“Thank you for the moving outpouring of love and support in honor of our wonderful husband, father, and grandfather. Norman lived a life of curiosity, tenacity, and empathy. He deeply loved our country and spent a lifetime helping to preserve its founding ideals of justice and equality for all,” The Jeffersons creator’s family wrote on his website of his Tuesday, December 5, death.

“He began his career in the earliest days of live television and discovered a passion for writing about the real lives of Americans, not a glossy ideal. At first, his ideas were met with closed doors and misunderstanding. However, he stuck to his conviction that the ‘foolishness of the human condition’ made great television, and eventually he was heard,” the note continued.