Ruby Dee was a formidable force on screen, in civil rights movement (via CNN)

Ruby Dee, the award-winning actress whose seven-decade career included triumphs on stage and screen, has died. She was 91.

Dee died peacefully Wednesday at her New Rochelle, New York, home, according to her representative, Michael Livingston.

Dee — often with her late husband, Ossie Davis — was a formidable force in both the performing arts community and the civil rights movement. The couple were master and mistress of ceremonies at the 1963 March on Washingon, and she was friends with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Dee received the Frederick Douglass Award in 1970 from the New York Urban League.

As an actress, her film credits included “The Jackie Robinson Story” (1950), “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961), “Buck and the Preacher” (1972), “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and “American Gangster” (2007).

Dee earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Gangster.” She won an Emmy and Grammy for other work.

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Links:

CNN | Ruby Dee

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