Ossie Davis is best known as a playwright for his 1961 three-act play, Purlie Victorious. As an actor, director, producer, and writer, Davis has made significant contributions on the stage, in motion pictures, and on television, throughout a long career dedicated to the erasure of racism in the arts and to a broader struggle for social equality.

The son of Kince Charles Davis and Laura Cooper Davis, Ossie Davis was born on 18 December 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, and he grew up in nearby Waycross, Georgia. According to Davis, he was named for his paternal grandfather, Raiford Chatman Davis, and was to be called R.C., but, when the county clerk heard the initials, he mistakenly recorded the name as "Ossie." Kince Davis was a railway and construction engineer, a position that challenged the racially marked labor divisions of rural Georgia, and the Davis family withstood threats and provocations from the...