A memorial service for acclaimed actress and civil rights activist Ruby Dee will be held in New York City this September.
Dee died on June 11 at age 91. She and her husband of 56 years, the late Ossie Davis, were in several stage productions together and were active during the civil rights movement and spoke at the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
Family, friends and colleagues will gather to celebrate her amazing life at the Riverside Church on Sept. 20, the Terrie Williams Agency said on Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, no further details about the event were released.
However, the venue is the perfect place to remember her life. King, Cesar Chavez, Jesse Jackson, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela have all spoken there in the past.
Dee’s long career stretched from A Raisin in the Sun with Sidney Poitier to Spike Lee’s landmark film Do The Right Thing. She earned an Oscar nomination for American Gangster when she was 83 and recently narrated the Lifetime movie Betty and Coretta. She received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004 and the National Medal of the Arts in 1995.
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