08/20/2026
In Memoriam: Africana Professor Locksley Edmondson
Dear CBAA Family,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to share news of the passing of Professor Emeritus Locksley Edmondson of Cornell University’s Africana Studies and Research Center.
Professor Edmondson was a titan of Africana scholarship. Born in Jamaica, WI, he taught across the diaspora he studied, from Makerere University in Uganda to the University of the West Indies, before returning to Cornell. He first taught on the Hill in the early 1970s, joined the Africana Studies and Research Center in 1983, and served as Director of the Center from 1991 to 1996.
His work in international relations and race relations helped give intellectual structure to Pan-Africanism as a field of serious study, and it insisted on a truth that many of us carry into our own work: that the Caribbean, the African continent, and Black America are not separate stories but one story, told in different accents.
I write this not only as President of the Cornell Black Alumni Association but as one of his former students. I had the honor of learning from Professor Edmondson during my undergraduate years, and like so many of you, I left his classroom with a wider view of the world and of my place in it. Generations of Cornellians can say the same. That is the mark of a great teacher, and it is a legacy no loss can take from us.
This is a profound loss for our community, for Cornell, and for the academic world at large. On behalf of the entire CBAA Executive Board and membership, we extend our deepest condolences to his wife, Elizabeth Edmonson, his family, his loved ones, his colleagues at the Africana Center, and to everyone blessed to have been under his tutelage.
We will share information about services and any memorial gatherings as it becomes available. If you would like to submit a reflection or memory to be shared with the CBAA family, please reply to this message.
He is with the ancestors now. May he Rest in Perfect Peace.
In sorrow and in gratitude,
Shannon K. Cohall, Esq., ’14, LLM ’25
President and Chief Executive Officer
Cornell Black Alumni Association