Al Freeman Jr., Actor Prominent in Civil Rights Era, Dies at 78
kyle
2012/08/20 02:30:08
Al Freeman Jr., a star among a generation of black actors that emerged
during the civil rights era, who made his mark in both drama and race
relations with his portraits of some of the movement’s most forbidding
personalities — angry young men in the 1960s plays of James Baldwin and
LeRoi Jones, Malcolm X in a television drama, and the black separatist
Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee’s 1992 movie “Malcolm X” — died on Aug. 9
in Washington. He was 78.
during the civil rights era, who made his mark in both drama and race
relations with his portraits of some of the movement’s most forbidding
personalities — angry young men in the 1960s plays of James Baldwin and
LeRoi Jones, Malcolm X in a television drama, and the black separatist
Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee’s 1992 movie “Malcolm X” — died on Aug. 9
in Washington. He was 78.
Warner Brothers, via Photofest
Mr. Freeman in 1992 as the separatist Elijah Muhammad in “Malcolm X,” directed by Spike Lee.
His death was announced by Howard University, where he had been chairman
of the theater arts department since 2005. No cause was disclosed.
Smokey
Rest in Peace.