broke barriers onscreen with films like and and during the height of the Civil Rights movement in 1964, he became the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
During Black History Month, Oprah Winfrey is opening up to ET’s Kevin Frazier about the 94-year-old actor’s legacy and how he laid the groundwork for herself and many others within the industry. “When I tell you profoundly, I could start weeping right now, I was profoundly, deeply, sincerely moved by that moment,” Winfrey says, looking back on Poitier’s historic Oscar win for.
At the time, the future talk show host was only 10 years old. “We were being called colored people at the time. [And] I had never seen a colored man look like that or present like that.
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