Legendary actress Cicely Tyson has passed away.
Tyson starred as Rebecca Morgan, a sharecropper in the 1972 film “Sounder” and was nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards the next year.
In 1974, she starred in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” a television movie based on a novel by Ernest Gaines. Tyson was the title character, a woman born into slavery who lives well into the 20th century and takes part in African Americans’ struggles for civil rights.She won two Emmys for the role — best actress in a drama and actress of the year. During her career, she would win a total of three Emmy Awards out of 15 nominations.Tyson married jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in 1981, but their union ended in divorce in 1988. She reflected on her one and only marriage in a 2013 interview with CNN’s Don Lemon, describing her relationship with the jazz legend as “tumultuous” but one that also included “some of the most incredible moments in my life.”
In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Tyson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and the year before that she received the Kennedy Center Honors lifetime achievement award.
Obama in presenting Tyson the medal of freedom in 2016 said she shaped the course of history. Many tributes came in from Hollywood.
The Culture Keeper-
The Culture Keeper 