Alfre Woodard
at a Barack Obama rally at the Democratic National Convention, 2008-08-28
Born	Alfre Ette Woodard (1952-11-08) November 8, 1952 (age 59) Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
Occupation	Actress, Producer
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Roderick Spencer (1983–present)

Alfre Ette Woodard (born November 8, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards (winning four), and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.

She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss Firecracker, Grand Canyon, Passion Fish, Primal Fear, Star Trek: First Contact, Miss Evers' Boys, K-PAX, Radio, Take the Lead and The Family That Preys.

Early life[link]

Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Constance, a homemaker, and Marion H. Woodard, an entrepreneur and interior designer.^[1] Woodard attended Bishop Kelley High School, a private Catholic school in Tulsa. She studied drama at Boston University, from which she graduated.

Career[link]

Woodard has made numerous appearances in television series and motion pictures. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1983 film Cross Creek. In 1993 she starred in the film Passion Fish for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. She also appeared in the films Heart and Souls, Crooklyn, How to Make an American Quilt, Primal Fear, in Down in the Delta as a single alcoholic mother from Chicago forced to spend a summer with her uncle in Mississippi, and as Lily Sloane, Zefram Cochrane's assistant in Star Trek: First Contact.

In 1997 she starred in the HBO film Miss Evers' Boys, for which she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a CableACE Award, an NAACP Image Award and a Satellite Awards.

Alfre Woodard speaks for the Barack Obama campaign in New Philadelphia, Ohio, on 2008-02-20.

Woodard's television credits include Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Faerie Tale Theatre (in "Puss in Boots"), L.A. Law, and Homicide: Life on the Street. Woodard has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for her performances in the series Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and The Practice, as well as the television movie Miss Evers' Boys. Woodard has received Emmy nominations for Words by Heart, St. Elsewhere, Unnatural Causes, a second nomination for St. Elsewhere, A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story, The Piano Lesson, Gulliver's Travels, Homicide: Life on the Street, and The Water Is Wide.^[2]

In 2003, Woodard, took part in the HBO film Unchained Memories, a dramatization of WPA slave narratives. From 2005 to 2006, Woodard starred in the ABC series Desperate Housewives, and received another Emmy nomination for her role as Betty Applewhite. Woodard has appeared on stage in such plays as Map of the World, Drowning Crow, Me & Bessie, and The Winter's Tale. She starred in Tyler Perry's latest film The Family That Preys. In 2009, she appeared in American Violet, playing the mother of a 24-year-old African American woman wrongfully swept up in a drug raid.

In 2010, she was a guest star in the third season of the Vampire Television series True Blood as Ruby Jean Reynolds.^[3] and was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2011 for her role.^[4][5]

She was most recently seen starring as Lt. Tanya Rice in TNT's original series Memphis Beat, for which she won Gracie Allen Awards for performance in a series. One critic said: "I originally tuned in for Jason Lee, who plays a police detective named Dwight who likes to croon the blues. But I was won over by Alfre Woodard, who plays Dwight’s by-the-book boss."^[6]

Personal life[link]

Woodard lives in Santa Monica, California, with her husband, writer Roderick Spencer, and their two children, Mavis and Duncan. Woodard follows Christian Science.^[7] She is a founder and board member of Artists for a New South Africa and is also active in the Democratic Party. In February 2009, she joined a group of American film directors and actors on a cultural trip to Iran at the invitation of the "House of Cinema" forum in Tehran.^[8] Her daughter, Mavis, served as Miss Golden Globe for the 2010 Golden Globe Awards.

Awards and nominations[link]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alfre Woodard

• Alfre Woodard at the Internet Movie Database
• Alfre Woodard at the Internet Broadway Database
• Alfre Woodard at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Alfre Woodard at AllRovi
• Alfre Woodard at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

Sojourner Truth
An albumen silver print from approximately 1870 by Randall Studios
Born	Isabella Baumfree c. 1797 Swartekill, New York
Died	November 26, 1883(1883-11-26) (aged 86) Battle Creek, Michigan
Occupation	domestic servant, abolitionist, author
Parents	James and Elizabeth Baumfree

Sojourner Truth ( /soʊˈdʒɜrnər ˈtruːθ/; c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843 onward, of Isabella Baumfree, an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. Her best-known extemporaneous speech on racial inequalities, Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army; after the war, Truth tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.

Early years[link]