Sidney Poitier defined and defied the temper of his times with grace, dignity and unwavering intensity.
Those eyes. They burned with a righteous fury, and as a boy, watching his films for the first time, I couldn't look away. He was, quite simply, one of most powerful men I'd ever seen.
You shouldn't have to be 'better' than those would hold you down just to attain the position of being 'equal' to them, but he was, and he did. A man who changed the screen and changed the world. He insisted that he was Mister Tibbs, and he was. He will always be Mister Tibbs, as will those who've followed his blazing trail.
Watch 'Raisin in the Sun'. Watch 'The Defiant Ones'. And of course, watch 'In the Heat of the Night'. These aren't just films; they are a fight for civil rights played out in real time. They are struggle rendered in bronze. They are the life's work of a giant.
We will not see his like again. And if you're not grateful for the life of Sidney Poitier, look harder at the world around you, until you are.
His work isn't done. Three men in America have just been sentenced to life in prison for the murder - the lynching - of an innocent, vulnerable black man in 2021. He posed no harm. He was out for a jog. He was hunted, and killed. An affront to humanity.
Poitier could not prevent this, but he was one many who lit the spark of outrage that burned all the way to significant jail time, where once, there would have been none. The walk toward true justice and equality is on a long, long road.
Walk with Sidney.