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Swifter than a Weaver’s Shuttle: The Days of Canada Lee

  • Chapter
No Surrender! No Retreat!

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Abstract

Four thousand mourners crowded into Harlem’s Salem Methodist Church on 13 May 1952. Six thousand more lined the streets of Seventh Avenue. Canada Lee was dead, dead before his time. Gone at 45, this pioneer actor had given his life as an activist. The working-class man and woman at the funeral sat next to such theatre luminaries as Oscar Hammerstein, II, Noble Sissle, Brooks Atkinson, Dick Campbell, Perry Watkins, Frank Silvera, Sidney Poitier, Frederick O’Neal, and Arnold Moss. Lee’s first wife, Juanita Canegata, and Frances Lee, his widow, were in attendance, as well.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.

—The Book of Job

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  1. Glenda E. Gill
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© 2000 Glenda E. Gill

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Gill, G.E. (2000). Swifter than a Weaver’s Shuttle: The Days of Canada Lee. In: No Surrender! No Retreat!. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05361-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05361-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-62002-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-05361-9

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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