Weeks have passed since we received this sad news. As Kate Blackwood (Cornell Chronicle, 26 August 2026) wrote, Locksley Edmondson, professor of Africana Studies, emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, died on August 18 in Ithaca, New York. Here are links to several obituary tributes for Dr. Edmondson, a well-known Jamaican scholar, courtesy of Peter Jordens, who shares his own heartfelt and meaningful “in memoriam” note below. [Our warmest thanks to you, Peter.]

Peter Jordens writes:

I was very fortunate to be a student of Professor Edmondson when I was a graduate student at Cornell University between 1988-1990. He had a huge impact on me intellectually. When Cornell’s Africana Studies & Research Center honored him with a post-retirement symposium in 2017, I wrote him an email that included the following lines:

“I can state without exaggeration that you are 99% responsible for my regional, pan-Caribbean outlook. (In all fairness, I must reserve 1% for the hundreds of other people who have also contributed somewhat by essentially reconfirming what you imparted.) This is indeed your most substantial impact on me, because a pan-Caribbean perspective continues to define who I am today to a significant extent. It is a perspective that has served me well. It is an approach that enriches one’s understanding of any aspect of the Caribbean experience, in any part of the region. It is an outlook that comes with the pleasure of constantly encountering what Antonio Benítez-Rojo calls ‘the repeating island.’ And it is an epistemology that enables a comforting and satisfying sense of rootedness in the region. Professor Edmondson, thank you for being an inspiring example of pan-Caribbean and pan-African scholarship, activism and friendship to me and your other students, colleagues, friends and family. Thank you for facilitating and fostering meaningful pan-Caribbean and pan-African connections.”

May he rest in peace and may his memory continue to inspire.

A funeral service was held in Ithaca, New York, on September 5, 2026, and is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfmZscq0zEo.

For article by K. Blackwood, see https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/08/locksley-edmondson-scholar-african-diaspora-dies-92

Tributes:
https://www.bangsfuneralhome.com/obituaries/locksley-edmondson
https://www.caribbeanstudiesassociation.org/in-memoriam-locksley-edmondson-april-12-1934-august-18-2026
https://www.mona.uwi.edu/news/memory-professor-locksley-edmondson
https://www.instagram.com/p/DcZifxFMaUe  (Cornell Black Alumni Association)
https://uwaterloo.ca/political-science/news/founding-psci-faculty-member-and-waterloos-first-black