Fond Farewells: Paying Tribute to Notable People Who Died in 2009

ong before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revolutions that transformed Central and Eastern Europe, Corazon Aquino led the People Power revolution, which toppled the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. His ouster after the infamous snap election of 1986, for which I was a U.S. observer, led TIME to name her Woman of the Year. Her presidency survived eight coup attempts as she patiently restored constitutional democracy to her country, where she died a revered figure. But her legacy was global. For the U.S., it marked the start of the Reagan doctrine to oppose authoritarianism of the right and left, and she helped inspire peaceful upheavals around the world. She showed that one person of modest demeanor can change history. - Richard Lugar
Lugar is a U.S. Senator from Indiana (See the full list of TIME's Fond Farwells of 2009)

Walter Cronkite
Journalist, 92

In the cramped suburbia of my youth, we could always tell when our neighbors were watching the same thing we were, because the flashing and dancing light against their windows matched what was on our screen. During the bygone era of the "family dinner hour," more often than not it was the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite. He was a modest college dropout from Missouri who explained our world each night. Wars (cold and hot), Watergate, the race to the moon and a dark day in Dallas. He held our hand when we needed it. We loved him because he was one of us. He was the voice of America. He was the best there ever was.

- Brian Williams
Williams is the anchor of NBC Nightly News

(See the Top 10 News Stories of 2009)

John Hope Franklin
Historian, 94

John Hope Franklin had a calling. as a supersmart youth in the depths of segregation, he was born to do war with racism. But while others expected him to become a lawyer, he resolved to be a historian. He rejoiced in this vocation and, more than anyone else, taught us that American history and African-American history are inseparably intertwined. To the end of his long life, racial prejudice filled him with fresh indignation, though he was never entrapped in indignation. He had a vast curiosity, a genius for friendship and always a wonderful gleam in his eye - a sign that he loved the human spectacle in all its astonishing forms.

- Richard H. Brodhead
Brodhead is the president of Duke University

See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.

Michael Jackson
Pop Icon, 50

Michael Jackson kept his most stunning performance for the very end. Always able to command an audience, he knew how to bring whole arenas to fits of exultation with his moves and then silence them to the point of tears with his poetry. He was brilliant, excessive, maudlin, tacky and possibly criminal, but you could never ignore him. So it was fitting that in death, he momentarily silenced the largest arena humanity has ever known, the Internet.

News of this middle-aged man's sudden passing nearly broke the Web. Google's news section malfunctioned under the weight of "Michael Jackson" searches. The volume of Jackson-related tweets reached 5,000 per minute the day he died; Twitter was so overwhelmed that some users couldn't get into their accounts. Wikipedia buckled temporarily after hundreds of edits were made to Jackson's page. Across the Internet, more than 24,000 Jackson collectibles were offered for auction or sale. Jackson was crowned the King of Pop back before new media helped crack the monolith of radio pop into innumerable subgenres, from hip-hop and house to praise rock and adult contemporary. But the old-media monarch showed, one last time, that he still reigned: the world stopped for him for a few hours on June 25.

- John Cloud

See the top 10 albums of 2009.

George Tiller
Physician, 67

When Dr. George Tiller, the U.S.'s best-known provider of late-term abortions, was shot in the head on the morning of May 31 while serving as an usher at his Lutheran church in Wichita, Kans., both sides of the abortion debate braced for battle. Supporters called him a martyr; critics called him a murderer. Both groups deplored his killing: abortion-rights activists warned that it could signal a fresh wave of clinic violence; abortion opponents warned that it would lead to the demonizing of their movement.

Tiller, who had originally planned to become a dermatologist, lived with the knowledge that his actions made him a target. There are only a handful of clinics in the country where women can obtain an abortion late in pregnancy; Tiller's was bombed in 1986. In 1993 he was shot in both arms. He received death threats regularly, wore body armor and traveled with a guard dog. Just a few weeks before the shooting, the clinic's security cameras and lights were vandalized; Tiller asked the FBI to investigate. He was repeatedly tried - and acquitted - on charges of violating state laws governing late-term abortions. Why did he do it? "Women and families are intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and ethically competent to struggle with complex health issues - including abortion," he said, "and come to decisions that are appropriate for themselves."

The abortion debate typically occurs within the boundaries a democracy sets, ones of peaceful, if not always respectful, debate and advocacy on both sides. But Tiller's murder reminds us that in matters of life and death, the argument itself can become a matter of life and death.

- Nancy Gibbs