The Measure of a Man - Book 11

I listened to Sidney Poitier read this, his own memoir, on audio.  It was wonderful!  Poitier has an amazing rags to riches story.  He writes this book in the year 2000 as an old man looking back over a life that held a lot of hard knocks and a lot of amazing good luck as well.  To listen to this erudite thoughtful man talk about the things that happened to him that developed his thoughtful philosophy of life, was amazing to me.  He only had a formal education between the ages of 10.5 and 14.  He was barely literate when he ran away from home at age 16 and wound up in Harlem, New York in 1943 with just a few dollars in his pocket.

Poitier was born prematurely in Miami, Florida while his parents were there selling tomatoes from their little farm in the Bahamas.  He grew up on isolated Cat Island, where the family was extremely poor but didn't know it.  He roamed the forest eating from from fruit trees, fishing in the ocean, helping his mother wash clothes in the ponds and gathering brambles for firewood for her.  They had no indoor plumbing or electricity, but no one did there.  He loved his simple, primitive childhood. At 10.5 his family moved to Nassau, the capital city.  Due to a U.S. tomato embargo, his parents' farm failed.

Now Poitier was exposed to city living, to race and class conflict, to school, to extreme city poverty which was a degrading kind he had not experienced before.  These were very troubled times for him.  Looking back he wonders at his constant risk taking behaviors where he got into a lot of trouble.  Finally, his parents send him to live with an older brother, living in Miami.  Here Poitier discovers the frightening Jim Crow/KKK type bigotry.  He's heard of Harlem, so he escapes there, where he is homeless and working odd jobs as a dishwasher and janitor.  He lived in Harlem for 14 years.  One day, he answered a want ad for actors for the New York Negro Theater.  He had no training and was barely educated and they threw him out.  But Poitier is always up for a challenge!   He had a towering sense of self.  He studied reading and pronunciation with the help of an old Jewish waiter.  He went back six months later and got hired.

A Raisin in the Sun

Looking back at his career, the movie he seems to have the most affection for is Patch of Blue.  He also talked about Lilies of the Field (made on a small budget and in 13 days!) which won him the Oscar for best actor.  Sidney Poitier was the first black man to win this award.  His reminiscences of his movie career made me want to go on a Poitier movie watching jag.  He made some good movies!

This is Poitier with his second wife.  He is now 90 years old.

I highly enjoyed listening to Poitier.  He is a man who is a thorough and nuanced thinker.  He loved his parents, his children, he regrets his sinful, hurtful behavior, he has a generous heart that wants to do good in the world.

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