# Sidney Poitier Wins the Oscar (1964)

URL: https://allhistories.com/bahamas/timeline/1964-sidney-poitier-wins-the-oscar
Location: Santa Monica, California, United States
Themes: main-event

Sidney Poitier was born in Miami in February 1927 while his Afro-Bahamian parents, tomato farmers from Cat Island, were visiting Florida to sell their crop. He grew up on Cat Island and, from the age of ten, in Nassau, then a British colony. At fifteen he was sent to the United States, where he struggled before finding work with the American Negro Theater in New York. By the early 1960s Poitier was one of the leading actors in Hollywood, known for roles in The Defiant Ones and A Raisin in the Sun. For his performance as Homer Smith, an itinerant handyman who helps a group of German nuns build a chapel in the Arizona desert, in Lilies of the Field (1963), he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 36th Academy Awards ceremony in April 1964, the first Black man to win the award. The victory was celebrated in the Bahamas as a national triumph at a time when black Bahamians were still excluded from political power. Poitier was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1974 and later served as Bahamian ambassador to Japan and to UNESCO. At this point in the timeline (13 April 1964), the Queen of the United Kingdom was Elizabeth II (6 February 1952 – 8 September 2022); the Governor of the Bahama Islands was Robert Stapledon (18 July 1960 – April 1964). Government: the Premier of the Bahama Islands was Sir Roland Symonette (7 January 1964 – 16 January 1967).

## Why it matters
Poitier's Oscar was a landmark for Black performers worldwide and a source of immense pride in the Bahamas.

Ruler at the Time: [Elizabeth II](https://allhistories.com/bahamas/rulers/elizabeth-ii)

Governor of the Bahama Islands: Robert Stapledon
Premier of the Bahama Islands: Sir Roland Symonette (United Bahamian Party)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Sidney Poitier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier)
- [Wikipedia — Lilies of the Field (1963 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilies_of_the_Field_(1963_film))
- [Wikipedia — 36th Academy Awards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36th_Academy_Awards)
- [Encyclopaedia Britannica — Sidney Poitier](https://www.britannica.com/search?query=Sidney+Poitier)
- [Wikipedia — The Quiet Revolution (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Revolution_(Bahamas))