RIP Sidney Poitier

It came across the news today that the actor Sidney Poitier died today at the age of 94. He was one of the finest actors of his generation. The tributes are all over the internet as he was the person that paved the way for all black actors in film and in 1964 was the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor

I've been watching Sidney Poitier all my life but never realized that he was Bahamian-American. I also never knew he was tone deaf and unable to sing so he wasn't the stereotypical black entertainer.

So many great movies of his that I saw growing up including The Blackboard Jungle, The Defiant Ones, The Long Ships, Porgy and Bess, A Raisin in the Sun, A Patch of Blue, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs, To Sir With Love and so many others. He was practically the only black actor I remember as a kid that was a star.

I've been reading a lot of books the past couple of years on black history and the experience of black people in America. This man certainly has an important place in that history.