“Being true to yourself is key”
Writer Leonie Annor-owiredu remembers Cicely Tyson, the trailblazing actor who shifted perceptions of Black artistry
“YOU MADE ME feel loved and seen and valued in a world where there is still a cloak of invisibility for us dark chocolate girls,” tweeted Viola Davis last month after the passing of Cicely Tyson. She was joining a chorus of voices sharing their sorrow and respect for the actor, including her Roots co-star Levar Burton and godson Lenny Kravitz (“She lived a remarkable life up to the last moment,” said Kravitz).
The 96-year-old star of TV and film parted with a gift of sorts, her death coming just two days after the release of her memoir, Just As I Am — a title affirming how she lived, represented her race and the fullness of the characters she portrayed.
“It has always been my mission to get people to understand that we are also human, that we are human beings with all the nuts and bolts of being human,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “I deal with every character on a humanistic face, because that’s what we are — we all feel the same things and think the same things, whether we want to admit that or not.”
Born in Harlem, New York City, in 1924,
Cicely Tyson was a model before becoming an actor. Representation in Hollywood for dark skin Black women remains as much of an issue today as it was at the start of her career. Tyson’s awareness of such stereotypes impacted the roles she chose, refusing those that were demeaning. “I cannot put down those films completely, because they allowed us to get our foot in the door,” the actor told The New York Times in 1972. “But alright, we’re here now, and it’s time that we said something else.”
She chose roles that displayed Blackness as simply being; leading to her make history as the first to wear natural hair on television in 1963’s East Side/west Side. Viola Davis, who noted the effect this had on her, shared an intimate hair-care scene with Tyson in How To Get Away With Murder — a show they appeared on together between 2015-2020.
Cicely Tyson’s dedication to playing Black characters who were as confident and assured as she was will not only be her legacy, but testament to the success that can come from honouring your heritage, or as she simply put it: “Being true to yourself is key.”