By TaRessa Stovall

When news of Lena Horne’s passing on May 9 zoomed through cyberspace and other news media, I found myself most warmed and inspired by a varied bouquet of tributes from people of different generations whose lives she touched in many ways.

Award-winning journalist/author/activist Joan Morgan shared a FaceBook posting of a close encounter that helped launch her career. “I met Lena Horne at my first job out of college, as an assistant buyer in training for a tony NYC dept store. I hated it. Ms Horne saw me on the floor, walked right past all the veteran white salespeople and said in that irresistible drawl of hers, ‘Baby, what are you doing? Come walk with me a while.’ And so she asked me questions while we looked at clothes and laughed and she knew instantly life had other things in store me. ‘Don’t you stay here too long Sugar,’ she said. ‘Go on do what you really want to do.’ Never, ever forgot that piece of advice. As a matter a fact I quit that job a few weeks after and never looked back.”

Denene Millner, best-selling author of several fiction and non-fiction books, put Ms. Horne’s impact on Hollywood into perspective on her blog, My Brown Baby: “There was no handkerchief on this Negro woman’s head, no apron tied around this beautiful black woman’s waist—no yass’ms” falling off her ruby-painted lips, no babies being birthed by her delicate hands. She was a new kind of colored gal—one who, as her father, Teddy Horne, so poignantly pointed out to MGM head Louis B. Mayer, would rather hire a maid than play one (and could afford it, too).

…Here was this copper-toned siren with that long, pretty, ‘good’ hair, looking just as sexy as any of Hollywood’s sexiest white women—Hedy Lamarr, Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth included.

With one three-minute number—‘Honeysuckle Rose,’ in ‘Thousands Cheer,’—Lena laid herself down and became the bridge over which hundreds of successful black actors and actresses walked to get to the dignified roles on the big screen. At the same time, blacks in general used Lena as a means of showing they were much more than the mammies and Toms America wanted them to be.”

Musical genius Quincy Jones, a longtime friend and collaborator who helped produce Horne’s award-winning one-woman Broadway show, The Lady and Her Music, said, “Lena Horne was a pioneering groundbreaker, making inroads into a world that had never before been explored by African-American women, and she did it on her own terms,” he said. “Our nation and the world has lost one of the great artistic icons of the 20th century. There will never be another like Lena Horne and I will miss her deeply.”

Thembisa S. Mshaka, a journalist/hip-hop culture guardian and entertainment industry veteran shared on her site, ThembisaMshaka.com, that “Lena Horne, with her smoldering voice, lithe dancer’s body, and flawless beauty, is the Mother of Black Hollywood: its glamour; its contradictions, its fighting spirit. Before Dorothy Dandridge, Lonnette McKee, Vanessa Williams, Halle Berry, or Paula Patton, there was Lena. If you are a woman of color in the business, and you elect to pursue a living performing on stage, using a microphone or appearing before a camera, you owe a debt of thanks to Lena Horne.”

Renowned poet/author Jessica Care Moore summed up the spirit of a legend best in a haiku she shared on her FaceBook page: “Lena Horne. Black wings/defiant in this sky. Blue/you took us with you.”

President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama, expressed their appreciation in a wire service story. ”Michelle and I were deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Lena Horne — one of our nation’s most cherished entertainers,” Obama said in a statement issued Monday.

“Over the years, she warmed the hearts of countless Americans with her beautiful voice and dramatic performances on screen,” the President added. “From the time her grandmother signed her up for an NAACP membership as a child, she worked tirelessly to further the cause of justice and equality. In 1940, she became the first African-American performer to tour with an all white band. And while entertaining soldiers during World War II, she refused to perform for segregated audiences — a principled struggle she continued well after the troops returned home. Michelle and I offer our condolences to all those who knew and loved Lena, and we join all Americans in appreciating the joy she brought to our lives and the progress she forged for our country.”

Turner Classic Movies will pay tribute by screening three of Horne’s most famous movies, The Duke is Tops, Cabin in the Sky, and Panama Hattie, on the evening of Friday, May 21.

I had the honor of meeting Lena Horne twice: In the 1980s, backstage after her amazing one-woman show. She was so beautiful that close-up, she almost seemed like a stunning artwork come to life, a bit surreal, yet warm and humorous, too.

When I worked at Spelman College, she came to receive an Honorary Degree, for which I helped write the language. Though a bit older than the first time I’d met her, when I saw her this time, again, backstage, in academic regalia rather than evening wear, I marveled that her otherworldly beauty had not been affected at all by the passage of time.

Her gorgeous eyes sparkled as she took in the shining faces of the graduates, their families and the Spelman faculty, staff and administration, almost as if she were in the audience, enjoying their star turn, and applauding every single one.

TaRessa Stovall is Managing Editor of TheDefendersOnline.