Having spent your early years in Jamaica, your mother's native island, it is said that witnessing the White English oppression against the natives stuck with you even upon returning to your birth city of New York. Meeting Martin Luther King and making his friendship as well as becoming a student to W.E.B. Dubois's teachings sparked your activism and your need to put your efforts towards bettering black lives nationwide and internationally. It shaped the path you ultimately took in concerting your efforts in deconstructing apartheid South Africa and fighting famine in Ethiopia. You and lifelong friend Sidney Poitier coincidingly, have paved the way for the emergence of actors using their platforms to work in world reform. I admire you for using your art as a means for your philanthropy and I appreciate what that has caused me to place importance on through my own art.
It is a mysterious thing of how purpose finds you. Some go in search of it their whole lives and never understand the nature of how to ignite purpose. Your own experience with systemic racism during your early years that followed you into your adulthood led you to fight on the frontlines for civil rights that have long been denied. It is what drew you to help organize Martin Luther King's 1963 March in Washington where Martin famously gave his "I Have a Dream" Speech and with the coming years leading to his assassination you were left changed.
Choosing acting for my career path came with an omen when I got cast as Mary for a Christmas production. Acting found me, similarly to how it found you when you were working as a stagehand for the American Negro Theatre. I had been trying to decide on what I wanted to do with my life, I lost one year of education whilst fighting for my sister's and my escape from a series of unfortunate events in Asia and here I was finding myself lost in my home country full of opportunity. The love I felt within myself whilst being a part of the production, I wanted to feel for the rest of my life. And so came the decision for the trajectory I am casting out now. The decision is only the first step in any journey. This dream of mine has become a portal opening wider and wider bringing with it more responsibilities and opportunities. Watching your career has shown me the evolving essence of our roles in this world and the magic that can come from fully owning that space.
You have forever changed what it means to be a black actor. You walked so that the coming generations could run. We, the black community of actors, have an obligation to uphold your work by becoming not just good but great. I must be great to be heard and use all of my efforts to work toward the greater cause of bettering lives other than my own. Your work has taught me that. I and all of today's bright generation of black people must work to create for ourselves a place we have long been denied; home.
Sincerely,
Kayla Mary Jane
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