The Iconic, Controversial Sidney Poitier: A Tribute for Black History Month

By David Haberstich

Actor Sir Sidney Poitier, Feb. 3, 1977, photograph probably by Robert Scurlock. Gelatin silver acetate  negative, Scurlock Studio Records,Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Above is a photograph from the National Museum of American History Archives Center’s Scurlock Studio Records, probably taken by Robert Scurlock, showing famed actor Sidney Poitier besieged by young fans seeking autographs. More than any other African American actor, Poitier (who died in January this year) helped to integrate Hollywood. I first saw him many years ago in his 1955 film, Blackboard Jungle, and recall his magnetic performance vividly. I viewed it again recently, perhaps finding fault with the screenplay, but no less awed by Poitier. He played an unruly teenager who comes to his white teacher’s aid during a deadly classroom brawl at the climax of the film.

Poster for "Lilies of the Field." Copyright © 1963 by United Artists. Scan via Heritage Auctions. Cropped from original image. Public Domain,

He was the first African American to win a “best actor” Academy Award for his performance in Lilies of the Field (1967). Despite the acclaim he received, he was not universally admired by African Americans. The Black critic and playwright Clifford Mason famously denounced him as “dishonest” in a New York Times article, “Why Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?” (Sept. 10, 1967):  “I submit that the Negro (or black, if you will), image was subverted in these films much more so than it was in the two films he seems worried about.” Playing Porgy in Porgy and Bess was one of the roles that concerned Poitier, supposedly accepting it against his better judgment as the price for being allowed to play such roles as the heroic Virgil Tibbs in In the Heat of the Night. What Mason liked about the Porgy character was that “at least we have a man, a real man, fighting [for] his woman and willing to follow her into the great unknown, the big city, poor boy from Catfish Row that he is.”

        “But he remains unreal,” Mason continued, “as he has for nearly two decades, playing essentially the same role, the antiseptic, one-dimensional hero.” The critic was disappointed that the Virgil Tibbs character had no apparent love interest to certify him as a “real” man. Furthermore, he minimized the significance of the famous slap which Tibbs gives a white bigot, complaining that it occurs only after the bigot slaps Tibbs first. Perhaps Mason had not yet heard Poitier declare that he had insisted that his character should respond with a retaliatory slap, refusing to continue without it. I found the scene riveting, not only for Tibbs’s sudden explosion of righteous pent-up anger, but for the expression of startled, befuddled disbelief on the face of the racist sheriff, played by Rod Steiger. At first I thought the tears and sniveling of the white “aristocrat” in the aftermath of the slap were overdone, but later decided his reaction was perfect symbolism. For the first time, these figures of white oppression were beginning to realize that their comfortable world might be crumbling.

Apart from Poitier’s acceptance of film roles that Mason and others found troubling, the actor’s life was a rags-to-riches story that I find inspiring. First, he nearly succumbed to a premature birth while his parents were working in Miami, Florida. As a barely literate Black teenager from Cat Island in the Bahamas, he suffered racist indignities in the Jim Crow South of Miami, then moved to a slightly more congenial New York City, where he toiled as a dishwasher while seeking a better job. He tried to join the American Negro Theatre, initially failing in humiliation due to his shaky reading skills. With timely coaching from a friend, he quickly solved this problem, then embarked on a personal campaign to suppress his Bahamian accent and hone his acting skills. Eventually he acted on Broadway, then found his niche in film, especially with his break-through role in Blackboard Jungle. His subsequent roles explored many aspects of the Black man in white society. His prominence in Hollywood echoed aspects of the real-life civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, not only through the impact of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? on the previously taboo topic of interracial marriage. Moreover, he was an active participant in the civil rights struggle, risking arrest or worse by helping to deliver $70,000 to Freedom Summer volunteers in 1964.

Poitier’s achievements beyond acting are extensive, including directing films and publishing memoirs and a novel. He was also a diplomat, serving as Bahamian ambassador to Japan (1997-2007) and concurrently to UNESCO (2002-2007). He was even granted an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth in 1974. In 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama. Perhaps his most satisfying honor was the acknowledgment by younger Black actors that he had broken ground and opened doors for them. Denzel Washington gratefully cited Poitier’s contributions while presenting him with the Honorary Academy Award in 2002. His remarks were followed by sustained, enthusiastic applause from the audience.

        Broadway theaters dimmed their lights in honor of Sir Sidney Poitier on January 19, 2022.

David Haberstich, Curator of Photography

Archives Center, National Museum of American History