From Caribbean360

NEW YORK, United States, Friday January 20, 2014 – A public memorial is planned to celebrate the life of acclaimed actress and civil rights activist Ruby Dee, who died last week at the age of 91.

Dee’s long career spanned stage, radio, television and film, and brought her an Oscar nomination at age 83 for best supporting actress for her role in the 2007 film “American Gangster.” She also won an Emmy and was nominated for several other awards.

She and her late husband, actor Ossie Davis, were frequent collaborators on stage and screen. More than performers, however, they were also activists who fought for civil rights.

“We used the arts as part of our struggle,” Dee said in 2006. “Ossie said he knew he had to conduct himself differently with skill and thought.”

Dee and Davis were active in civil rights issues and efforts to promote the cause of blacks in the entertainment industry and elsewhere. They were masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington and Dee spoke at the funerals for Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X.

Their efforts for the cause were lifelong: In 1999, they were arrested while protesting the shooting death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, by New York City police.

The pair celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and an even longer association in show business in 1998 with the publication of their autobiography, “With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together.”

Ossie Davis died in February 2005. Former President Bill Clinton, Harry Belafonte and Spike Lee were among those who mourned at his funeral.

Davis and Dee met in 1945 and married three years later. They shared billing in 11 stage productions and five movies during long parallel careers.

Along with film, stage and television, their careers extended to a radio programme, “The Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee Story Hour,” that featured a mix of black themes.

Dee starred alongside Sidney Poitier in the classic “A Raisin in the Sun” in 1961, a film based on the play that explored racial discrimination and black frustration. She had also appeared in the 1959 stage version.

Dee’s many awards include an Emmy as supporting actress in a miniseries or special for 1990’s“Decoration Day”, a National Medal of the Arts in 1995, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2000. In 2004, she and Davis received Kennedy Center Honors. The couple’s book won a Grammy in 2007 for best spoken word album.

IMAGE: RUBY DEE AT THE MULTICULTURAL MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION’S 16TH ANNUAL DIVERSITY AWARDS. GLOBE THEATER, UNIVERSAL CITY, CA. NOVEMBER 23, 2008 (CREDIT: CARIBBEAN360/BIGSTOCK)

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