OSSIE DAVIS

Politically active actors are not a rarity, but Ossie Davis, who died on February 4, aged 87, towered over most of them. What is truly rare is for art and political conviction to be so powerfully allied in one man. "He made no distinction between his art and his political convictions," said Jewell Handy Gresham, a friend and editor of The Nation's special issue on the black family (July 24, 1989), to which Davis was the sole male contributor. Gresham recalled that Davis's fiercely devoted wife and longtime acting partner, Ruby Dee, was opposed to his saliency as the lone male. After the issue was nominated for a National Magazine Award, he felt vindicated. "Jewell," he said, "thanks for helping me show the woman I love we were right." Davis and Dee, who often co-starred on stage, were co-stars in the civil rights movement since the 1940s, and were emcees at the 1963 March on Washington. Ossie Davis never curtailed his fight for equality out of concern for his career. He was a robust orator and versatile writer, author of the hit play Purlie Victorious, which satirized racial stereotypes. For a 2000 Nation Institute banquet, he wrote, "America is still the Great Unfinished Land, needing more from its lovers than just our death and taxes...." His eloquence won him the assignment of delivering eulogies at many funerals, most famously Malcolm X's, of whom he said, "He...was our shining black prince" and "in honoring him we honor the best in ourselves." That could be Davis's epitaph, says Gresham.

MINORITY/MAJORITY

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.