Dr. Nancy Banks Bakke Blackman

February 25th, 1932 - March 30, 2024

Nancy was born in Sterling Colorado to Esther Banks of Pennsylvania and a Norris C. Bakke of North Dakota. From them she drew a deep and lifelong commitment to community care, social equality, and a general curiosity and compassion for the world around her.  The family moved from Sterling to Denver as her father served a 10-year term as Colorado Supreme Court Justice. Both her mother and father engaged in the social justice of equity, generosity, dignity, and the inclusion of all people during the trying times of both world wars and the Great Depression.

Later her family moved to Silver Spring, Maryland. Nancy took up the baton and organized and participated social outreach organizations beginning in high school and college. She attended Blair High School in Silver Spring where she wrote a weekly column for the school paper. A highlight for a young woman at the time, she represented Colorado as a Cherry Blossom Queen in the annual Cherry Blossom parade in Washington DC. She attended Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Nancy had boundless curiosity and received two Master's degrees including from Haverford College in Philadelphia and Columbia University in New York City.  Her children, Mark and Rachel were born in Boston. During the 1960's, while in Boston, Nancy was involved in community organizing and advocacy stemming from membership in a progressive church community.  This included being a founding parent for a Freedom School in Roxbury Massachusetts and safely housing national civil rights activists when they came to Boston from the South.

Later, while being a full-time mother, Nancy earned her PhD from the University of Maryland. Her research was in child development and her mentor with whom she stayed in touch was developmental psychologist Erik Erikson.  Being near Washington DC weekends were spent taking her children to protest marches: the women's movement, anti-poverty campaigns, anti-war and antic racist protests.

As professor, Dr. Blackman had full-time teaching appointments at Ferrum College in Ferrum Virginia, the University of Rhode Island in Kingston and Endicott College in Beverly Massachusetts. She was dedicated to expanding the existing curriculum of the time to include empowerment for young women students. She was a visiting researcher and professor at colleges in China, Bangalore India, and the province of Iloilo in the Philippines.

As a lifelong progressive educator, the welcoming environment of inclusion in her classroom supported a safe and healthy learning environment for many of her students over the years.

Both as an academic and citizen of the world, Dr. Blackman traveled a great deal including to Cuba, to the then Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Norway, France, England, Ireland, Spain, Hong Kong, Germany, Greece, the Dominica Republic, Antigua, St John's, Japan, Philippines, India, and China.

Nancy had expansive knowledge and a profoundly deep love of the visual arts, poetry and music informed by a degree in Art History and her travels.

Even in the later stages of dementia she kept her professor hat on and never stopped reading. She did not retain the information or content but read out loud and responded to words on paper, screens, and signage. In her final months, visits with her daughter Rachel were rich and loving.

Nancy is predeceased by dear friends, her parents, brother, and her beloved son Mark.  She is survived by her daughter Rachel Cyrene Blackman.  Nancy's last years were in the great care of the wonderful staff at Ledgewood Skilled Nursing and Rehab in Beverly Massachusetts. Her family's gratitude to Ledgewood is boundless.

A Memorial Service will take place on Saturday June 1, 2024, at 11:00 a.m.  Beneficent Congregational Church 300 Weybossett Street Providence, RI 02903

Parking is available next to the church.

In lieu of flowers please do something unexpected, extraordinary, and kind for a single mother.