NOTEWORTHY DEATHS

LITTLE ROCK — Segregation defier in ’63 dies

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - James Hood, one of the first black students who enrolled at the University of Alabama a half century ago in defiance of racial segregation, has died. He was 70.

Officials at Adams-Buggs Funeral Home in Gadsden said they are handling arrangements for Hood, who died Thursday.

Then-Gov. George Wallace made his infamous “stand in the schoolhouse door” in a failed effort to prevent Hood and Vivian Malone from registering for classes at the university in 1963.

Hood and Malone were accompanied by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach when they were confronted by Wallace as they attempted to enter the university’s Foster Auditorium to register for classes and pay fees.

Wallace backed down later that day, and Hood and Malone registered for classes.

Hood was the last survivor among the major figures in the schoolhouse-door incident. Wallace died in 1998, Vivian Malone Jones in 2005 and Katzenbach last year.

After enrolling, Hood remained at the university for a few months and moved to Michigan, where he received a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State University and a master’s degree from Michigan State.

Actor Chew felled by heart attack

Robert F. Chew, an actor best known for his roles in gritty HBO dramas such as The Corner and The Wire, died Thursday at his home in Baltimore. He was 52.

The cause was a heart attack, said his sister, Clarice Chew.

Chew was a well-regarded stage actor when he began appearing in television shows created by or based on the work of David Simon and Edward Burns. He played a shoe salesman on The Corner and the drug supplier Wilkie Collins on the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street.

As Proposition Joe Stewart, the portly, deeply connected and relatively civil drug kingpin on The Wire, he preferred to broker deals between rival drug factions rather than resort to violence.