Posts filed under ‘Living Legends’
John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (born February 21, 1940) is an American politician and was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and played a key role in the struggle to end segregation. Lewis, a member of the Democratic Party, has represented Georgia’s 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives since 1987. The district encompasses almost all of Atlanta.
Early life and activism
Born in Troy, Alabama, the son of Meline Thas, Lewis was educated at the American Baptist Theological Seminary and at Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee, where he became active in the local sit-in movement. He participated in the Freedom Rides to desegregate the South, and was a national leader in the struggle for civil rights.
Lewis was instrumental in organizing student sit-ins, bus boycotts and non-violent protests in the fight for voter and racial equality. He endured brutal beatings by angry mobs and suffered a fractured skull at the hands of Alabama State police as he led a march of 600 people in Selma, Ala. in 1965.
Lewis became nationally known during his prominent role in the Selma to Montgomery marches. During the first march police attacked the peaceful demonstrators and beat Lewis mercilessly in public, leaving head wounds that are still visible today. At the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of 1963, Lewis, a representative of [SNCC], the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was the youngest speaker.
Historian Howard Zinn wrote: “At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, was prepared to ask the right question: ‘Which side is the federal government on?’ That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence.”
“John Lewis and SNCC had reason to be angry. John had been beaten bloody by a white mob in Montgomery as a Freedom Rider in the spring of 1961. The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but did nothing itself, except to have FBI agents take notes. Instead of insisting that blacks and whites had a right to ride the buses together, the Kennedy Administration called for a ‘cooling-off period,’ a moratorium on Freedom Rides.
In February 2009, forty-eight years after he had been bloodied by the Ku Klux Klan during civil rights marches, Lewis received an apology on national television from a white southerner, former Klansman Elwin Wilson.
“I’m so sorry about what happened back then,” Wilson said breathlessly. “It’s OK. I forgive you,” Lewis responded. (On national television, both men recalled the incident.) “[I remember] going directly to the Greyhound bus station,” Lewis said. “We tried to enter a so-called ‘white’ waiting room and the moment we started through the door, a group of young men attacked us.” Wilson was in the group, but said he “did more than help.” He said he was the main attacker. The outburst, Wilson said, was just part of a life of hate he led for years. “I had a black baby doll in this house, and I had a little rope, and I tied it to a limb and let it hang here,” he said.
After leaving SNCC in 1966, Lewis worked with community organizations and was named community affairs director for the National Consumer Co-op Bank in Atlanta.
Lewis has cited former Florida Senator and Congressman Claude Pepper, a staunch supporter of the New Deal and an outspoken liberal during his half-century in politics, as being the colleague that he has most admired.
Political career
Lewis first ran for elective office in 1977, when a vacancy occurred in Georgia’s 5th District. A special election was called after President Jimmy Carter appointed incumbent Congressman Andrew Young to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Lewis lost the race to Atlanta City Councilman and future Senator Wyche Fowler.
After his unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1977, Lewis was without a job and in debt from his campaign. He accepted a position with the Carter administration as associate director of ACTION, responsible for running the VISTA program, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, and the Foster Grandparent Program. He held that job for two and a half years, resigning as the 1980 election approached. In 1981, Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council.
In 1986, when Fowler ran for the United States Senate, Lewis defeated fellow civil rights leader Julian Bond in the Democratic primary to succeed Fowler in the 5th District. This win was tantamount to election in the heavily Democratic, majority-black 5th District. Lewis was the second African-American to represent Georgia in Congress since Reconstruction. Young was the first. Lewis has been re-elected ten times without serious opposition, often with over 70 percent of the vote. He has been unopposed for reelection since 2002 but faced two primary opponents in 2008.
Since 1991, Lewis has been senior chief deputy whip in the Democratic caucus. He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was an influential aide for the Clinton Cabinet, and had regular meetings with the administration.
Lewis is, according to the Associated Press, “the first major House figure to suggest impeaching George W. Bush,” arguing that the president “deliberately, systematically violated the law” in authorizing the National Security Agency to conduct wiretaps without a warrant. Lewis said, “He is not King, he is president.”
Lewis, an outspoken liberal and staunch opponent of the Iraq War, endorsed Joe Lieberman for re-election to the Senate in 2006, despite Lieberman’s loss to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary.
