BELCHERTOWN, Mass. (AP) - An author, musician, civil rights activist and professor who made a late-life conversion to Judaism, has died. Julius Lester was 78.
Lester's daughter, Lian Amaris, posted on her father's Facebook page that he "passed peacefully, surrounded by family" on Thursday.
Lester had written on Facebook about his struggles with emphysema.
He was a professor of both black studies and Jewish studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst for more than 30 years before retiring in 2003. During his tenure, he received the university's top faculty awards.
The son of a minister, Lester had long known he had a Jewish ancestor and converted to Judaism in the early 1980s, chronicling his journey in the book "Lovesong: Becoming a Jew."
Funeral arrangements are pending.
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