(bright music) (upbeat percussive music) - Good evening.

They met in 1946 in a play called "Jeb," and two years later they were married.

Ever since then, the names of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee have been synonymous with high character, commitment, and dignity.

During a two-part interview we asked them how they have managed to hold on to these qualities.

- Oh, Listervelt!

- Listervelt, that sounds like something you put on tombstones.

A good epitaph.

(Ruby laughs) So the way to deal with it, we say to ourselves is, you know, that ain't exactly so.

We have a lot of things going for us that sort of humanize- - Oh Ossie, isn't this funny though, that we have to, you have to be sure to do a denial of anything positive because it's not commercial, you know?

- Why deny it?

(Listervelt chuckles) - Well, or you have to, because if you wanna be, like in film, for example, like "Sounder" had a very difficult time getting off the ground, as did "A Raisin in the Sun", as did "Nothing But a Man".

But our other kinds of pictures that had to do with, you know, more, they had to do with trafficking, drugs- - Pimps, gangsters, and all that stuff.

- As is typical of the American scene, we aren't unique in this, get much more attention.

(Ruby laughs) I mean, the money makers, the thing that pornography's what's selling in America, not things about peace and love and brotherhood.

And if you want, (Ruby laughs) and if you want to go way down on the charts, you understand what I'm saying?

- Right, right.

- It's like, it's a pity.

It's like you have to camouflage anything that smacks of something of dignity and a positive quality, or something that, not saying that we have it mind you, but- - [Listervelt] But just let me say- - It's strange that we had to do that denial.

- that from my vantage point, you do have high character, and a whole lot of dignity, okay.

- [Ossie] Well, thank you very much, thank you.

- Now my question still is- - [Ossie] We gonna try not disappoint you.

(Ossie and Ruby laugh) - How have you managed to hold on to this over the years?

- I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said something about, you know, people who stop to ask themselves are they happy, never are, you know.

You're happy because you're busy doing something, trying to get something done, trying to move from here to there.

So, I think anybody, ourselves included, you know, if we stop to say, "Now, are we truly committed?

Are we truly people of high moral character?"

You know, the world is moving fast.

You can't afford to do that.

You see something that needs to be done, you run out and you try and get it done.

If, in the process, people think that you have high character, people think that you are committed, then that's all to the good.

But it should never become a main preoccupation with you.

- Yes, as long as you aren't pedestalized, do you understand?

You can be put on a pedestal and forgotten.

(Ruby laughs) You know, like that poem, Carl Hines's poem, something "he was safely dead".

- "Now that he is safely dead".

- "Now that he is safely dead", safely on a pedestal.

You get on a pedestal.

It's very cold up there.

The chickens drop on you, it snows, I mean, you know what I mean?

- Also, Listervelt, can I hop in here?

- Yes.

- You have to beware of becoming self-righteous and beginning to believe, you know, all the marvelous things that people say about you.

Because you see- - [Listervelt] Don't take yourself seriously.

- You can afford to up to a certain point.

You know, it's like, you know, I speak with the tongues of angels and do all these magnificent things.

If I don't have charity, if I don't have love, if I'm not a human being, it is still a tinkling brass and a, you know, and a sounding symbol.

It, to be human, to be humane, to try and remember, you know, that we're all in this same boat together.

And if we don't do something fast, the boat's gonna sink and take us all down.

You know, that'll humanize you pretty good.

You get up in the morning and think about the state that we are all in, in this world.

And you can't go out saying, "I'm proud and I'm on the pedestal this morning."

No, you say, "Hey, help fire, run.

Do something, do it fast."

- Well, let me force you to be immodest.

(Ossie and Ruby laugh) What are some of the principles that you live by?

- Principles by which I live.

I would say I try and stay reasonably healthy.

I mean physically healthy so that I can do the things I want to do and not be a burden on society.

I think health is a major concern and should be of everybody.

It's not a way of being selfish, it's a way of being conservative, you know, trying to keep the energies which you were given with this body, focused on something.

That's number one.

Try and be alert to what's happening in the world, to try and understand what's going on, to think, to look about, to see, to be interested, to be alive.

That's a way of, that's the true way of being committed.

And then I try and have some principles, which to me are important.

There are some things it were better not to do, even if you had to die for not doing them.

