By Moni Basu, CNN
(CNN) - Bob Teague, one of New York's first black television reporters, has died. He was 84.
His former employers WNBC and The New Tork Times reported that Teague died Thursday. His wife, Jan, told the Times that he lost his battle with T-cell lymphoma.
Teague left the Times to join WNBC in 1963. In its April 18 issue that year, Jet magazine noted that with Teague's hiring, all three television networks had pulled even with “negro newswriters." Mal Goode was at ABC and Ben Holman at CBS.
WNBC remembered him Friday as being "smart, competitive and driven."
The Times said Teague "established a reputation for finding smart, topical stories and delivering them in a sophisticated manner."
Teague was often dispatched to minority neighborhoods to cover mounting racial tensions of the '60s, the Times said. In July 1963, he reported on riots for an hourlong program called “Harlem: Test for the North."
He later became a critic of TV news, calling it too superficial. Teague thought the broadcast world had become "too focused on the appearance of reporters and anchors," the Times said.
Teague was born in Milwaukee and attended the University of Wisconsin, where in 1948, he and Cal Vernon became the first African-Americans to play regularly on the varsity football team. He was a star player but gave up offers to play professional football for a reporting job at The Milwaukee Journal, according to the Times.
Teague was considered a pioneer in the broadcast world and served as a role model for journalists of color.
Editor's note: Michael Zuckerman is a Harvard College graduate who works for the Boston Consulting Group in Washington. David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has been an adviser to four presidents. He is a professor of public service and director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Follow him on Twitter: @David_Gergen.
By Michael Zuckerman and David Gergen
(CNN) - As the nation continues to grieve for the six adults and 20 children taken too soon in the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting, a hero from another generation has slipped peacefully into the pages of history.
There were many who knew Sen. Dan Inouye, a Democrat and Medal of Honor recipient from Hawaii who passed away Monday, better than we did. But we had the good fortune of sitting with him this past summer, interviewing him and hearing some of the remarkable stories from his life in America's service. The portrait that emerged was that of a man of courage, character, and, perhaps above all, a singular spirit of peace and good will that was forged, paradoxically, amid some of the most horrendous carnage of the Second World War.
News: Hawaii's Daniel Inouye, Senate's second longest-serving member, dead at 88
Some of Inouye's deeds - his valor serving on the German front in one of America's most decorated (and heavily wounded) units, his Herculean political efforts on behalf of his home state - have been well remarked. What we were especially struck by was his quiet, sagelike humanity.
By Mallory Simon, CNN
(CNN) - Native American activist Russell Means died early Monday from throat cancer, an Oglala Lakota Sioux nation representative said.
Means led a 71-day uprising on the sacred grounds of Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1973.
"Means has devoted his life to eliminating racism of any kind, and in so doing he leaves a historical imprint as the most revolutionary Indian leader of the late twentieth century," his website said. "An inspirational visionary, Russell Means remains one of the most magnetic voices in America today.
"Whether leading a protest, fighting for constitutional rights, starring in a motion picture, or performing his rap-ajo music, the message he delivers is consistent with the philosophy he lives by."