Nov 04, 2022
By Andy Johnson
It is official.
Singer, actor and civil rights activist Lena Horne has become the first Black woman to have a Broadway theatre named in her honour.
The Mansfield Theatre, on West 47th Street is now the Lena Horne Theatre. The name change coming just a couple of weeks after another Broadway theatre was named after actor James Earl Jones.
Horne battled racial segregation to win a major Hollywood film contract and later found international fame as a singer
She was the first Black woman nominated for a Tony Award and received a special Tony in 1981.
She won four Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement prize in 1989.
Horne died in 2010 at the age of 92.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who is Black, welcomed the changes along the The Great White Way – noting it now has some chocolate on it.
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