He was one of 31 House members who voted not to count the electoral votes from Ohio in the 2004 presidential election.
Lewis delivered the Commencement Address at the University of Massachusetts Lowell on Sunday June 3, 2007 at Edward A. LeLacheur Park.
In September 2007, Lewis was awarded the Dole Leadership Prize from the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.
On October 1, 2007 Lewis paid tribute to James Meredith at the dedication of The University of Mississippi’s James Meredith Monument. The speech and the monument commemorated civil rights pioneer James H. Meredith, who enrolled at the University of Mississippi in 1962, forcing its integration, and later led the 1966 James Meredith March Against Fear. After Meredith was wounded in an assassination attempt, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael continued the march that started the chant “Black Power!”
On October 21, 2007, Lewis helped to welcome the Dalai Lama of Tibet to Atlanta and Emory University.
A December 2009 report on privately financed Congressional travel by The New York Times found Lewis to be recipient of the most trips since 2007, with a total of 40.
Lewis is a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity.
Congressional committee assignments
- Committee on Ways and Means
- Subcommittee on Oversight (Chairman)
- Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support
Caucus membership
- Congressional Black Caucus
- Co-chair of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Caucus
- Bipartisan Taskforce on Nonproliferation
- Congressional Progressive Caucus
- Congressional Caucus on Global Road Safety
Dan Moore Sr.
Noted filmmaker and museum founder Dan Moore, Sr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 20, 1935. After high school, Moore worked several jobs, but found his true calling in 1967 when he began producing films.
His first film was a documentary entitled On Patrol for God, filmed at a Christian rally he helped to organize. A few years later, Moore went to Liberia on Africa’s west coast and made the film Welcome Home, which was sponsored by the Liberian government on the condition that he return and make a second film, which he did. He would return to Africa and travel to several other countries, as well. His productions also include Gayle Sayers: Instant Replay, with cameo of Bill Cosby; Sweet Auburn: Street of Pride, narrated by Cicely Tyson and Julian Bond.
In 1978, Moore founded the African American Panoramic Experience Museum (APEX) in Atlanta, which seeks to educate people about the depth and breadth of the African American experience. His inspiration for the museum came as he attended a banquet honoring Dr. Benjamin Mays, and he dedicated himself to creating a museum that celebrates the unsung heroes of the African American experience. He remains there as executive director to this day directing the expansion of The APEX into a 90,000 square foot facility with a walk through history from ancient Africa to the present election of Barack Obama, first Black president of the United States of America.
Kasim Reed
Mohammed Kasim Reed, known as Kasim Reed, (born June 10, 1969) is a Democratic politician and the 59th Mayor of Atlanta, who until recently represented the 35th District of the Georgia State Senate. He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives from 1998 to 2002. After serving as campaign manager for Shirley Franklin‘s successful 2001 Atlanta Mayoral campaign, he ran for the position in 2009 since Franklin was term limited. He was one of two candidates to advance from the November 3 general election to a December 1, 2009 runoff election, which he won and was officially inaugurated as Mayor of Atlanta on January 4, 2010.
In college, he instituted a student fee that has added millions of dollars to the Howard University endowment since its inception in 1991. In 2003, he was involved with the effort to prevent the Georgia State Senate from considering reinserting the battle emblem of the Confederate States of America in the official State Flag of Georgia.
Political career
State Representative
After graduation from Howard Law School, Reed worked for Atlanta Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis. In 1998, Henrietta Canty (1975–80, 1990–98), resigned her Georgia House of Representatives 52nd district seat to run for Georgia State Insurance Commissioner. Seven candidates vied for her seat in the July 21, 1998 Democratic primary election. Reed was the leading vote-getter with 36.6% of the vote. This resulted in a head-to-head August 11 run-off election, which Reed won with 60.6% of the vote, against second place finisher, Horace Mann Bond II, who had received 19.1% of the vote in July. In the November 3 general election, he was unopposed.
In his 2000 re-election campaign, Clarence Canty, who is the son of Henrietta, contested the seat, and Reed won the July 18, 2000 Democratic Primary by a 77.0%–12.7% margin. In the November 7, 2000 general election, he was again unopposed. In the House of Representatives, he represented a predominately African-American constituency in south Atlanta. Reed served as a member of the House Judiciary, Education, and Congressional and Legislative Reapportionment Committees.
