#1 New York Times Bestseller“In her long and extraordinary career, Cicely Tyson has not only succeeded as an actor, she has shaped the course of history.” ―President Barack Obama, 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony“While undoubtedly personal . . . Just as I Am is a universal accounting of just how far we’ve come in Tyson’s near-century of life, and how far we still must go. . . . Tyson’s story, while frankly written and supremely eye-opening, isn’t just her own. It’s also the story of Black women in America, of generations past, present and yet to come, whose wills to survive are divinely gifted and ancestrally guided.”―Washington Post“Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for
