There are few people who enter your life and leave such a profound impact, if only for a season. Mark was my friend and my life was truly touched by him. In January 1984, we began a great adventure. Our mentor, the late Dr. Gertrude W. Marlowe, took on a student-training grant to create an annotated bibliography on Maggie L. Walker public life and career. Three of us started and were totally fascinated over her life and accomplishments. Dr. Marlowe won the contract for a second phase of the project – to create a biography of her public life and career that would be used by the National Park Service to interpret her home, which was a new National Historic Site. Although I’d seen Mark on campus during our years at Howard together, I officially met him when he joined the second phase of the project in 1985. Because of the aspects of the project we were working on – Mark was assigned the newspaper search, I her family and organizational ties (and all of this was pre-computer/internet!) – we worked together regularly, becoming road warriors, traveling to Richmond frequently. Dr. Marlowe was exceptionally generous in ensuring our development as budding scholars, and sent us to the ASALH annual conference Cleveland in the fall of 1985, where I watched Mark excitedly engage with one of his heroes, Dr. Ivan Van Sertima. It was also during the project that we all met Dr. W. Montague Cobb, one of Howard’s jewels who had connections to Richmond. Ironically, this chance event that would become so pivotal in Mark’s life. The Maggie L. Walker Project was more than a research experience during graduate school. It had a personal connection for all of us in so many ways. For Dr. Marlowe, Maggie Walker’s involvement in the Black women’s club and fraternal movements brought memories of her own mother’s involvement with the YWCA. For our colleague in religion, Gail Bowman, Walker’s speeches seeped in religious imagery confirmed her call to ministry and provided validation of women in religious life. Dr. Marlowe saw in me the continuation of the strong traditions of the Black Church and fraternal life, as evidenced in my church involvement, sorority connections and understanding of those institutions’ traditions and practices. My own family’s history was affirmed when I found old St. Luke membership records of my grandparents and family information in vital records. But Mark and I shared an incredible experience that brought the project home personally for him, and I’ve never forgotten it. During spring break of 1986 we hit the road once again and traveled to Hampton University to investigate the George Peabody Clipping Books, which were a treasure trove of information on Walker and her contemporaries. It was during this time that Mark shared much with me about his family history. He was a doting big brother to his sister who also attended Howard, and that same care and attention spread to all of the women on the project. He was ever the gentleman. During our days in mounds of scrapbooks and microfilm, Mark explained his story – he resonated with Maggie Walker, being of mixed parentage. He told me how he’d gone to a local high school and found a yearbook, and located his natural parents, who he hadn’t contacted; for him, it was enough to know who they were. More importantly, though, was his absolute pride of being a Mack, and the Hampton opportunity gave him a chance to look up his grandfather (paternal, I think), who had attended Hampton. I vividly remember feeling that a great deal of trust had been placed in me by allowing me to share in this experience and see the tears of pride and love which welled up in his eyes at his discovery. Mark was our secret weapon during the MLW project. While Dr. Marlowe had two children of her own near our age, she’d adopted all of us as well, and we were her traveling family. Mark didn’t know how handsome he was, or if he did, he never flaunted it, but we used it to our advantage. When we couldn’t get material from Mrs. Dorothy Turner (the Right Worthy Grand Secretary Treasurer of the Independent Order of St. Luke), Mark was sent in to pour on the charm. We subsequently received original late 19th century photos of Walker and her family in the mail -- which Mark analyzed with his physical anthropology skills to make sure they were her. We did the ethical thing – took copies and returned them. It’s ironic how our paths have paralleled. After the project was over, we all went our separate ways. I ended up at Howard’s Divinity School and now teach at Shaw University, Gail Bowman was ordained to ministry and now serves as chaplain at Dillard University, and Arnold Layne went to graduate school and a career at EPA. Mark left for Amherst and came back to Howard. Three of us ended up in education, at historically Black colleges or universities. We all stayed in touch less frequently. Our time at Howard had been at a pivotal developmental phase in our lives – we’d all fallen in and out of love, shared heartbreak, and eventually found our life partners or calling. We celebrated Dr. Marlowe’s retirement in 1992, and mourned her passing in 1996. We all delighted in the long awaited publication of A Right Worthy Grand Mission: Maggie Lena Walker and the Quest for Black Economic Empowerment in 2003, which validated and brought back to memory, all of our shared experiences. Mark and I would catch up with each other every so often. A few years ago I let him know that more original documents had been found at the St. Luke Building and that a team of researchers at William and Mary were hosting a Maggie L. Walker Day. He promised we’d find time to go to Richmond and continue what we’d started some twenty-five years earlier. One time Mark called to say he was marrying his Cindy. Every time I talked with him afterwards and asked how she was, Cindy was always “wonderful” or “perfect.” He unequivocally adored her. Then on another occasion, Mark let me know he’d become a Mason, and fully understood Maggie L. Walker’s story. “Kim, I absolutely LOVE it!” He was a fraternal man, with real identity in and of his heritage. I remembered how excited I was when our department got involved in the African Burial Ground Project. I knew that the experience would be a highlight of Mark’s career and life, and it was. In recent years, our conversations turned to our new reality as members of the sandwich generation, caring for aging parents and consolation over the loss of mine in 2008. Probably the best call I ever received from my friend was a message full of excitement that I knew I had to return right away. When I reached him, I said, “you’ve either finished your dissertation or you’re going to have a baby.” If anyone could simply melt through the phone, Mark Mack did that day, announcing that he was going to be a father at the ripe old age of 48! Our paths had crossed again – parenthood of beautiful girls after 40. I got tickled when he recounted an aching back from getting baby Amirah out of the bathtub, but of course he would have it no other way. She was his absolute pride and joy. I hope that my Kimille and Mark’s Amirah will have the fortune of crossing paths in the years to come. If there is any validation for the worth and legacy of anthropology at Howard University, it is embodied in Mark Mack. He was a gentleman and a scholar whose contributions to the field are noted and respected. He embraced all he was taught from his professors, and became their respected colleague. More importantly, he has nurtured many that will impact the discipline for future generations. His passion and love of anthropology and life are evident. I will always miss my dear friend. I am so blessed to have had him in my life.