By – Odette Flemming

This year we have already suffered the loss of two great African Americans. One southern, one Caribbean; both Black and both passionate about the plight of Black people. For their legacy of unity, pride, and self-reliance we salute their good works.

On January 1, 2005, at age 80, Shirley Chisolm passed on and the media barely made a sound. That is tragic because this was a woman who agitated and made noise so that we could be taken seriously in national politics. Shirley Chisolm was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1925 to a mother from Barbados and father from Guyana. From 1927 to 1934 she and her sisters were sent to live in Barbados so that their parents could pursue their dream of homeownership. She returned to find her parents owners of a brownstone in the Bedford Stuyvesant of Brooklyn. Encouraged by their accomplishment, she was determined that all should have the same full access to that same American dream. Ms. Chisolm went on to get her Bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and her Master’s from Columbia University. In 1964, while working in various local organizations agitating for better education and more opportunity for the children of Brooklyn, she fell into grassroots politics winning a seat on the New York State Assembly.

In 1968 Ms. Chisolm became the first Black woman elected to Congress. She went on to serve as a major force on the Congressional floor. She stated her opinions clearly and never backed away from issues that some felt were untouchable, like her opposition to the Vietnam War. In 1972 Shirley Chisolm became the first Black and the first woman to launch a serious bid for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Though she never won a single primary, she entered the Democratic National Convention with 150 electoral college votes. Along the way she ignited a sense of civic duty among Black people. She let the nation know that she was Shirley Chisolm “unbought and unbossed.” She went on to serve in Congress, where she remained a “catalyst for change” until her retirement in 1982.

On February 4, 2005 we lost one of America’s elder statesmen in Ossie Davis. Born in 1917, Davis was raised in Waycross, Georgia. In 1934, he migrated to Washington, D.C. to study Theatre at Howard University. After graduating, he found his acting legs in Harlem and began a 66 year career on stage and screen. He met his wife, Ruby Dee while they both acted in cast of “Jeb” in his Broadway debut. They enjoyed 56 years of marriage and became our royalty – always loving and respectful to one another.

Over the decades, he acted in such great plays as “Jamaica”, “Raisin in the Sun”, and the acclaimed “Purlie Victorious”, he also wrote and directed movies like “Cotton Comes to Harlem” and “Countdown at Kusini”, the first American feature film shot entirely in Africa by black professionals. He was also seen in Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” in more recent years.

Ossie Davis proved himself to be so much more than an actor. He was a man of humility, self-awareness and tremendous dignity who earned the respect of his peers, his neighbors and all people. He lived his days demonstrating his beliefs, not paying lip service to them. Whether it was speaking next to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the March on Washington, eulogizing Malcolm X after his assassination in 1965, or even most recently being jailed at age 85 while marching for justice after the shooting of Amadou Diallo, Ossie Davis lived his vision of self-expression in a way that added stature to our community, and for that he will be missed.