Now, I don't know, if you pushed me into a corner how far I would support my principles, I should hope that like our great heroes, I would say I would rather die than sell out or do that.

I can't guarantee that.

But there are principles, you know, Martin Luther King expressed it very well.

- Yeah.

I'm thinking about, yes, there we go again, you know, defining principles and things like that.

I get so nervous.

I just try not to do too many things that'll get me in too many, too much trouble personally or with other people.

But I find as a day by day, what do I get up thinking about?

I get up thinking about literature.

I really do.

I get up thinking about black writers.

(Ruby laughs) Maybe that's because we're getting ready to do this television series for PBS, a series of 13.

But after, then I find we've been doing that all our lives.

We've really been delving into what have other minds contributed to us as a people and to the world.

The universality of black literature, it has been a great principle in my life, and that's hard to deal with.

But I find that most every day we've had something to do with the words, with words in music and rhythms and something like that.

It governs us as human beings, you understand, those principles.

Just struggling, my man, just struggling not to kill each other, to stay alive.

Not not to kill each other in a physical sense.

- But I think you touched on a very important principle, - What, what?

- Which is to have something to do with your life.

- Yeah.

- That's an important thing, to have an objective, to know what it is that you want to do.

- Yes, I feel lucky.

I feel lucky to want to do something every day.

- You said a while ago that while you do have principles, you really don't know how far you would go to back those principles.

- That's true, yeah.

- All right.

- That's right.

- A gentleman told me some time ago, about two weeks ago, that everybody in the world has a price.

- Mm Mm.

- Do you think that's true?

- Well, it depends on what you mean by- - [Listervelt] Everybody can be bought, that was the- - It depends on what you mean by price.

There's some, for instance, who are religiously inclined, who would say, "I have a price and the price is in the hands of God," you know, "God has bought me and I sold out to him first.

So, I am committed.

I do have a price."

But if in that cynical sense that there's a point at which you would do anything for money, I do not believe that to be the case.

I believe we have benefited by people in our own community.

I mean, speaking on the black community who did not in that sense have a price.

Surely a man like Robeson, who was quoted, I mean, you know, the people tried deliberately to buy him and he refused.

And a man like Martin Luther King.

Certainly, he could have made peace way before he got shot at Memphis, for some office, somewhere.

A man like Malcolm X, you know, was offered much to tone it down, to change it.

And they refused to do it.

- Yes, but- - Fannie Lou Hamer.

- But money, I mean, in terms of money?

- Money and position, power, to be bought out.

Fannie Lou Hamer.

- But there are other ways to be bought out too, you know.

- I know, but I think there is a principle and there is a point that, at which you refuse to be bought, even if your life is at risk.

- Well, I mean, there are some things that- - [Listervelt] What are some of those other ways?

- Well, I mean to say now, I do have a price, you know, understand, I feel, I have- - Quote it to us.

- a price in this society.

(Listervelt and Ruby laugh) You know, for instance, I have a price in terms of the things I've been trying to do, or things I'd like to see done.

I, politically, I would pay a price to up voter registration, for example.

I would pay a price for that.

Somebody would say, "Well, Ruby," you know, or I would pay a price for something to happen in the school system, where our children would be exposed to a different kind of thinking from kindergarten.

I mean, that's me personally, because- - [Listervelt] You're paying, but you're not buying.

(Listervelt laughs) - But, well, you know, this, I guess- - You're not being bought.

- [Ruby] That's right.

- Put it that way.

- Oh, you're probably right.

But there's, when I think about Martin and Malcolm, the good people, Lamumba, I think about the good people in this world.

And I wonder what is the price of being good?

What do they pay for that?

I frankly think you have to pay the goodness.

You set yourself up as a target.

That's the price of it.

We have to be a little bit more cunning.

This is a, I think we have to find a way to be good and find- .

- And survive.

- And survive, in terms of price, and- - [Ossie] But to get back- - value and.

- To get back to price- - Good and dead is no good.

- Yes, but to get back to price in more mundane sense, some of us can be so holy and pure that we will not soil ourselves with the common commerce of the world.

I speak now because this is an election year, right?

And there are politicians running hither and thither, and we look and we see say, "Man, this cat is no good, and that one is worse."

So, we are stuck with a choice of lesser evils.

Most of us, or some of us unfortunately, will just sit out the political process.

