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Actress, activist Ruby Dee dies at age 91

Posted at 1:17 PM, Jun 12, 2014
and last updated 2014-06-12 13:17:14-04

CNN) — Ruby Dee, the award-winning actress whose seven-decade career included triumphs on stage and screen, has died. She was 91.

Dee died peacefully at her New Rochelle, New York, home Wednesday, according to her representative, Michael Livingston.

Dee — often with her late husband, Ossie Davis — was a formidable force in both the performing arts community and the civil rights movement. She was friends with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and received the Frederick Douglass Award in 1970 from the National Urban League.

She earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in “American Gangster” (2007).