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The line began to form in the dark on Monday, hours before anyone was allowed to enter the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. An 86-year-old church member woke up at 4:30 a.m. to make sure she would be one of the first people in line. She was the third.
As the daylight rose and the cold persisted, the line widened around the block. Some people wore full length mahogany colored furs; others wore sequined scarves and checkered houndstooth puffer jackets. Only the best to see Cicely Tyson, whom they called their real queen Harlem, one last time.
Ms Tyson, who died Jan. 28 at the age of 96, lay in the church sanctuary surrounded by purple orchids, lilac roses and hydrangeas. Fans in New York City and beyond, all inspired by her seven-decade acting career, waited their turn to say their final farewell to the revered actress.
She was a pioneering actress who won three Emmys, a Tony, and an Honorary Oscar, but her fame went beyond her awards. She challenged Hollywood on how it chose black actors and became a role model for civil rights.
But in East Harlem, where Ms Tyson was born and raised to immigrant parents from Nevis, she was even more than that. She co-founded the Harlem Dance Theater in 1969 after a tumultuous year in the civil rights movement and after Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, and has continued to support the arts, albeit quietly.
She had been a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church for more than three decades, according to Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the church’s senior pastor.
Members of Abyssinia remembered her as a calm and gracious congregation who purchased the third bench in the front and named it after her mother, but regularly sat in the back to worship.
“I’m here to continue celebrating the life of a national treasure,” Lisa Hayes, 62, a Harlem lawyer. “We are here as we would be for everyone we love.”
Ms Hayes, who wore a red face mask with the Greek letters for Delta Sigma Theta sorority sewn onto it, referred to Ms Tyson as “Soror Tyson” and thanked her for raising her awareness of black beauty with the many blankets from Jet magazine that she honored. She remembers how, as a teenager, she asked her cousin to braid her hair. Her cousin did it in a style similar to Ms. Tyson’s hair on the cover of an issue of Essence magazine.
“I was just starting to feel who I am,” said Hayes. “Someone said to me, ‘Oh Lisa, it’s so beautiful, you look like Cicely Tyson.’ At 62, I still dine on this compliment!
Evelyn Jemmott-Jackson, a science teacher in the city and Abyssinian usher, arrived from Brooklyn around 7 a.m., early enough to see Ms Tyson enter the church for the very last time. Ms Jemmott-Jackson said she felt compelled to see Ms Tyson because she loved it with her.
“We support our Queen just because she held us high,” Ms. Jemmott-Jackson said, showing someone a video of Ms. Tyson’s coffin arriving in a black Cadillac hearse. “The fact that his family allowed us to pay our last respects is incredible.”
Bishop Donal Yarbrough, the 86-year-old Abyssinian member who was third in line, said she intended to sing a song to Ms Tyson called “Coming Home,” then suddenly offered a preview.
“She’s coming home,” Bishop Yarbrough sang with emotion. “I can see God and his angels spreading their wings and it’s going to be wide open because she’s one of their angels,” she sang with a liveliness that prompted everyone behind her to come out. their place and to seek the voice in motion.
Shaquille Carbon, 27, watched Bishop Yarbrough as she sang, almost in awe. He arrived in Harlem at 7 a.m. from Maryland because he grew up watching Ms. Tyson movies. He dreamed of becoming an actor and watched movies with his mother, who frequently played “Sounder” or “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” on her VCR.
“She’s been someone I adored all my life,” Mr. Carbon said through a black knit mask, shuddering. “We owned all of his movies and watched ad nauseam in my house.”
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
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