While in office, in 2001 Reed served as the campaign manager in Shirley Franklin‘s successful election campaign to become the 58th Mayor of Atlanta. As a campaign manager in an election occurring in the shadow of the September 11 attacks, he surveyed potential voters’ perceptions of the propriety of the campaign’s advertising broadcasts because at the time certain ads were thought to focus on sensitive topics. After winning the election, Franklin chose Reed as one of two co-chairs on her transition team. In this role he was charged with identifying and reviewing candidates for cabinet-level positions.
In the 2000 election the 52nd House district had been entirely contained in Fulton County. After the decennary redistricting, the district by this number was entirely within DeKalb County, Georgia in November 5, 2002 election, which was won by Fran Millar.
State Senator
In 2000, the 35th Georgia State Senate District was entirely contained in Fulton County and Donzella James was an uncontested Democrat the November 7 general election. In 2002, four-term incumbent State Senator James vacated the seat and contested David Scott and a field of other contenders for the Georgia’s 13th congressional district, which was created after the 2000 Census when Georgia added two new congressional districts. When Reed first ran for election in the 35 state senate district in 2002 Democratic Primary, it included 19 precincts in Douglas County, Georgia and 333 in Fulton County. The district includes the southern portion of Fulton County (Atlanta, Alpharetta, College Park, East Point, Fairburn, Hapeville, Mountain Park, Palmetto, Roswell, Sandy Springs, and Union City) and the northeast portion of Douglas County (Douglasville, and Lithia Springs). Reed won the district’s five-way August 20, 2002 primary with 65.8% of the vote, and then he was uncontested in the November 5, 2002 general election. In 2004, James contested Reed for the seat she had held before him, but he won the July 20, 2004 Democratic primary election by a 58.8%–41.2% margin. He was uncontested in the November 2, 2004 general election,and he has been uncontested in his 2006 and 2008 primary and general elections.
In January 2006, Reed introduced a bill to authorize scholastic teaching of the textbook The Bible and Its Influence by the non-partisan, ecumenical Bible Literacy Project. The bible curriculum bill, which came a few years after Democrats opposed Republican attempts to promote teaching a translation of the scriptures, was an attempt to preempt a Republican attempt to display the Ten Commandments in schools. Faith is an area where Georgia Democrats differ from the national party. The bill passed in the State Senate by a 50–1 margin on February 3, and it eventually became law.
Reed’s committee assignments are the following: Senate Judiciary Committee, Special Judiciary Committee, Ethics Committee, Transportation Committee and the State and Local Government Operations Committee. He also serves as vice-chairman of the Georgia Senate Democratic Caucus. He has also served the Georgia Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as its chairman. In addition, he is a partner at Holland & Knight LLP.Previously, he worked in the music industry for Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP.
Susan Taylor
Personal Information
Born January 23, 1946, in New York, NY; daughter of Lawrence and Violett Taylor; married William Bowles, 1967 (divorced, 1971); married Khephra Burns; children: (first marriage) Shana-Nequai (daughter).
Education: Fordham University, B.A.
Career
Actress, Negro Ensemble Company; licensed cosmetologist, beginning c. 1970; founder, and president of Nequai Cosmetics, 1970-72; Essence magazine, free-lance writer, beauty editor, 1970-71, fashion and beauty editor, 1971-80, editor-in-chief, 1980–; television host/executive producer, Essence, the Television Program, late 1980s; Essence Communications Inc., executive coordinator, then vice- president, 1983–. Author of Essence column “In the Spirit”; author of In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor, 1993.
Life’s Work
Editor-in-chief of the enormously popular magazine Essence, Susan L. Taylor is also the author of 1993′s In the Spirit, a collection of essays reprinted from her Essence column of the same name. Taylor is a key source of critical thought, inspiration, and encouragement for African American women throughout America. She was called “the most influential black woman in journalism today” by American Libraries in 1994.
Her success is all the more remarkable when one considers that Taylor was once down-and-out and barely scraping by, alone with her daughter, Shana-Nequai. When she was 24, she found herself separated, with rent due, car broken, and three dollars to her name. One Sunday morning in November of 1970, Taylor was beset by pain in her chest and experiencing trouble breathing. The New York City emergency room doctor who admitted her diagnosed her with acute anxiety and prescribed a heavy dose of relaxation. Leaving the hospital feeling fearful and hopeless, Taylor stumbled on inspiration on her way home.
