April 13, 1964 - Sidney Poitier

Human Rights a Day

Sidney Poitier becomes first black male actor to win an Oscar. When Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win an Academy Award for best actor, it was not without controversy. Just for pecking him on the cheek as she presented him with the Oscar on April 13, 1964, actress Ann Bancroft was called scandalous in the U.S. Poitier won the award for his role in the movie Lilies of the Field. In the film, he played construction worker Homer Smith, a man who built a church for a group of nuns. After growing up in poverty in the Bahamas, Poitier moved to New York, only to have difficulty landing acting jobs due to his Bahaman accent. He finally played a doctor alongside Richard Widmark in the 1950 movie, No Way Out. His big break came five years later in The Blackboard Jungle, after which he built a career known for challenging American stereotypes of blacks. His first on-screen inter-racial kiss with actress Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and his portrayal of a police detective in In the Heat of the Night, both in 1967, went against American conventions. So did recognizing blacks at the Oscars. It had been a long 25 years since Hattie McDaniel (the first African American to win an Oscar) had clinched best supporting actress in 1939 for her role in Gone with the Wind. Even after Poitier finally won an Oscar title without the word “supporting,” blacks had to wait 35 years to see Denzel Washington and Halle Berry win Oscars for best actor and best actress, respectively. That was 2002, the same year Poitier was given a lifetime achievement award at the Academy Awards.