Ruby Dee, Actor and Activist
(Award will be accepted by Dr. Sonia Sanchez)
Since meeting on Broadway in the 1946 production of Jeb, Ossie
Davis and Ruby Dee excelled as collaborators and as individuals (they married
in 1948), and they often broke new ground for African Americans. They made their
film debuts in 1950 in No Way Out with Sidney Poitier, and then starred together
on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun. In 1976, they produced the first American
feature film to be shot entirely in Africa by black professionals, Countdown
at Kusani, with Davis directing.
As close friends of Martin Luther King Jr., Davis and Dee
served as masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington. Earlier,
they risked their careers resisting McCarthyism. Davis' and Dee's activism has
brought attention to many social justice issues and they have been active supporters
of sickle cell disease research.
Dee, an alumna of Hunter College, first attracted national
attention in 1950 for her performance in The Jackie Robinson Story and broke
ground in 1965 as the first black woman to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare
Festival. She won an Obie Award for the title role in Athol Fugard's Boesman
and Lena, a Drama Desk Award for her role in Wedding Band, and an Ace Award
for her performance as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into
Night.
On television, Dee has been nominated seven times for Emmy
Awards and was a winner in 1991 for Decoration Day. Both Dee and Davis received
NAACP Image Awards for their 1996 CBS series Promised Land. Dee's other TV films
include Finding Buck McHenry and Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters First Hundred
Years.
Davis and Dee were celebrated as "national treasures"
when they received the National Medal of Arts in 1995. In 2000, they were presented
with the Screen Actors Guild's highest honor, the Life Achievement Award. They
received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in
1994 and are inductees in the Theater Hall of Fame and the NAACP Image Awards
Hall of Fame. In 2004 they were presented with the Kennedy Center Honors. They
are co-authors of a joint autobiography, With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together
(William Morrow/Harper Collins, 2000).
Although Davis passed away in early 2005, Dee continues their
legacy of community involvement and entertainment.