Walking up Broadway, Taylor came to a church and went in on impulse. She had not attended church in years, but sitting in a back pew in her jeans and leather jacket, she heard a sermon that changed her life. “The preacher said that our minds could change our world. That no matter what our troubles, if we could put them aside for a moment, focus on possible solutions and imagine a joyous future, we would find a peace within, and positive experiences would begin to unfold,” she recalled in In the Spirit. “I decided to try it. I gathered up some of the small pamphlets in the church vestibule. Little did I know I was taking the first step toward replacing my fears with faith. It was the beginning of my realization that our thoughts create our reality.” Taylor held on, and eventually her part-time job at the new magazine Essence became full-time, providing direction for her career.
Born in the Harlem section of New York City to West Indian parents on January 23, 1946, Taylor was raised in a strict yet loving environment. She was taught about the determination of her forebears to make a better life. She heard stories of her maternal grandmother’s bravery–leaving a broken marriage and six children in Trinidad in 1916, settling in Harlem, working and saving and bringing her children and mother to the United States by 1925, and doing battle with anyone and anything that stood in the way of her family’s forward movement, including racist police, school principals, and even the federal government. “Like the women of her time, my grandmother didn’t wait for change; she initiated it,” Taylor noted in her column in Essence.
Taylor’s father, Lawrence, arrived in Harlem from St. Kitts, West Indies, in the early 1920s and opened a clothing store with Taylor’s mother, Violett. But by the early 1960s, the street on which the store was situated had become a “war zone” of drug-related crime and after 30 years, the business closed. Noting the “disturbing sadness” of many black male youths in the 1990s, Taylor remembered seeing a similar “deep, quiet kind of sadness” in her father’s eyes when his clothing store, the family’s main means of support, closed.
In her Essence columns, Taylor also recognized a central trait she had inherited from her mother. “My mother always said that one of her greatest frustrations with me was my mouth,” Taylor wrote. “But I come by my strong opinions naturally: In that respect I am my mother’s child.” In fact, Taylor celebrates her power to speak out. “It is not for nothing that black women have acquired a reputation for speaking out. Historically, our words have been our only weapons, and our voices often our only defense…. But let us not forget the power of our collective voice when it is united–in prayer or in protest or in demand.”
In her early 20s Taylor trained in acting with the Negro Ensemble Company. She also founded her own company, Nequai Cosmetics, obtaining a license as a cosmetologist and developing beauty products for African American women. Taylor’s experience with Nequai attracted the editors of Essence, which led to her first free-lance articles there.
After divorcing her first husband, William Bowles, Taylor struggled as a single parent in personal and financial crisis. She credits her daughter with helping her remain focused through these hard times. “After the breakup of my first marriage, I realized it was my sole responsibility to feed, clothe and educate my daughter,” she was quoted as saying in Memphis, Tennessee’s Tri-State Defender. “This empowered me and compelled me to live my life with purpose. My daughter has been my anchor.” The child accompanied Taylor everywhere while she pursued her career. In an interview with Michele Willens of Cosmopolitan, Taylor recollected her early days at Essence, explaining, “I just decided that rather than limit myself because I was a mother, I’d take her everywhere and expose her to everything. She was hanging around these offices when she was two.”
Taylor’s rise to the top at Essence took some ten years. While friends moved from one magazine to another, Taylor stayed on at Essence. “There were some moments of self-doubt, but the bottom line was that I was still challenging myself. And the waiting paid off.” Taylor moved from the part-time position of free-lance beauty editor, to the full-time staff position of fashion and beauty editor, and eventually became editor-in-chief, in 1981.
By the late 1980s Essence had a paid circulation of 800,000 and an estimated “pass-along” circulation of some 4 million, of whom about one-fourth were male. When asked what she hoped to communicate with the magazine, Taylor told Cosmopolitan, “We’re saying, ‘You’re beautiful and you’re intelligent and you can do.’
We try to deliver the strategic information and the inspiration to help black women make a triumph of their lives.” Taylor boasted to Beverly Beyette of the Los Angeles Times that Essence was one of the first magazines to consider in print the difficult subjects of incest, drug use, and rape. The publication’s coverage has ranged widely, from interviews with figures like Winnie Mandela, a leader in South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, to features on romantic meals for two, male-female relationships, hair-styling tips, and spa and European vacations.
