FAREWELL OSSIE DAVIS

"Struggle is strengthening. Battling with evil gives us the power to battle evil even more." --Ossie Davis

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

When not on stage or on camera, Davis and Dee were deeply involved in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry. In 1963, Davis participated in the landmark March on Washington. Two years later, he delivered a memorable eulogy for his slain friend, Malcolm X, whom Davis praised as "our own black shining prince" and "our living, black manhood!"

"In honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves," said Davis, who reprised his eulogy in a voice-over for the 1992 Spike Lee film, Malcolm X.

And

As black performers, they found themselves caught up in the social unrest of the then-new Cold War. In one instance, Davis stood by singer Paul Robeson even as others denounced him for his openly communist sympathies. "We young ones in the theater, trying to fathom even as we followed, were pulled this way and that by the swirling currents of these new dimensions of the Struggle," Davis wrote.

Click here for the rest.

Davis wasn't simply a great actor; he was a great man. I've known his work all my life, but I wasn't really able to put his face with his name until I saw him talking about Louis Armstrong in Ken Burns' jazz documentary on PBS a few years ago. He spoke about how when he was younger, during the Civil Rights Era, he did a film with the great trumpeter. Davis' attitude going into the project was something to the effect that Armstrong was just an Uncle Tom, grinning and mugging for white people's money. Along the way, however, Davis spied the tired and old jazz master in a moment of private and sad contemplation. This sight was something of an epiphany for Davis. He immediately realized that Armstrong was simply from another generation, doing what he had to do to survive in a racist nation: Armstrong, like Davis, had suffered greatly as a black man in America. Of course, my words are inadequate; Davis, telling this story, verged on poetry. It's probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen on television.

Ossie Davis, like Paul Robeson, like John Lennon, embodied what I believe to be the ideal artist. He devoted his life to making the world a more fair and just place. His passing is a great loss.



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