World Mourns Cicely Tyson

 The world is saddened by the loss of veteran actress and fashion model, Cicely Tyson, who passed on peacefully at the age of 96 yesterday. During her decades long career, Tyson won three Primetime Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award (SAG), a Tony Award, a Peabody Award and Four Black Reel Awards and several other honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 and an Honorary Oscar Award, the first female African American recipient.  

The late actress began as a fashion model, her first film role was in the 1956 film, Carib Gold. She was among the main cast of the television series,  East Side/West Side,  the first African American  to star in a television drama.  She also featured in the longest running soap opera in history, Guiding Light;  Roots as Binta, Kunta Kinte's mother,  several films, radio performances,  stage plays and television films- notably, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, where she played the titular character. 

Her later works included Diary of A Mad Black Woman, Because of Winn-Dixie,  The Help, 2014 adaptation of   The Trip To Bountiful and How To Get Away With Murder, as Annalise's (Viola Davis) mother, Ophelia.  She was married three times, two of her ex husbands being the famed Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and Star Wars alum, Billy Dee Williams. 

Along with Hattie McDaniel and Dorothy Dandridge, Cicely Tyson served as an inspiration to generations of African American actresses and performers. She will be greatly  missed.