Commemorating Black Brilliance on Wikipedia

Remembering Black artists who passed in 2023

Side-by-side photos of Richard Hunt (CC BY-SA 4.0, author unknown), Andre Braugher (CC BY-SA 4.0, Blackdiamond2015), and Grace Bumbry (public domain).

As we near the end of 2023, many are publishing or broadcasting remembrances of the public figures we lost over the past year. As a volunteer Wikipedia editor, my primary focus is improving the representation of marginalized people — Black and trans/nonbinary folks in particular — on the encyclopedia. So whenever I learn of the death of someone from one or more of those categories — or of anyone else who interests me — I look to see if they have a Wikipedia article, and if I can help improve it enough to get it added to the News section of the main page.

Screenshot of the “In the news” section of the English Wikipedia main page on December 19, 2023.

On the English Wikipedia, recent deaths are chosen for inclusion not based on the subject’s perceived importance or notability, but on the quality of the article about them. Readers unfamiliar with this policy might be surprised or angered to see some celebrities listed and not others. Before weighing in on the nomination page, it is helpful to review the subject’s article for needed citations to reliable sources and other important details.

I have participated in a number of these candidate discussions, several of which I…