One day, however, she had seen her mother in a line of black women waiting to be hired as maids. White people in cars drove slowly past, looking them over. America’s original sin of slavery seemed as sharp as ever. Even decades later racism still ran deep in the film and TV industries, despite the progress on the surface.
然而，有一天，她看到母亲站在黑人女佣的队伍里，等待被人雇佣。开着汽车的白人慢慢地从队伍一侧驶过，打量着女人们。美国奴隶制的原罪似乎一如既往地深重。即使几十年后，种族主义观念仍然在电影和电视行业根深蒂固，尽管表面上看有所进步。
In 1977 she appeared as the hero’s mother in “Roots”, a TV series that told the story of an African boy, Kunta Kinte, sold into slavery in the South. It made a huge splash for a time. But there were still few parts for black actors unless these were “written black”, shoehorned into some white cliché of what her people were.
1977年，她在电视剧《根》（Roots）中饰演男主角的母亲，这部电视剧讲述了一个非洲男孩昆塔·肯特被卖到南方当奴隶的故事。这部剧在一段时间内引起了巨大的轰动。但提供给黑人演员的角色仍然少得可怜，除非这些角色是“剧本写明要求黑人演绎”，这些角色被硬塞进一些白人对黑人种族的偏见里。
And they were still not considered automatically as leads, capable of carrying a film, or as actors of classic parts. She would have loved, herself, to play Ophelia. The role seemed closed to her. But where did anyone say Ophelia was white?
外界仍然认为他们无法担当主角，不具备能力出演电影，或者难以成就经典的角色。她自己也很想饰演奥菲莉亚。这个角色似乎跟她很贴近。但是谁说奥菲莉亚就是个白人呢？
In 2013, fulfilling a long-standing dream, she played an originally white role, Mrs Carrie Watts, in “The Trip to Bountiful” on Broadway. It won her a Tony award. The story was of an old woman who insisted on seeing her childhood home before she died.
2013年，她实现了自己一直以来的梦想，在百老汇的影片《邦蒂富尔之旅》中扮演了一个原本是白人的角色——卡里·瓦茨夫人。她凭借该影片获得托尼奖。《邦蒂富尔之旅》讲述的是一位老妇人坚持要在临终前重返儿时故乡的故事。
As usual she steeped herself in the character, even going to “Mrs Carrie’s” part of Texas to scratch up the earth and smell it. Being ancient herself now, it was not hard to get the moves right.
像往常一样，她让自己沉浸在角色中，甚至到得州“卡里夫人”的故居挖土，闻闻泥土的气息。现在她也上了年纪，这些动作对她来说并不难。
And in any case, for all her care with nuances, her characters had one trait they shared. Whatever their age, they stood tall, squared their shoulders, pressed onward. They kept their chins high.
无论如何，尽管她很在意角色之间的细微差别，但她刻画的角色都有一个共同点。不管角色的年龄多大，她们都会挺胸抬头，奋力向前。她们绝对不会俯首低眉。