Say, "I'm not gonna bother with that.

It doesn't make any difference.

One politician is as bad as the other."

You know, so why choose between Carter and Reagan as, for example.

We have to have a capacity to deal with what is, and sometimes you have to sacrifice one principle in order to embrace another.

You can't get the saint, so you pick out the best sinner you can find, and you saddle him up.

"Well, now you have the burden of carrying the whole of civilization.

Mr. Sinner, I'm gonna vote for you.

But man, I'm gonna be on your, you know, like white on rice until you get something done."

So, and I say to us, particularly we black folks who have made, you know, such a tremendous contribution in the last election, that for us to sit this one out, you know, would be criminal.

We may not like what the choices are, but we gotta figure out which one is best for our needs.

And we gotta let the brother know that this is what we are doing.

You know, you are buying us, but this is the price you're gonna have to pay.

And we have to wheel and deal in the political arena, no matter how dirty it might seem.

That's the name of the game.

And in order to play the game, we have to get a little dirty too.

- Let us move to a less involved area.

Equally important one, of course.

How did you get started as actor and actress?

- Well, I think it came with the territory.

You know, the inclination, you know, from birth, I think we have certain gifts, which by the way, and I think we should, all youngsters should be tested and attended to.

What is the, what seems to be the bent here?

And then fortunately, I had a mother who recognized something in me, and we started, and then, and through school, I kept leaning toward literature and words and speech therapy.

I thought I would be a speech therapist.

And so, I kind of drifted in that direction.

I think the circumstances of a person's life, if you're fortunate enough to pay attention and have somebody enough to pay attention for you, directs you in those ways that you're supposed to be going.

And I've been convinced and affirmed that, "Yes, oh, I should have been go, I should go pretty much in this direction, but I should have been a writer."

- Should have been a writer, okay.

Okay, how'd you get started?

- Well, I got started because I was a writer.

I wanted to be one.

I wanted to write dramas.

And I came from a small town in Georgia, which was not famous for dramas or for dramatic opportunities.

So, in order to learn my craft, I had to get some practical experience in the theater.

That practical experience included acting.

So, I learned a little of the fundamentals and a- - [Listervelt] A little?

(Listervelt laughs) - I'm by no means am I a great or even a good actor.

I didn't take time to learn the fundamentals well enough.

And I say that quite seriously.

But, having learned some of the fundamentals and then having found job opportunities because of it in the theater, I followed those job opportunities, you know, it's a way to eat, it's a way to earn, it's a way also to learn.

But acting was never my main preoccupation.

It is not now.

Writing to me is the most important thing.

- You've appeared in a number of plays and movies.

Which of those movies, plays, were the most meaningful to you and why?

- Mm, well, working backwards, I think I liked "Roots," because what, that's one of the things because I introduced David Wolper and Alex Haley and brought that, I feel like the Godmother of the project, they give me credit for that.

I mean, you know, and I've been trying to sell books by black writers.

I mean, I talk and get producers to read and see if we couldn't upgrade the kinds of films that are- As long as I can remember I've been doing that, but I found out the producers don't read.

And then of course, "Purlie Victorious" on stage and in film doing Lutiebelle Gussie Mae Jenkins.

And I suppose one role that I liked because it had so much to do with women and Africa and racism and was a multi-dimension role, was the role of Lena in "Boesman and Lena" that I did with James Earl Jones.

I suppose that, those are my most favorite.

- I think you omitted one, which is perhaps more important than all of those combined.

And you were gonna go backwards.

Last year in August, we were- - [Ruby] Oh, yes.

- Playhouse in the Park in Philadelphia.

Previous to that, in January- - Yes, yes, yes.

- we were down at the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse doing a musical, dancical, posical that Ruby had herself had written called "Take It From the Top."

- Yes, music.

- You know, and the fact that it has not yet had a chance to be exposed and made a great commercial success- - But it will Listervelt.

- But I mean, the point I'm making is that even we who were a part of it, tend sometimes to forget- - Forget- - that it was important because the world has not yet seen it.

- And that was the most important thing I've ever done.

- "Take It From the Top," and one of these days, you know, that's really going to be done.

And I think it's a precedent setting, corner turning kind of work.

- [Listervelt] What about the works that have been most meaningful to you?

