Thomas Morgan III, the first openly gay president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and a longtime newsman at The New York Times, has died. He was 56.

The Brooklyn resident died early Monday morning, possibly of a heart attack, while visiting the family of his partner, Thomas Ciano, in Southampton, Mass., Ciano said Wednesday.

”He was a man of many different qualities and talents,” Ciano said. “He cared a lot about educating young journalists and the prevention of AIDS. Working to house and care for homeless people. Pottery. Gardening. Politics. Those were his passions.”

Morgan was NABJ’s president from 1989 to 1991. Even though he won the election handily, it was somewhat heated, according to a 2004 profile of Morgan on the NABJ’s Web site.

”It was painful,” Morgan recalled. “I struggled with how to represent NABJ without embarrassing the organization but while also being true to myself. I was elected as a black journalist, not a gay one.”

After graduating from the University of Missouri and completing his service with the U.S. Air Force in 1975, Morgan worked at The Miami Herald and The Washington Post.

He then joined the Times, where he rose to assistant metro editor and also received a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1989.

He retired from the newspaper in 1994, “largely to concentrate on his personal fight against AIDS,” according to the profile.

“Tom was a man of passion and compassion,” NABJ president Barbara Ciara said on her organization’s Web site. “He had the ability to walk into a room divided and help those who held opposing viewpoints find common ground. His loss is not only a personal one for me, but a great loss for NABJ.”