Tony Awards 2014 Belong to Audra McDonald

Explore Our Galleries

An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

Breaking News!

Today's news and culture by Black and other reporters in the Black and mainstream media.

Click Here

Ways to Support ABHM?

Click Here

June 9, 2014

BY: STEPHEN A. CROCKETT JR., TheRoot

Audra McDonald is overcome with emotion after winning her record-breaking sixth Tony Award at Radio City Music Hall in New York on June 8, 2014.

Sunday night’s 68th Annual Tony Awards were all about Audra McDonald and James Monroe Iglehart, as one became the most decorated Broadway actress of all time with her win and the other saw his decision to surpass being a pro wrestler and a Harlem Globetrotter pay off with his first Tony win.

McDonald wowed Broadway audiences with her portrayal of Billie Holiday’s struggle with drug and alcohol addiction in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. McDonald had to not only imitate the singer’s alcohol-fueled performances but also had to emulate her signature husky voice.

“I get to the theater at about 6 p.m. or 6:15 p.m. I need that time. I don’t let anybody come in from a half-hour on. I go really deep within myself,” she told the Wall Street Journal about her process to prepare.

Her best lead actress win makes this her sixth Tony surpassing five-time winners Angela Lansbury and the late Julie Harris, CBS News reports.

The 43-year-old actress got her career off to a strong start having won three Tony Awards by the time she was 28 for her performances in Carousel, Master Class, and Ragtime.

https://youtu.be/OyfkgDvpfvM

Read full article here.

Read more Breaking News here.

Comments Are Welcome

Note: We moderate submissions in order to create a space for meaningful dialogue, a space where museum visitors – adults and youth –– can exchange informed, thoughtful, and relevant comments that add value to our exhibits.

Racial slurs, personal attacks, obscenity, profanity, and SHOUTING do not meet the above standard. Such comments are posted in the exhibit Hateful Speech. Commercial promotions, impersonations, and incoherent comments likewise fail to meet our goals, so will not be posted. Submissions longer than 120 words will be shortened.

See our full Comments Policy here.