Beah Richards

She was born Beulah Elizabeth Richardson in Vicksburg, Mississippi; her mother was a seamstress, and her father was a Baptist minister. In 1948, she graduated from Dillard University in New Orleans and two years later moved to New York City.[1] Her career began in 1955 when she portrayed an 84-year-old-grandmother in the off-Broadway show Take a Giant Step. She often played the role of a mother or grandmother, and continued acting her entire life. She appeared in the original Broadway productions of Purlie Victorious, The Miracle Worker, and A Raisin in the Sun.

As a writer, she wrote the verse performance piece A Black Woman Speaks , a collection of 14 poems, in which she points on how, while white women were enslaved, they played an important role in oppressing women of color. The play's first performance was in 1950 for the organization Women for Peace, a white women's organization in Chicago. Her first play was written in 1951 titled One Is a Crowd about a black singer who seeks revenge on a white man who destroyed her family. It was not produced until decades later.[2]

From the 1930s to the late 1950s, Richards was a member and organizer with the Communist Party USA in Los Angeles after befriending artist Paul Robeson. She is among the Black women who "actively participated in movements affiliated with the CPUSA" between 1917's Bolshevik Revolution and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 revelations.[3] She was later a sponsor of the National United Committee to Free Angela Davis.[3]

Richards was nominated for a Tony Award for her 1965 performance in James Baldwin's The Amen Corner.[4] She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Mrs. Mary Prentice, Sidney Poitier's mother in the 1967 film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.[1] Other notable movie performances include Hurry Sundown, The Great White Hope, Beloved and In the Heat of the Night. She appeared in “Roots: The Next Generations” as Cynthia Murray Palmer, the grandmother of Alex Haley.

She made numerous guest television appearances, including roles on Beauty and the Beast, The Bill Cosby Show, Sanford and Son, Benson, Designing Women, The Practice, The Big Valley and ER (as Dr. Peter Benton's mother.) She was the winner of two Emmy Awards, one in 1988 for her appearance on the series Frank's Place and another in 2000 for her appearance on The Practice.[1]

In the last year of her life, Richards was the subject of a documentary created by actress Lisa Gay Hamilton. The documentary Beah: A Black Woman Speaks was created from over 70 hours of their conversations. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the AFI Film Festival.[7]

• Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War (2011) by Dayo Gore

• Beah Richards at IMDb
• Beah Richards at the Internet Broadway Database
• Beah Richards at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Beah Richards at Find a Grave