Women of grace

It may be purely coincidental that Janet Reno and my University of Miami colleague Nancy Clasby passed away within three days of one another, but their lives reveal compelling parallels.

Longtime Miamians born two months apart, both were devoted to social justice — Reno, as state and then U.S. attorney general, and Clasby, who developed the Black Studies program and taught the first Black Literature courses at UM.

Above all else, both were women of uncommon grace, humility and decency. We are better as a community for their presence in our lives.

This story was originally published November 16, 2016 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Women of grace."