In addition to her success editing Essence, Taylor has also excelled as a business executive and in television. During the 1980s, she became vice-president of the magazine’s publisher, Essence Communications, and the host/executive producer of the television show Essence, the Television Program, a 30-minute interview series produced in New York and syndicated to 55 network affiliates and independent stations. The show ran for four seasons in more than 60 countries. During this period Taylor also returned to school to finish her degree at Fordham University. She later received an honorary doctorate from Lincoln University.
During much of her tenure at Essence, Taylor has maintained a column titled “In the Spirit.” In addition to autobiographical reflections, she has addressed such diverse topics as sexuality, domestic violence, male-female relations in the African American community, the Gulf War, the beating of Rodney King, the meaning of Africa for African Americans, and black history. Offering her insights in the form of general advice, Taylor frequently stresses the need for positive and empowering thought–for spirit and faith–among black women and throughout black America in the ongoing personal and collective struggle against racism.
In 1993 Taylor collected a number of these essays and new ones for her book, In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor. “In the Spirit is a deeply personal book,” Taylor wrote in the preface. “It’s about my healing and yours. It contains the seeds I want to plant in our hearts and within our universal garden so that we can uplift our people and ease the suffering in our world.” Publishers Weekly commended the book, particularly the author’s style, warmth, and generosity in revealing herself. Library Journal highly recommended it, noting that it was written “first of all for black women,” yet still “appeals to common humanity while encouraging transcendence.” In the Spirit became a national best-seller.
Taylor travels widely to address conferences for African American women and to speak on the state of black America. The African Women on Tour conference, for example, which was held in New Orleans, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles in 1994, featured three days of workshops, motivational speakers, and entertainment. In her address as keynote speaker, Taylor urged “quiet time” for focus and critical thought. “We need to know what our needs are and not let others tell us what are needs are,” she proclaimed, as reported by Malaika Brown of the Los Angeles Sentinel. “It’s just time for us to do the work and we know what the work is. What we have to become are critical thinkers.”
Awards
Honorary doctorate of Humane Letters, Lincoln University, 1988; National Association of Negro Business & Professional Women’s Clubs business award, 1983; Howard University Excellence in Media Award, 1982; Women in Communications Matrix Award.
Works
Writings
- In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor, Amistad Press, 1993.
Further Reading
Books
- Taylor, Susan L., In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor, Amistad Press, 1993.
Periodicals
- American Libraries, September 1994, p. 712.
- Atlanta Journal and Constitution, November 29, 1993, p. B1.
- Baltimore Afro-American, January 15, 1994, p. B10.
- California Voice, January 24, 1992, p. 1.
- Cosmopolitan, July 1988, pp. 100, 104.
- Detroit News, October 30, 1986, pp. C1-2.
- Essence, November 1991, p. 47; May 1992, p. 83; October 1992, p. 51; November 1992, p. 59; July 1994, p. 51.
- Library Journal, November 1, 1993, p. 100; October 1, 1994, p. 38.
- Los Angeles Sentinel, October 27, 1994, p. C5.
- Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1986, sec. VI, pp. 1, 13.
- Philadelphia Tribune, October 29, 1993, p. 1D.
- Publishers Weekly, October 11, 1993, p. 78.
- Seattle Skanner, January 5, 1994, p. 2.
- Tri-State Defender (Memphis, TN), November 23, 1994, p. 1B.
Cicely Tyson
Cicely Tyson (born December 19, 1933) is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for appearances in the film Sounder and the television specials The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots.
Personal life
Tyson was born and raised in Harlem, New York, the daughter of Theodosia (a domestic) and William Tyson (a pushcart operator), immigrants from the island of Nevis of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies.Tyson’s father arrived in New York City at the age of 21 and was processed at Ellis Island on August 4, 1919. She married famous jazz trumpeter Miles Davis on 26 November 1981; the ceremony was conducted by Atlanta mayor Andrew Young at the home of actor Bill Cosby. Tyson and Davis divorced in 1988. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. On May 17, 2009, Tyson received an honorary degree from Morehouse College, an all-male college.
