Manute Bol played ten years in the National Basketball Association. But he will be remembered as much for his shot-blocking in the NBA as for his charity work in Sudan. He died June nineteenth from kidney failure and a rare and painful skin disorder.

He became sick while working in his homeland. He was forty-seven years old. A funeral took place last week at Washington's National Cathedral.

Manute Bol was born in southern Sudan. He stood two hundred thirty-one centimeters -- tall even for a Dinka, some of Africa's tallest people.