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HARLEM COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS
Thousands of mourners pay respects to Cicely Tyson in Harlem
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Harlem Community Newspapers | February 18. 2021
housand’s of mourners lined a New York City block in Harlem on Monday outside the famous Abyssinian Baptist Church, to pay their respects to Cicely Tyson at a public viewing. Some said they had come from as far as Atlanta or Los Angeles. Many in the multigenerational crowd held photos of Tyson, who died January 28, 2021, aged 96. Her family said masks and social distancing would be required at
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photos by Seitu Oronde
the viewing. Tyson was the first Black woman to have a recurring role in a dramatic television series, the 1963 drama “East Side, West Side.” Her performance as a sharecropper’s wife in the 1972 movie “Sounder” earned an Oscar nomination. She went on to win two Emmy awards for playing a 110-yearold former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and another 20 years later for “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.” At the age of 88, Tyson won a Tony award for a revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful” in 2013. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Cicely Tyson the medal of freedom.
