Cicely Tyson has been awarded the 2020 Peabody Career Achievement Award for her film, television, and stage work that spans over 70 years.
Tyson, 95, has poured her heart out into roles in decades’ worth of seminal works of Black cinema throughout the years including “Roots,” “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” “King,” and “A Lesson Before Dying.”
In a tribute video, celebrities Regina King, Viola Davis and Oprah Winfrey pay homage to Tyson, with Winfrey kicking off the video by thanking Tyson for “not just paving the way for me and every other Black woman who dared to have a career in entertainment, but being the way.”
Davis credited Tyson with being the inspiration for young Black girls to feel like they have a place in Hollywood.
There I was sitting on the floor like a little girl again, no wig, no makeup, and there was the then-91-year-old Ms. Tyson behind me, all grace and grit, her strong hands parting my hair and scratching my scalp the way hundreds of thousands of black mothers have done for their daughters; the way mine did for me.”