Ossie Davis was an African American actor, playwright, author and director, born December 18, 1917, in Cogdell, Georgia, and raised in Waycross, where he graduated from high school. He hitchhiked to Washington, D.C., to study English and drama at Howard University, and in 1939 he began his career as a writer and actor with Harlem’s Rose McClendon Players. His play Purlie Victorious, which he wrote and starred in, reached Broadway in 1961 and ran through May 1962 before becoming a film and a musical. Writing was a continuing part of his career, alongside performance and directing.
Davis directed Cotton Comes to Harlem in 1970, followed by Black Girl and Gordon’s War, and appeared in Spike Lee films including Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X. He and Ruby Dee married in 1948 and worked together across stage, television and film in a partnership that lasted more than half a century. They published the joint memoir With Ossie & Ruby: In This Life Together in 1998 and shared Kennedy Center Honors in 2004.
In 1964, Davis and Ruby Dee helped organize a summit of prominent Black leaders, including Malcolm X, that drafted a proposed Declaration of Human Rights. Davis took part in the 1963 March on Washington. On February 27, 1965, he delivered the eulogy at Malcolm X’s funeral in Harlem, telling mourners that Malcolm had been a towering figure in their community. In a 1999 interview, he described art as carrying social and cultural responsibilities, keeping humanity central to creative work, a commitment that connected his performing life with his civic participation.
Purlie Victorious returned to Broadway in 2023, its first major New York production since the original, staged at the Music Box Theatre under director Kenny Leon.
