By Ben Gellman
WCHL Reporter
Additional reporting by Lynda-Marie Taurasi

Local community organizer, historian and activist Yonni Chapman died Thursday after a long battle with cancer.  He was 62.

In 2006, Chapman earned his Ph.D in history from UNC at the age of 59, writing his dissertation on racism in the university’s history and how blacks worked to be considered equals.  He sat down with WCHL’s Lynda-Marie Taurasi recently as he looked back on his life and his research.

Chapman grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, and attended Harvard University, receiving his bachelor’s degree in history.  In 1975, he moved to Chapel Hill, and spent ten years working as a lab assistant at North Carolina Memorial Hospital.  While at the hospital, Chapman was a vocal advocate for black workers, helping to mobilize them in protests for better wages and working conditions.

An adopted child, he was named John Kenyon Chapman, and his middle name became the basis for his better-known nickname of Yonni.

At the time of his death, Chapman was the third-vice chair for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter of the NAACP.