On this day in 1917

Dec. 18, 1917

Ossie Davis

Actor, playwright and civil rights activist Ossie Davis was born in Cogdell, Georgia. 

He saw racism from his youth with the KKK threatening his father because of the advanced job he held as a Black man. His father, Kince, eventually left the job, seeking greater independence. 

Davis became a voracious reader and dreamed of being a writer. After graduating high school, he hitchhiked to Washington, D.C. and attended Howard University. Davis dropped out of Howard University to pursue acting in New York City. 

Davis landed the lead role in the 1946 Broadway play “Jeb” about a disabled veteran battling racism in Louisiana. There he met his wife-to-be, Ruby Dee, whom he married two years later. The pair appeared in Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin the Sun” and became active in the civil rights movement. 

They became friends with Martin Luther King Jr., helping organize and emcee the 1963 March on Washington. They also became friends and supporters of Malcolm X. Davis gave the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral — a eulogy he reprised with his rich baritone in Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X.” 

“Here—at this final hour, in this quiet place—Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes—extinguished now, and gone from us forever,” he said. “He was our manhood, our living, Black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. … Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man—but a seed—which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is—a prince—our own Black shining prince!—who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.” 

Davis and Dee appeared in other Lee movies, including “Do the Right Thing,” and often took on racial injustices and civil rights in their work. In 2004, they were honored at the Kennedy Center for taking “their art to colleges, community centers, cafeterias, hospitals, union halls and prisons. Wherever they stood was their stage.” 

Ten months later, Davis died, and Broadway turned down the lights on marquees to honor him.

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