Career
Tyson was discovered by a photographer for Ebony magazine, and became a popular fashion model. Her first film was an uncredited role in Carib Gold in 1957, but she went on to do television – the celebrated series East Side/West Side and the long-running soap opera The Guiding Light. In 1961, Tyson appeared in the original cast of French playwright Jean Genet‘s The Blacks, the longest running Off-Broadway non-musical of the decade, running for 1,408 performances. The original cast also featured James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett, Jr., Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou and Charles Gordone. She appeared with Sammy Davis, Jr. in the film A Man Called Adam (1966) and starred in the film version of Graham Greene’s The Comedians (1967). Tyson had a featured role in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) and was in a segment of the movie Roots.
In 1972, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the critically acclaimed Sounder. In 1974, she won two Emmy Awards for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Other acclaimed television roles included Roots, King, in which she portrayed Coretta Scott King, The Marva Collins Story, When No One Would Listen and Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All for which she received her third Emmy Award. In her 1994-1995 television series Sweet Justice, Tyson portrayed a feisty, unorthodox Southern attorney named Carrie Grace Battle, a character she shaped by consulting with and shadowing the legendary Washington, D.C. civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Dovey Johnson Roundtree. In 2005, Tyson co-starred in the movies Because of Winn-Dixie and Diary of a Mad Black Woman. The same year she was honored by Oprah Winfrey at her Legends Ball.
The Cicely Tyson School of Performing and Fine Arts, a magnet school in East Orange, New Jersey, was renamed in her honor. She plays an active part in supporting the school, which serves one of New Jersey’s most underprivileged African-American communities.
Credits
Film
| Year | Film | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Odds Against Tomorrow | Jazz Club bartender | ||
| The Last Angry Man (1959) | Girl Left on Porch | (uncredited) | ||
| 1966 | A Man Called Adam | Claudia Ferguson | ||
| 1967 | The Comedians | Marie Therese | ||
| 1968 | The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter | Portia | ||
| 1972 | Sounder | Rebecca Morgan | Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress National Board of Review Award for Best Actress National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress Nominated — Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |
|
| 1976 | The Blue Bird | Tylette, The Cat | ||
| The River Niger | Mattie Williams | |||
| 1978 | A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich | Sweets | ||
| 1979 | The Concorde … Airport ’79 | Elaine | ||
| 1981 | Bustin’ Loose | Vivian Perry | ||
| 1991 | Fried Green Tomatoes | Sipsey | ||
| 1997 | Hoodlum | Stephanie St. Clair | Nominated — Acapulco Black Film Festival Award for Best Actress Nominated — NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture |
|
| 2001 | The Double Dutch Divas! | Herself | (short subject) (uncredited) | |
| 2005 | Because of Winn-Dixie | Gloria Dump | ||
| Diary of a Mad Black Woman | Myrtle | NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture Nominated — BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Theatrical Film Nominated — Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role |
||
| Madea’s Family Reunion | Myrtle | |||
| 2006 | Fat Rose and Squeaky | Celine | ||
| Idlewild | Mother Hopkins | |||
| 2007 | Rwanda Rising | Voice of Jeanette Nyirabagarwa | (documentary) | |
| 2009 | Up from the Bottoms: The Search for the American Dream | Narrator | (documentary) | |
| 2010 | Why Did I Get Married Too? | Ola |
Television
Theatre
| Year | Production | Role | Theatre | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Jolly’s Progress[5] | Jolly (understudy) | Longacre Theatre | |
| 1960 | The Cool World[6] | Girl | Eugene O’Neill Theatre | |
| 1961 | The Blacks: A Clown Show[7] | Stephanie Virtue Diop | St. Mark’s Playhouse | |
| 1962 | Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright[8] | Celeste Chipley Adelaide Smith (understudy) |
Booth Theatre | |
| 1963 | The Blue Boy in Black[9] | Joan | Masque Theatre | |
| Trumpets of the Lord[10] | Rev. Marion Alexander | Astor Place Theatre | ||
| 1966 | A Hand Is on the Gate[11] | Performer | Longacre Theatre | |
| 1968 | Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights[12] | Myrna Jessup | John Golden Theatre | |
| 1969 | To Be Young, Gifted and Black[13] | Various | Cherry Lane Theatre | |
| Trumpets of the Lord[14] | Rev. Marion Alexander | Brooks Atkinson Theatre | ||
| 1983 | The Corn is Green[15][16] | Miss Moffat | Lunt-Fontaine Theatre |
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