After an accident in 1982, Pendergrass was paralyzed from the waist down. In 1985, he founded the Teddy Pendergrass Alliance, whose sole mission is “to create a coordinated outreach organization that encourages and assists individuals with spinal chord injuries (SCI) to achieve their maximum potential in areas of education, employment, housing, productivity and overall independence.”

What a mission, what a voice, what a man.

His death got me to thinking about other men that the world has lost way before their time, in recent years, who have one small something in common : Teddy Pendergrass (59) Luther Vandross (54), Bernie Mac (50), Isaac Hayes (65), Edwin Starr (61), Barry White (60), Gregory Hines (57), Michael Jackson (50). This led me to research on the average lifespan of American Black Males. Surprisingly, the lifespan is 8 years shorter than that of their white counterparts. This article explains many reasons why this is the case, and as it turns out, the reasons usually lead back to the cause of racial disparity in America.

It might be a stretch to link Pendergrass’ cause of death (colon cancer) to race–or racism, this gives us an opportunity to raise awareness about equality in America. Perhaps his colon cancer was caused by an element of the poverty-prone lifestyle he endured in his childhood with his single mother. Perhaps the cancer could be directly related to the incident that caused the paralysis (it is surprising how many medical problems occur after spinal trauma, and it is likely that link can be made). If the accident was at all drug- or alcohol-related, statistically that can be represented by poverty (which links back to race in America).

A stretch, maybe. But consider this discredited hypothesis trying to explain the disparity between American White and American Black males: In 2007, according to Dr. Oz (yes, the Oprah doctor), African Americans are more prone to heart-related conditions, because Africans that survived the Midlle Passage were able to do so because of their blood’s ability to sustain high levels of salt content.

This theory has been repeatedly discredited and found amongst my research. As stated in the article, “Although predisposition to salt retention may have advantaged some individual slaves, other factors — such as new selective pressures in North America and mating with non-Africans — would have increased genetic variability, not constricted today’s African American population to one common hypertension gene. As studied today, no contemporary West African population suffers from rampant hypertension.”

The author in this quoted story, Osagie K. Obasogie, states quite well, “Rather, in a world with finite resources, it’s regrettable that we continue to invest millions of research dollars — and valuable public air time –looking for genes to explain racial disparities in health, when so many causes lie simply in how we treat one another.”

I’ll end by sharing a wonderful tribute to many of these and many other crooners.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots of folk. These are just some of the men that came to mind and have saddened me. Please feel free to share your memories here.