![]() ![]() Sidney’s grace and poise, the intention with which he spoke, the dignified way he carried himself - all of it resonated with me. I wasn’t yet born in 1964 when Sidney became the first Black man to win an Academy Award for best actor for his role in “Lilies of the Field.” But years later, when I witnessed the moment in a Black History class, I could not look away. In my mind’s eye, and in my father’s absence, Sidney epitomized what a man should be: unflappable and courageous, eloquent and proud, charming and handsome. As imperfect as my dad was, as deep of a wedge as his fury drove between us, I loved him, missed him, longed to have him close. I was just 4 when my parents separated, when my father’s alcoholism upended our family. Over the years, I looked to him as a sterling example, as a template of manhood and all that is honorable. Also, it gave others a window into my reality, of what it felt like to navigate the world with both Black and white parents. ![]() ![]() “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” as great art does, was an affirmation that I mattered. As a child born to a white woman and a Black man, I felt alone and misunderstood. A challenge to the notion of whiteness as humanity’s high-water mark. Back then, their mere presence was itself a form of protest. Cicely Tyson and Diana Ross were on the scene, as was the fresh memory of Dorothy Dandridge, the Black actress I idolized as much as I did Sidney. In those years, it was rare to see Blacks in leading roles, much less have our narratives celebrated or even acknowledged. I was a child who, like my parents’ interracial relationship, never quite fit in. By then, my mother had moved our family from a Black enclave in Cleveland’s inner city to the suburbs, where I became one of a few Black students in a sea of Caucasian faces. I watched that film over and over again, through my middle-school years and beyond. ![]()
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