Remembering Ossie Davis

The passing of Ossie Davis at age 87 today, Feb 4, 2005, was a shock to those of us who remember him and his era, although he certianly lived to a ripe old age, active up to the last minute. Since this website is among other things, a preservation of the workingclass movements of our day and its predecessors, I thought I would add some memories.

It is my recollection that he referred to an actor and member of the African-American liberation movement of a prior generation, Paul Robeson, as the "tallest tree in the forest," when he spoke at Robeson's funeral.

Ossie Davis certainly carried the mantle of Paul Robeson, as he was part of the 1960s civil rights movement. With his equally outstanding actress wife, Ruby Dee, they were in many ways the voice of the civil rights movement everywhere.

For those of us who came of age during the 1960s, to say goodby to Ossie Davis is to say a part of ourselves is gone with him.

We need the movement to come alive again if we are all to survive these terrible times. The fighting spirit of Ossie Davis must carry on!

As we chanted at the picket lines on Auto Row on Van Ness in San Francisco in 1964, demanding that blacks be hired as salespeople, not just as janitors (and we won):

Ain't going to let Mr. Charlie-George Bush,
Turn us around, turn us around, turn us around,
Ain't going to let George Bush,
Turn us around,
We're going to keep on a-fighting,
Keep on a-marching,
Marching up to FREEDOM LAND!