Harvard Ira Sitkoff

Harvard Sitkoff, a distinguished professor of American history and widely published author, passed away at the age of 85 on January 9 in North Carolina. Sitkoff was born in 1940 and raised in Queens, New York.

He attended Queens College, then went on to Columbia University where he received his PhD in 1975 under the tutelage of William Leuchtenburg. Sitkoff was a pioneer in writing histories of the civil rights movement, including The Struggle for Black Equality, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop, A New Deal for Blacks, Perspectives on Modern America, Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated, A History of Our Time, and Toward Freedom Land: The Long Struggle for Racial Equality in America. He taught at Washington University in St. Louis, and then, from 1976 to his retirement, was a professor of modern American history at the University of New Hampshire.

He is survived by his wife Gloria; his four children Alexandra, Adam , Erica, and Charles; his two step children Erin and Brian; and his eight grandchildren. Instead of flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the North Carolina Symphony in memory of Harvard.