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To Sir With Love
Sidney Poitier RIP
Images are very powerful and forever seared into our minds. This is beyond contention.
At a time when Black people were relegated to second class status in America, Britain and elsewhere, an actor coming up in the world, in the 1950s, sought to do things differently and elevate the consciousness of all around him.
Who was this man?
Sir Sidney Poitier.
From defying the doctors and his parents, who thought that the premature born baby wouldn’t survive infancy, Sir Poitier, would not only overcome this somewhat difficult start to life, but also found ways of thriving at every turn, over the course of his life.
For thriving in difficult circumstances was his metier.
It didn’t matter that his education was profoundly limited nor did it matter that his then strong Bahamian accent was impedimental to fulfilling his dream of becoming an actor, our protagonist laboured heroically and won this battle decisively.
These qualities would serve him extraordinarily brilliantly, at a time that Hollywood was starting to break the mold and cast Black actors.
His performances in films such as The Defiant Ones, Lilies of the Field, which won him an Academy award, put him firmly at the top of the food chain in…