As a child of the Eighties sandwiched between an adoration of Duran Duran and an indignation encouraged by U2 was a passion for history. Especially Civil Rights history. It was so real, schoking and within memory of people I knew - not that many took any notice, to be fair mostly due to the news being 30 minutes long, once a day and was super delayed coverage because film had to be flown here.
This was before your average Hollywood star used social consciousness to promote their career. Actors/singers like Lena Horne didn't just march in the streets to protest injustice, they broke barriers themselves in their own careers and lives.
They were the shameful firsts, shameful because there should never had needed to be a first black woman of anything. In the '40s she was the first black woman to sing with an all white band, was blacklisted in 1950s for her leftist political views (we are focusing on the activist and her achievements, not her politics), she backed up her beliefs with action.
Miss Horne said "I was always battling the system to try to get to be with my people. Finally, I wouldn't work for places that kept us out ... it was a damn fight everywhere I was, every place I worked, in New York, in Hollywood, all over the world,"
Lena Horne was a beautiful, talented, courageous woman who helped change America and helped me understand what injustice was and that it can and will be overcome.
No wonder I get misty eyed over things like the '81 Tour.
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