Lena Horne, the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York. She was 92. Born into Brooklyn’s black middle class, Horne was so light-skinned that other black children taunted her, accusing her of having a white father. She battled racism during her career. “I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn’t work for places that kept us out…it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York. In Hollywood, all over the world," she was quoted as saying. RIP to a woman that paved the way for many.
No comments:
Post a Comment