Ossie Davis

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were the first couple of Black theater — artists, activists, and partners whose work on stage, screen, and in the civil rights movement spanned six decades. Davis was an actor, director, playwright, and activist whose eulogy for Malcolm X in 1965 remains one of the most powerful pieces of oratory in American history: "Malcolm was our manhood, our living, Black manhood!"

Born in Cogdell, Georgia, in 1917, Davis served in the Army during World War II and studied acting at Columbia University on the GI Bill. He made his Broadway debut in 1946 and met Ruby Dee while performing in Jeb, a play about a returning Black veteran. They married in 1948 and became inseparable partners in art and activism for the next 56 years.

Davis's play Purlie Victorious (1961) was a satirical masterpiece about race in the South. He directed films including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and appeared in over 100 films and television shows, including Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever. He and Ruby Dee were fixtures at civil rights events, the March on Washington, and the funerals of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. He emceed King's March on Washington in 1963. He received the Kennedy Center Honor, the NAACP Image Award, and the National Medal of Arts.