Benjamin W. Nero

Benjamin W. Nero died on Sunday 27 September 2026, aged 89, of complications from a stroke, at an assisted living centre in Voorhees, New Jersey. His death was reported by The Philadelphia Tribune on 9 October and by The Philadelphia Inquirer on 20 October 2026.

A viewing and celebration of life were held on Friday 16 October 2026 at New Covenant Church of Philadelphia on Germantown Avenue, with Bruce R. Hawkins Funeral Home handling arrangements. He was survived by his wife, Noella Folkes-Nero, his son, Benjamin W. Nero Jr., his former wife Donita, stepchildren, nieces and nephews. His four sisters and three brothers died before him. His family asked that donations be made to the Drs. Nero and Biggerstaff Diversity Scholarship Endowment at the University of Kentucky.

Benjamin Williamson Nero was born on 24 August 1937 in Greenwood, Mississippi, the youngest surviving of eight siblings, to David Manch Nero Sr. and Mary Pauline Key Nero. The family worked a 51-acre cotton farm, where work began early and comforts were few. "I was the only guy in my class who hated for school to be out," he told KUT radio in 2016, because the end of the school year meant going to the cotton field. His father taught Sunday school at Decell United Methodist Church in Greenwood.

At Broad Street High School he was the star quarterback and captain of the football team, which he led to a state championship game, and held student leadership roles. Morgan Freeman was a schoolmate, and later said Nero was one of the teachers' favourites. He graduated in 1956 and went to Kentucky State College, where he played quarterback, acted in college productions, took part in civil rights protests and earned a degree in biology. In 1960 he had a training camp tryout with the Los Angeles Chargers but said he left after being told he could not play quarterback because he was Black.

He traced his interest in dentistry to a former high school football coach who had left coaching for dental school and was highly regarded in his community.

In 1967 Nero graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, its first Black graduate and the first Black dental school graduate in Kentucky. He moved to Philadelphia for advanced training at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, now Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital, where he became the first Black intern to complete its three-year orthodontic residency.

In 1971 he acquired the Center City practice of Knowlton Atterbeary, one of the nation's earliest Black orthodontists. Like Atterbeary, he was for many years the only Black orthodontist in the Philadelphia area, and over about 50 years he treated thousands of patients, including several families across three generations. His family said he believed dentistry was fundamentally a caring profession.

He co-founded and was a president of the New Era Dental Society, travelled to Haiti to provide dental care to underserved patients, and encouraged students and even some of his own patients to enter dentistry. In 2017 he received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry and lectured at Kentucky State University in its Living Legends Series.

In 2016 he published the memoir That's the Way It Was, co-written with the Philadelphia journalists Claude Lewis and John Timpane, with a foreword by Morgan Freeman. It traced his family history from enslavement in the 1800s through the Jim Crow era to professional life in modern America.

Nero married Donita White, and they had a son, Benjamin Jr., and lived in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. After their divorce he married Noella Folkes, and they lived in Riverside Township, Burlington County, New Jersey. The Inquirer reported that he had earlier been married and divorced twice.

He enjoyed reading and travelling, and played baseball, tennis and golf with his son, whom his family described as among his greatest joys. He attended Philadelphia Eagles games for five decades and took part in Phillies Dream Week workouts alongside players including Mike Schmidt. His family remembered him as warm, modest and funny, and said he saw himself not as self-made but as the beneficiary of people who had loved, taught, challenged and carried him.

Nero's place in history rests on a series of firsts in dental education in Kentucky and Philadelphia, and on half a century as one of very few Black orthodontists in his region. University of Kentucky alumni created the Dr. Benjamin Nero Student Inclusive Excellence Award, and the Drs. Nero and Biggerstaff Diversity Scholarship Endowment, set up in 2010 and supported by Morgan Freeman, helps dental students and promotes diversity in the profession. Jeffrey P. Okeson, dean of the College of Dentistry, called him an enduring source of inspiration to many within the profession.

His memoir and the award-winning documentary A House for My Mother (2025), directed by Pilar Timpane, carry his family's story from slavery to the professions to a new audience.