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At a time when Black actors were forced into submissive or inarticulate roles, the actor showed strength moving through hostile white spaces with dignity

Upon the announcement of Hollywood legend Sidney Poitier’s death, I sent out a tweet that featured my favorite photo of him. The photo in question shows a shirtless Poitier, wearing dark sunglasses like Miles Davis on the cover of ’Round About Midnight, playing the saxophone alongside jazz man Sonny Stitt, while standing in the street, surrounded by a community of appreciative onlookers, otherwise known as “the people”. The reason I dig this photo so much is because it offers a more complex image of Poitier than the one that had come to define him at the height of his fame in Hollywood. I have never been able to confirm the context of this photo, but I have always assumed that it was taken while he...

Jon Batiste gets off the elevator and doesn't say a word to the percussionists already tapping out rhythms for a rooftop soundcheck at New York's NoMad Hotel — he just plops down at the white Steinway and joins in. There's not much of an audience beyond a handful of photographers, a soundman and some staff steaming a white tablecloth for a makeshift bar. Still, he's performing: winking and smiling at everyone, digging into the keys, laughing, shouting. Until he gets up from his stool maybe a half-hour later, he doesn't ever...