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Sidney Poitier, First Black Actor To Win Oscar, Longtime Westchester Resident, Dies
Trailblazing, Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win an Oscar, a longtime New York resident has died.
Bahamian Prime Minister Phillip Davis made the announcement that Poitier died on Thursday, Jan. 8 at the age of 94.
A native of Cat Island in the Bahamas, Davis said: "The whole Bahamas grieves the celebrated life of a great Bahamian."
Poitier, who grew up on a tomato farm and taught himself to read and write, became a resident of Westchester County, moving to Mount Vernon in 1956.
He won the Oscar for "Lilies of the Field," in 1963, in which he played a migrant worker wh…