- Well, speaking quite selfishly, of course, writing and appearing in "Purlie Victorious" was the thing that satisfied me most of all.

And there were one or two things I did on stage that were not bad.

In film, I did "The Hill," I did "The Cardinal," I did, what's the other thing, "Scalphunters" and all that.

But nothing that greatly or deeply satisfied.

- Talking about Ossie, but every time, any time our kids go to see, we have three kids, you know, and anytime they go to the movies to see their father, or watch him on television, they used to say, "Daddy, I'm not gonna watch it if you're gonna get killed again."

(Ruby laughs) You know, and then you got to thinking, "Oh, yes, talking about nobility and goodness and blackness, most of the time the heroic black has to get killed, you know.

And he's mostly dying for, you know, the principles of the dominant society.

- You mentioned "Roots" a while ago.

What do you think made "Roots" such a unique effort, film effort, if you will?

- I think every now and then America has to go through some sort of purgation.

We have to do some kind of facing up.

I remember being very shocked after Malcolm died, for example.

The reports in the newspapers, the sensitive statements about him, the placing him into perspective.

And I think that's true of pieces like "Roots."

I think every now and then a white America, or we have to face the uniqueness of our presence in America and how it continues to perpetuate, you know, how it continues, the injustice, under different headings and facades.

But that it's still there.

And we, it's not that, America's such a marvelous place.

We're in this crazy, wild, wonderful time, this conglomeration.

But the dominant society really does like life to get beat every now and then.

- No.

- Or what is it?

- I think there were certain specifics that led to the phenomenal success- - Yeah.

- of "Roots" that had to do with culture and also with history.

We're perceived by the whites in a specific way.

And that way is determined by what the whites need to believe about us.

They do not entertain easily the total truth of the black experience, because there's so many horrible things in our history that as Ruby said, if white America had to face that, you know, early, cold in the morning, it would be too horrible.

So, there are certain stereotypes, there's certain concepts about black people that are entertained by the larger community.

Now, for a long time, that concept, well, to overstate, to oversimplify, was that black folks were generally quite satisfied.

Segregation was something that they accepted and the good folks- - Ossie, you know, this is a lecture subject.

- Well, the good folks, you know, were in their places.

And that black folks only got disturbed if somebody from the north or some communist came out among them and started spreading dissension.

"But leave the good darkies alone man, and you had a peace and a love and a fellowship like nothing in this world."

Along came people like Malcolm X or along came people like Martin Luther King, upset that whole concept.

Malcolm said, "Black man, get up off your knees.

Stand up like a man.

Even if it's only a half a second, let him shoot you down.

Make him shoot you down, but make him shoot you down as a man."

And then, Martin said, "No, we can turn the other cheek.

We can love everybody, but let's do it on the courthouse steps.

Let's do it out there in the streets.

Let's, you know, let's show them that when we say love and peace and brotherhood doesn't mean that we are cowards."

So, the whole of America looked on the television set at six o'clock and saw a whole different black man.

Said, "Who is that person?

He don't pick no banjos.

I don't see him eating no watermelons.

Who are these strange new people?

My history in the class didn't prepare me for this kind of black folks."

So that the revolution of the sixties and the seventies disabused America of a whole lot of concepts about what black folks were and what they were not.

It left a tremendous curiosity.

"Well, if they ain't chicken-stealing, razor-totin', watermelon-eatin' bunch of people, who then are they?

So, when "Roots" comes along and adds a whole, new dimension to the definition of who we were, America was tremendously hungry to know and still is.

"If the black folks ain't what we thought they were, who are they?

And are they friends or are they enemies?

Are they dangerous?

Are they, will they hurt us because of our past history?"

That's where we are now.

But the curiosity factor works greatly.

- And also, honestly, I'm, I was so amazed that we as black people don't know our own history too.

We were very objective, a lot of us.

A lot of young people don't know, don't remember.

There's no continuity of experience.

There's no handing down the tale, you know, from generation to generation.

- Do we understand the importance of handing down the tale?

- No, I don't think so.

But you know, in terms of, you find people today who don't know Paul, who Paul Robeson was.

Let alone Du Bois, let alone, you know, people like that, so.

- I would agree, but I would also disagree.

I would state some exceptions.

For instance, we're here in Florence, South Carolina, at the invitation of the Ebushua Foundation.

