Goodbye Ossie Davis

At a news conference in Manhattan yesterday, Harry Belafonte, with tears in his eyes, compared Mr. Davis to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, W. E .B. DuBois and Fanny Lou Hamer, all of whom were Mr. Davis's friends. In particular, Mr. Davis remained fiercely loyal to Robeson even as he was denounced by other show-business figures for his openly Communist sympathies.
In 1965, Mr. Davis delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X, calling him "our shining black prince," and he spoke it again in a voiceover for the 1992 Spike Lee film, "Malcolm X." In 1968, he eulogized Dr. King.
It was partly through Spike Lee movies that Mr. Davis and Ms. Dee became known to a new generation. Mr. Davis appeared in Mr. Lee's "School Daze," "Do the Right Thing" and "Jungle Fever." Ms. Dee appeared in the latter two.
Early in their careers, Mr. Davis co-starred with Ms. Dee when, on Aug. 31, 1959, he took over from Sidney Poitier the role of Walter Lee in "A Raisin in the Sun, " the hit drama about the aspirations of a black family. (Ms. Dee created the role of his wife, Ruth.) It was written by Lorraine Hansberry and directed by Mr. Richards, and is often seen as a milestone in drama by and about blacks.
Mr. Davis never stopped working, his son recalled, adding that he used his waiting time on the set to write plays on his laptop computer. In 1996, he recreated a 1986-87 stage role in the movie "I'm Not Rappaport," and in 1997 he appeared on television in "Miss Evers' Boys" and "Twelve Angry Men." [thanks to Sharon, one of Ossie's big fans]