And she used our rent money to buy movie tickets. That's the kind of little girl your mama was. I still remember it like it was yesterday, 3rd October, 1963. She came home happily with four tickets in her hands. “Ho ho ho Christmas came early today, I come bearing gifts”, she said. “Tell me that wasn’t the rent money in the glass jar you used to pay for them tickets? I asked angrily. A future lawyer in the making, she argued that we couldn't pass up the chance to watch Sydney Poitier, a black actor, star in a lead role in the movie, “Lilies Of The Field”. Like any genius, your grandpa invited the landlord to come watch the film with us. For maybe he'd love the film, and give us some kind of grace period before eviction. To the Murray Hill Theatre, in New York City, we went, to see the cost of our soon to be homelessness. It did turn out to be nice and more importantly, we got to see a black man portrayed as neither servant nor victim. You know, this is the film that got Sydney Poitier an Oscar as best actor. Yes, first black man to win an Oscar for a lead role. A great accomplishment, as the second person, Denzel Washington came after thirty-eight years. Of course, Poitier didn't rise to stardom out of the blue. Born prematurely on February 20th, 1927, Sydney was raised by his parents, on Cat Island in the Bahamas. As the Poitiers were poor, Sydney left school and headed for New York City. Answered an ad calling for actors, for the American Negro Theatre, where he was rejected for his thick Caribbean accent and told to get a job as a dishwasher instead. This rejection encouraged Poitier to work on losing his accent by mimicking American newscasters and to also pay for acting lessons by serving as a janitor. These did pay off as when he went back, he was cast. And before we knew it he was making his debut at 22, in the 1950 film, “No Way Out” directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Like any crown, his was also heavy. Being a famous African American actor earned him criticism from both whites and fellow African Americans, like playwright Clifford Mason, who branded him “a showcase nigger, that coddled white racists instead of punching them in the face”. This was untrue. For while Sydney did not fight with fists, he fought with the roles he played and those he refused to play like a janitor that would depict us, as servants. He broke racial barriers; the first black actor to become a hero to both black and white audiences. the first black actor to win a prestigious international film award (Venice Film Festival, Something of Value, 1957), the first to be nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award The Defiant Ones, 1958), the first to star as a romantic lead Paris Blues, 1961), the first to become the number one box office star in the country (1968), and the first to insist on a film crew that was at least 50 percent African-American The Lost Man, 1969. We are, because Poitier was. Quoting Sydney’s friend, Harry Belafonte, about Poitier in film, No Way Out, "he put the Cinema and millions of people in the world in touch with a truth about who we are. A truth that could have for a longer time eluded us had it not been for him and the choices he made.” There’s a lady too like Sydney, that paved a way for us in her own way, they called her the black Moses. I’ll have to tell you about her next.