in the DC public school system as a counselor and it was really her passion. And she died in September at 94 at home and she just knew she was blessed and she always loved the kids. And she was a pioneer in our neighborhood for women, who went to work as soon as they could and then kept it going until as long as they could.

NNAMDIEllen, thank you very much for sharing your mom's story with us. Peggy Cooper Cafritz was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1947. She and her siblings were sent to boarding schools when the local Catholic schools near them refused to integrate. Harrison Smith, she began investing in local DC while she was a college student at George Washington University. How did she push for racial justice on campus?

SMITHWell, she organized a black student union there at George Washington. And she also helped force fraternities and sororities on campus to adopt race blind charters. Essentially what she did was say, if you want to keep working here, if you want to keep the frat house then you're going to have to start allowing black members. One of the most important things she did there though was to establish this creative arts workshop and this was in the late 1960s. And the idea there was that she was going to help predominantly African American students in the district, many of them from low-income families study dance, painting, music or theater in the summers. And this actually ended up growing into Duke Ellington the School of the Arts in Georgetown.

NNAMDIYep, she and Mike Malone together formed that organization. As a junior she became an early supporter of the local arts scene, even though she was still a student. What art program did she start? That's the one that became Duke Ellington?

SMITHThat's right, that's the one.

NNAMDIOkay.

SMITHSo this was a summer program and it steadily grew into this magnate school.

NNAMDIHer influence went farther than the local arts scene. How did her home become a hub of sorts for Washington's political elite?

SMITHYeah, her home was fascinating. There were a couple interesting things about it. One is that it was this salon of sorts with policymakers and cultural leaders and real estate developers. Her circle included people like Bill Clinton, Gloria Steinem, Quincy Jones. And what her home was really doing was sort of serving as this center where she could bridge white money in Washington, the city's wealthiest people were predominantly white, with black power in the city and help promote cultural and artistic opportunities for people around the District. It was also this center of black African American and African art. One artist, a woman named Nekisha Durrett, called it the hermitage of African American art.

NNAMDIShe set her sights on local politics too and ran successfully for president of the D.C. school board. How would you describe her tenure on the board?

SMITHIt was divisive to say the least. What -- I think one of the things that made her so successful in Washington and pushing for things like the Duke Ellington School was that she had this incredible drive and she was able to see through projects that other people just envisioned as these dreamy ideas. But when she got to the school board, there was a little bit more of a pressure to collaborate, to bring other people into the process.

SMITHAnd many people who worked with her then criticized her as being aloof, even authoritarian or to say the least she was forthright. And she called out teachers that she thought were unqualified or should not be teaching or were too inexperienced. There were plenty of people who thought that she was bringing accountability to the board, but it was a pretty tenuous six-year stretch she had there as president of the school board.

NNAMDIAmazing woman in a lot of respects, I remember she had a television career for a time here at what is now WUSA-TV. In those days it was WTOP-TV where she was a documentary producer, who won Emmys. In 2009 her famed home was destroyed in a fire and with it her art collection of more than 300 pieces, one of the largest private collections of African and African American art, but she did not let that tragedy stop her. She moved into a new home, a large DuPont Circle condo that she rebuilt to display the remains of her collection. Peggy Cooper Cafritz died in Washington in February this year at age 70.

NNAMDIFamed local nudist Turner V. Stokes was born in DC in 1927, grew up between the District and Maryland. Harrison, when you wrote the obituary for him you described him in the headline as a champion of the unclothed. He never liked the term nudist. Why and what did he prefer instead?

SMITHHe preferred the term naturist. I think what he'd tell you today is that, well, we are born without clothes, Kojo, and that is our natural state. When he went to a clothed beach, he would call them textile beaches contrary to a nude or a naturist beach where you didn't have to wear a swimsuit.

NNAMDIHow did his interest in nudism develop?

SMITHWell, he remembered his time when he was a teenager and went skinny-dipping. That stuck in his memory, but then after his kids had grown up and he was in his fifties, he went to a nudist retreat with his wife and he decided that nudism or naturism offered a sense of freedom in his life. A little something that had been missing.

NNAMDIIn his campaign to protect nude beaches and gatherings, where was he most successful locally?

SMITHYeah, a lot of his efforts centered on Assateague Island. This is on the Maryland and Virginia state line of course. So he organized a local group called the National Capital Naturists and they sought to preserve sand dunes on the island and clean up litter. And they also made at least a small stretch of the beach there into a destination for other likeminded nudists. There was a problem with this of course, because Playboy Magazine found out, wrote an article about it. And the county there in Virginia decided they did not want a stretch of their beach being taken over by nudists.

NNAMDIThat didn't stop him though. How did he try to spread the word about nudism?

SMITHWell, he launched this legal campaign. It was a pretty ambitious effort. He actually raised $50,000 in part by selling these T-shirts that said, Bare Assateague and used this money to try and say that well, they were infringing on this right to bare all. The Supreme Court ended up ruling on public nudity bans in the 1990s and when that happened he realized his legal efforts were all for not and moved him and his group to a Maryland section of Assateague Island where he continued baring all for a few more years.

NNAMDITurner V. Stokes passed away in Nanjemoy, Maryland at the age of 90. We have time for one more quick one. Here's Daniel in Baltimore, Maryland. Daniel, you've got about 40 seconds. Go ahead, please.

DANIELOkay, no problem. I'll keep it short, but my grandfather was Kenneth Plant. He worked career man for Westinghouse. He was an electrical engineer and he helped develop radar and other components for the SR71 Blackbird, still the fastest airplane ever developed by the Air Force. And on top of that a loving father and husband to five children.

NNAMDIThank you very much for sharing that story with us, Daniel. Today's -- if you are interested in other people, there are other notable Washingtonians this year we couldn't fit into today's show, Toys R Us founder Charles Lazarus, composer George Walker, philanthropist Victoria Sant. What other Washingtonians are you remembering at the end of the year? You can send us a tweet @kojoshow and we will share them today. Harrison Smith, thank you so much for joining us.

SMITHThanks for having me, Kojo.

NNAMDIHarrison is an obituary writer for the Washington Post. That's it for today's show. It was reflecting on local lives. It was produced by Ruth Tam. Coming up tomorrow we check in with a union leader, who has been critical of DC's effort to bring a new hospital to Ward A. Plus, who works on Christmas? We'll talk to Washingtonians, who punch the clock on the holiday. That all starts tomorrow at noon. Until then, thank you for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.