Sidney Poitier -- Hollywood's first Black leading man reflected the civil rights movement on screen
- Written by Aram Goudsouzian, Bizot Family Professor of History, University of Memphis
Sidney Poitier, seen here in a 1980 photograph.
Photo by Evening Standard/Getty ImagesIn the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. introduced the keynote speaker for the 10th-anniversary convention banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Their guest, he said, was his “soul brother.”
“He has carved for himself...

