You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne born June 30, 1917 in Brooklyn, NY, was a singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer who broke new ground for black performers when she signed a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer











Lena Horne said, looking back over her life: “My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”