Marlon Riggs; Documentaries Won Awards

Marlon Riggs, 37, educator and filmmaker who won an Emmy and a Peabody for his documentaries. Focusing on the problems of blacks and gays, Riggs’ best-known works were his 1987 “Ethnic Notions” about black stereotypes, which won an Emmy award; the 1989 “Tongues Untied” about black homosexuals, which won the best documentary award at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the recent “Color Adjustment,” which won a Peabody. Educated at Harvard University and UC Berkeley, Riggs began teaching television at Berkeley in 1987 and earned tenure by the time he was 35. He was honored with a retrospective of his work last fall at the Pacific Film Archive. On Tuesday in Oakland of AIDS.