NEWARK — Rutgers University professor and historian Clement A. Price, a lens to Newark's past and its present, died today following a stroke, university officials said.

Price was stricken over the weekend while attending a film festival at Rutgers. He was 69.

Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Nancy Cantor, in an email that went out to students, faculty and staff, said "it is impossible at this moment to imagine this world, let alone our university or our community, without him. He is a primary reason why so many of us at Rutgers University– Newark are here."

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka said the city was "in shock and mourning."

“Not only was he a dear friend to me, he was a friend to all of Newark," said the mayor in a statement. "His great intelligence, his vast learning, his eloquence, and most of all, his unbelievable personal warmth, made him one of our city’s most titanic, respected, and beloved figures. He empowered and energized everyone he met and touched with his warmth and wisdom."

Former Newark mayor and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said the city had lost one of its great statesmen.

"Clem Price was not only our leading historian, but he was a powerful spiritual force in our state's largest city," said Booker. "He helped us all learn, grow, heal and come together. He was a chief architect of community unity and in so many ways helped create a Newark civic space that was more vibrant and more loving. All of Newark deeply mourns his loss."

Price, who went to college at the University of Bridgeport, Conn., came to Newark in the wake of the city’s infamous 1967 riots and became one of its most ardent boosters. He began studying Newark as a graduate student, and then came to teach at Essex County College. He later moved to Rutgers-Newark, where he earned his Ph.D.

In interviews, Price said his sense of community began as a child growing up in Washington, D.C., where his love for history didn’t just come from teachers and textbooks. It came from his mother, Anna Christine Spann Price, a schoolteacher, and his father, James Sr., who worked for the Internal Revenue Service.

“My parents talked about history as if it was just around the corner,” Price said. “I became a historian because I was always comfortable talking about the past.”

Price lived in a historic brownstone on the edge of Newark’s Lincoln Park with his wife, Mary Sue Sweeney, the former director of the Newark Museum, choosing to move to the city at a time when people were looking to leave.

In an interview years ago, Sweeney recalled her husband telling her: “Everyone who lives around us is no different than you or me. They just had different luck.”

Cantor said Price's knowledge was "seemingly without bounds." She said his sincerity was without qualification, and his warmth and wisdom like no other.

"The people whose lives he touched are truly uncountable—students, faculty and staff colleagues, community members, friends everywhere, collaborators from all corners of the earth whom he quickly and enthusiastically embraced as friends, and the incalculable numbers of people affected by his scholarship and teaching or moved by the waves of his influence wherever he turned his thoughtful gaze or concerted attention," Cantor said.

An author and prominent African-American scholar, Price could discuss race relations and politics, as easily as music and the pre-Jackie Robinson era of baseball. He was the founding director of the Institute on Ethnicity, Culture and the Modern Experience at Rutgers-Newark University, where he brought together a wide intersection of urban and suburban residents to participate in the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series.

One of the state's foremost authorities on black New Jersey history, he was the author of Freedom Not Far Distant: A Documentary History of Afro-Americans in New Jersey (1980), and other works that explored history, race relations and modern culture in the U.S. and New Jersey. His most recent book was a three-volume work, Slave Culture: A Documentary Collection of the Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project.

Those who wanted to know more about Newark would inevitably end up at the door of Price, who arranged tours for visitors who wanted to see a more balanced picture of the city’s life as well as its potential. At the same time, he also served and led a number of boards, committees and foundations far and wide.

He chaired the New Jersey State Council on the Arts from 1980 to 1983. He was trustee of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, president of the Newark Education Trust, chairman of the Save Ellis Island Foundation, and a member of the Scholarly Advisory Committee to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.

In 2011, President Obama appointed him vice chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

Earlier this year, Price was named as Newark's official historian.

Gale Gibson, president of Essex County College, said Price, one of the school's founding faculty members, always maintained a relationship with the college, even after he left to teach at Rutgers.

"I am so humbled and honored the we were able to award him an honorary degree at our largest graduation class (1,502) last in May,'' Gibson said. "He was always part of the fabric of Essex,'' she said.

Lonnie Bunch, a 30-year friend who is the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., said there was never a better historian or a more generous human.

“I’ve known him for almost my whole professional life," he said. "One of the joys of Clem is that we were all made better by his presence.’’

Cantor said Price "exuded a love of humanity so deep and wide, so thorough and universal, that one could not be in his presence and not want to join him in whatever endeavor engaged him, because whatever engaged him was never about what he needed, but what we all need— understanding, reconciliation, justice, generosity, peace, love."

Price is survived by his wife, his sister, Jarmila, and his brother, James.

Cantor said the university was working with Price's family to plan for memorializing and celebrating his life.

Star-Ledger columnist Barry Carter contributed to this report.



Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.