"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew."~ Cicely Tyson 

Cicely Tyson refused to take parts that demeaned Black people and won a Tony, Emmys, and an honorary Oscar. In a remarkable career of seven decades, Ms. Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people. 

She urged Black colleagues to do the same and often went without work. She was critical of films and television programs that cast Black characters as criminal, servile or immoral, and insisted that African-Americans, even if poor or downtrodden, should be portrayed with dignity.