Born a decade apart, Chuck Berry and Mary Tyler Moore were more than talented entertainers. Through their artistry, they challenged prevailing notions of race and gender, equal opportunity, and sexual liberation, during a period of rapid social upheaval decades ago.

The deaths of these two trailblazers in 2017 touched fans everywhere. Yet their passing struck an especially poignant note in a year when societal norms were being sorely tested — again — as race and gender issues spilled into the national conversation, from the workplace to the streets.

The unfolding New Year offers an opportunity to reconsider the lives and legacies of not only these two pop culture icons but of many other notable figures who departed last year, men and women who left lasting imprints on the region, nation, and world.

As with the death last month of Cardinal Bernard Law, the disgraced prelate at the center of the Boston Archdiocese’s pedophile priest scandal, the legacies of some individuals are deeply tarnished by crimes or sins of omission and commission. Yet they are noteworthy nonetheless, their impact destined to be felt for years to come.

Law’s death in Rome rekindled strong emotions — anger, betrayal, resentment — among victims of the clergy scandal. Many said they might never regain trust in their church and its leaders. Others no longer alive were remembered as heroes, among them Joe Crowley, a courageous voice for victims’ rights, who died in April.

For their part, Berry and Moore may not have set out to become cultural game-changers. Yet they were venerated as such.

Black and proudly so, Berry, with his ringing guitar licks and songwriting poetics, attuned youthful listeners, black and white, to themes of personal freedom as the civil rights movement was gathering momentum. Although never overtly political, his songs, as one writer noted, offered “a peek into the gap between the rhetoric of the American dream and the reality of a country that was far from colorblind.’’

And oh, that music. Its propulsive, lyrical sound inspired countless others, from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen, changing pop music forever.

Springsteen, in hailing Berry as “the greatest pure rock’n’roll writer who ever lived,’’ needed no racial modifier. To the Boss, he was simply the best.

Moore starred in a pair of hugely popular sitcoms of the 1960s — “The Dick Van Dyke Show’’ — and ’70s, her own “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.’’ In the latter, she brought to life a vision of liberated American womanhood — smart, single, sexy, career-oriented — unlike that reflected in prime-time characters before her.

Mary Richards, the TV journalist portrayed by Moore, became an icon for many feminists, while Moore herself influenced numerous entertainers, from Oprah Winfrey to Tina Fey, who followed in her footsteps. Moore also earned an Oscar nomination for her dramatic role in “Ordinary People’’ and plaudits for her animal-rights activism, before dying in January at age 80.

The fight for social justice inspired many others who departed. This group included civil rights attorney William T. Coleman, only the second African-American to hold a Cabinet position, as secretary of transportation under President Ford; Roger Wilkins, a prize-winning journalist and historian who served as a high-ranking Justice Department official; Roy Innis, who led the politically conservative Congress for Racial Equality; and Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement and a key figure in the 1973 Wounded Knee uprising.

The nation bade farewell, too, to John B. Anderson, a moderate Republican congressman who mounted a spirited independent run for president in 1980; Zbigniew Brzezinski, a hawkish political scientist who served in the Carter White House as national security adviser; Idaho governor and Interior Department secretary Cecil Andrus; Norma McCorvey, anonymous plaintiff in the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion case; and influential pollster Daniel Yankelovich.

On the world stage, German chancellor Helmut Kohl was remembered for reunifying Germany while helping end the Cold War. Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo of China, a writer, critic, and human-rights activist, challenged his homeland’s one-party Communist rule with uncommon bravery.

It was a different brand of bravery that led Martin McGuinness to lay down his weapons and challenge his comrades in the IRA to realize it was the time for peace and reconciliation. The Northern Ireland Good Friday peace accords were the result. Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko conveyed courage as a leading anti-Stalinist political dissident during the Soviet era.

In the literary world, it was a year to mark the deaths of Sam Shepard, an award-winning playwright, actor, and director, whose plays explored the darker sides of American family life and whose final protagonist was himself, as he described his body yielding to Lou Gehrig’s disease; and decorated poet Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate and longtime Boston University professor.

Also, Pulitzer Prize-winning poets John Ashbery and Richard Wilbur; novelist-playwright J.P Donleavy; feminist writer Kate Millett; novelist and short-story master Denis Johnson; and writer-filmmaker Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who wrote the heart-tugging essay “You May Want to Marry My Husband’’ while facing her own impending mortality.

During a year of upheaval on multiple fronts, music fans of every persuasion sought pleasure – and often solace — in the recordings and performances of their favorite artists. Sadly, there also came moments to grieve the loss of singular talents who sounded their last notes in 2017. Besides Chuck Berry, fans shared warm memories of Fats Domino, the piano-thumping pride of New Orleans and one of rock’s founding fathers; Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Tom Petty, who wrote, performed, and produced a jukebox worth of platinum-selling tracks and albums; and Allman Brothers Band singer-keyboardist Gregg Allman, who fused blues, country, and rock into a soulful, Southern-flavored stew.

Also, country-pop hit maker Glen Campbell; guitarist J. Geils, founder of the hard-driving, Boston-based J. Geils Band; and coloratura soprano Roberta Peters, mezzo-soprano Barbara Smith Conrad, tenor Nicolai Gedda, and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, big names all in the opera world.

