CNN.com - RSS Channel - HP HeroCicely Tyson was an early champion of Black beauty

Cicely Tyson, the award-winning, trailblazing African American actor, died on Thursday, at the age of 96. Over her lifetime, she became an icon, known for personifying layered and complex Black women on the screen and the stage, notably starring as the wife of a jailed sharecropper family in 1972's "Sounder," for which she earned her first Oscar nomination; and as a former slave in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" in 1974, for which she won two Emmy awards, among other performances. But her impact extended well beyond her choice of roles.

January 30, 2021 at 01:37AM https://ift.tt/3owlOT5 Tyson, the award-winning, trailblazing African American actor, died on Thursday, at the age of 96. Over her lifetime, she became an icon, known for personifying layered and complex Black women on the screen and the stage, notably starring as the wife of a jailed sharecropper family in 1972's "Sounder," for which she earned her first Oscar nomination; and as a former slave in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" in 1974, for which she won two Emmy awards, among other performances. But her impact extended well beyond her choice of roles.