- Yeah.

- Which is an institution set up specifically to deal with just that question of cultural continuity.

And there are, you know, cultural centers and various places where people have set out to correct just this grave wrong that you speak of.

By and large, we do not have cultural continuity in our history.

We do not create or write our own history.

We're at the mercy of other people who do it.

But there is a new feeling, a new thing that is beginning to happen.

- Yeah, we have to connect the dots.

- Yes, yes.

It's far too little now to do what the job that needs to be done, but it is beginning to happen.

- You've mentioned the name of Paul Robeson a number of times.

What kind of man was Paul Robeson in your opinion?

- Well, Paul was a multifaceted man.

And the aspect of him that I like to remember most of all, is that Paul was an artist who was able to use his art as a political tool to help in the liberation of his people.

He taught us that art was not something that happened in a vacuum.

Art was not, was entertainment.

- Mm.

- But not entertainment only.

That art was the most profound expression of the characteristics, even the soul, of a people.

And that a part of our importance as human beings in American society was determined by the fact that we had produced art.

We didn't just pick cotton when we came to this country.

- Os, I, you know, I think that one of the most important things about it, it's just really, really reaffirming what I said about Paul, is that, you know, an artist's tool, that some of instruments and an artist's tool is a familiarity, with a political and economic and social facts of his existence.

Otherwise, what do you want artists about and an opinion on those affairs?

He made it, put it in perspective.

You learn it in acting class, but he sort of lived it.

- How did black people at the time when he was living, feel about Paul Robeson?

- I'd like to- - Generally speaking.

- Could I go back to something before we get to that point?

- Okay.

- Culture as a tool in the struggle.

There was a time in this country when black folks after the Civil War were defined by people like Stephen Foster, ♪ Way down upon the Swanee River ♪ ♪ My Old Kentucky Home ♪ We were looked upon as people who loved the master and loved slavery.

And those were the songs that made Stephen Foster famous.

At that same time, if you listened closely, you would hear black folks singing something that was totally different.

Black folks sang the blues, which was the truth of our experience.

And when a man like, the man who did Ragtime, "Treemonisha."

- Scott Joplin.

- Scott Joplin, came to New York.

New York at that time was under the domination of Victor Herbert and all those voices, ♪ We love ♪ and all that sort of thing.

Joplin came to town and start playing Ragtime.

And Ragtime ultimately swept Victor Herbert and all them cats off the scene because our art told the truth about our experience and about the truth of, about American experience in life.

And when our art met that other counterfeit thing, it swept it from the field.

Without our blues singers, nobody would ever have known who we were.

Now, when Paul was an artist, we appreciated him, we respected him, we looked up to him as a tower of strength, and most black people also did.

And when Paul was severely troubled by the powers of the community who denied him chances to appear in concert halls, who reduced his earning capacity, it was those people and little churches and community schools who knew Paul and loved him, who always gave him a place to come, a place to stay, a place to sound, a place to sing.

His relationship to his people and his people's relationship to him is one of the untold great stories in America.

Someday, you know, the world will know that.

- Yes, it was confused too.

We were confused as black people.

- Yeah, but we knew that this man loved us.

- Yes.

- And we loved him.

And no matter what the murk was, we reached out our hands.

- And you had to feel like a traitor if you denied him.

- Yes.

- Let's get down to two people that we love, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and say that if we let you get away without doing a poem, at least one poem- - Oh.

- We will not be forgiven.

- Right.

- You know, you write poetry too.

You know that.

(everyone laughs) - You heard about that, didn't you?

- And oh, I suppose, shall we, you wanted?

- Well, yes.

Langston Hughes said, "Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die, Life is a broken winged bird That cannot fly."

- Yes.

- And- - And I like this.

Maybe I'll talk to you.

Are you gonna do your poem?

- Oh no, I'm not gonna do that.

- "Well, son, well, son, I tell you, life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

It's had tacks in it and splinters and boards torn up, and places with no carpet on the floor, bare.

But all the time I's been a turning corners and reaching landings and sometimes going in the dark where there ain't been no light.

So boy, don't you turn back.

Don't you sit down on the steps, 'cause you finds it kind of hard.

Don't you fall now.

'Cause I still climbing, Honey.

I still going.

And life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

(upbeat percussive music)