Of the many stage and screen notables lost in 2017, few put together a more multifaceted career than Jerry Lewis, actor, comedian, filmmaker, fund-raiser, and paragon of show business royalty. Don Rickles, America’s roastmaster general, was the undisputed king of insult comedy. Dick Gregory, another edgy comedian, used his satiric flair to advocate on behalf of civil rights.

Glowing obits were written, too, for Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme; actor and master of disguise Martin Landau; and New Wave film star Jeanne Moreau, who also directed, sang, and wrote screenplays.

As Mary Tyler Moore’s career demonstrated, television personalities often become charter members of their audiences’ families. So it was for two sitcom stars who could also sing a little: David Cassidy, forever enshrined in the Partridge Family, and Jim Nabors, a k a Mayberry’s lovably goofy Gomer Pyle.

Also bowing out were Adam West, TV’s original (Holy Cliffhangers!) Batman; comedians Shelley Berman and “Professor’’ Irwin Corey; actress-singer Della Reese; actors Mike Connors and Powers Boothe; the always comic and sometimes crooner Rose Marie; voice actress June Foray; game-show hosts Monty Hall and Chuck Barris; and “Peoples’ Court’’ Judge Joseph Wapner, whose courtroom educated millions on the ways, and whims, of small claims court.

In the media realm, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s legacy was a controversial mix of promoting progressive social causes on the one hand and objectifying women on the other. Similarly, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes rose to power touting conservative politicians and principles, only to lose both job and reputation to sexual harassment charges.

Under siege all year long, the newspaper industry paid homage to two of its most widely read columnists, urban balladeer Jimmy Breslin and gossip maven Liz Smith.

Also saluted were critic-essayist — and Roxbury native — Nat Hentoff; award-winning sportswriter Frank Deford; Conde Nast chairman S. I. Newhouse; Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Enberg; and innovative “Monday Night Football’’ producer Don Ohlmeyer.

In the arts world, epitaphs were carved for photographer Martha Swope, whose theater and dance portraits captured decades of stage history; Pop Art pioneer James Rosenquist; New Yorker cartoonists James Stevenson and Jack Ziegler; and abstract painter-printmaker Julian Stanczak.

In 2017, local sports fans observed a moment of silence for two of the greatest athletes ever to wear a Boston uniform: Red Sox infielder Bobby Doerr, a Baseball Hall of Famer, and hockey immortal Milt Schmidt of the Bruins. Hub fans also recalled the exploits of Sox centerfielder Jimmy Piersall, two-sport star Gene Conley, Patriots quarterback Vito “Babe’’ Parilli, Pats receiver Terry Glenn, rugged Bruins defenseman Gary Doak, and Boston College hockey coach Len Ceglarski.

Cheers echoed, too, for baseball great and US Senator Jim Bunning; boxing champ Jake “Raging Bull’’ LaMotta; Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney; football coaches Ara Parseghian, Dick MacPherson, and Ron Meyer; baseball’s Roy Halladay and Don Baylor; football’s Y.A. Tittle and Cortez Kennedy; basketball’s Connie Hawkins and Dave Stallworth; tennis legend Pancho Segura; and Swiss mountaineer Ueli Steck.

Losing pioneers in the fields of science, medicine, and technology underscores the role that visionary individuals play in advancing human knowledge. Two in the vanguard of the computer revolution were Robert Taylor, a networking expert who helped create the Internet, and Harry Huskey, who helped construct the world’s first personal computer.

Elsewhere on the front lines of scientific achievement were virologist Julius Youngner, a key member of the Salk polio vaccine team; physician Thomas Starzl, who performed the first liver transplant; natural childbirth advocate Frederick Leboyer, who changed delivery room practices around the world; and MIT physicist Mildred Dresselhaus, known as the “queen of carbon science.’’

Other luminaries who passed from the scene included college presidents Paul Gray of MIT and Rev. Donald Monan of Boston College; business titans Henri Termeer of Genzyme and cellular network pioneer Vanu Bose; political fund-raiser Robert Farmer; political aide Nick Littlefield; state auditor Joseph DeNucci; and state senator and three-time mayoral candidate Joseph Timilty.

Also, longtime TV weatherman Dick Albert; radio host Neil Chayet; Boston Magazine owner D. Herbert Lipson; baritone Robert Honeysucker; developer Kenneth Guscott; architect Howard Elkus; banker Ira Stepanian; philanthropist Ted Cutler; Korean War hero Thomas Hudner; Boston first lady Kathryn White; and journalists Robert Phelps, Gloria Negri, Michael Madden, and Wayne Woodlief.

While these and scores of others were remembered for their positive contributions, others attained a degree of notoriety that was dramatically, and deservedly, darker. So it was for Charles Manson, leader of a murderous California cult that made grisly headlines in the 1960s, and for former Patriots star receiver Aaron Hernandez, whose murder conviction and prison suicide provided a shocking ending to a once-storied pro football career.

Finally, candles were lit in 2017 for the many victims of mass violence, the first responders who in aiding them and others were killed, and the men and women in uniform who gave their lives for their fellow citizens. They are not to be forgotten.

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at josephpkahn@gmail.com.