Diahann Carroll 'was opening new doors for us and we all knew it. ... Watching her so gracefully defy and upend racial and gender barriers in Hollywood made us envision new possibilities for ourselves,' writes Roxanne Jones for CNNOpinion
Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has been a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of"Say it Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete." She talks politics, sports and culture weekly on Philadelphia's 900AM WURD. The views expressed here are solely hers. Read more opinion on CNN.
Wow. I was starstruck.To my young eyes—and to the eyes of so many of my peers--Diahann Carroll was everything that a woman should be: smart, elegant, funny, and a career woman. Carroll had already shattered racial stereotypes on television with her starring role in the 1968 series"Julia," on NBC. She played a widowed mother and nurse — a life I connected with because my father had also died. As Julia, Carroll was the first black woman to star in a sitcom and not play a domestic worker.
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