A farewell to Ossie Davis.

• Author: Ransby, Barbara
• Position: Obituary - Biography

I peered over the shoulder of the woman sitting in front of me on the plane and noticed the devastating headline: "Ossie Davis, Actor, Writer, and Eloquent Champion of Racial Justice, Dead at 87." As the plane landed, I felt sick to my stomach.

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were a part of my political family. Those two indefatigable warriors had fought side by side in most battles for racial and social justice from the 1940s into the twenty-first century. And miraculously they seemed to have suffered no lasting battle scars, no physical or emotional wounds that marked them as having been on the front lines. There was hope for the rest of us. We could fight for justice, win some and lose some, suffer a few frontal assaults, and still emerge intact, sane, and looking good.

I last saw Ossie Davis two years before he died, and even then he was still a proud, handsome man--over six feet and still standing tall. Instead of beating him down, age had wrapped her arms around him ever so gracefully. He and Ruby were the living reminder that the past was not so far away, and that aging was nothing to fear.

In the spring of 2003, the Chicago Public Library adopted A Raisin in the Sun for its "One Book, One Chicago" project. For the culminating citywide event, the library invited Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis to come to town to be interviewed about their lives and their performances in the Broadway production of the play. I was asked to interview them on stage. I didn't even look at my calendar. I said yes. I was thrilled.

When the evening finally arrived for the interview, I met Ossie and Ruby backstage. They immediately insisted on dispensing with the Mr. Davis and Ms. Dee, as I think they did with just about everyone, and we spent some time chatting and comparing notes about friends and comrades we had in common. But they seemed tired. They'd had a full schedule: a meeting with the mayor, a tour of the city, and an event with school children. It was dinnertime, and they still had not eaten a proper meal. Maybe this is not going to work, I thought to myself. Maybe they are not going to be energetic or engaged enough to meet the expectations of the 400-person audience that was waiting anxiously in their seats out front.

But what I realized once we were onstage was that they were still consummate entertainers. The stage was their second home. And when the curtain went up and the lights flipped on, they kept the audience rapt and delighted for nearly two hours.

As...