Actor, writer, and political activist Ruby Dee is best known for her distinguished career in film, television, and on stage. She was an original cast member of Broadway classics such as A Raisin in the Sun and South Pacific. In 1965 Dee became the first black woman to play lead roles at the American Shakespeare Festival as Kate in Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear. She won an Obie Award for the title role in Athol Fugard's Boesman and Lena, and Image nominations for Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters First Hundred Years and Captive Heart: The James Mink Story. Her 1998 solo show, One Good Nerve, based a compilation of her short stories, folktales and poetry, continued Dee's work bringing her own words to life. Joined by her husband Ossie Davis, Dee has been on the frontlines of the fight for social justice. Close friends of Martin Luther King, they served as masters of ceremonies for the historic 1963 March on Washington. They risked their careers resisting McCarthyism, have sued in Federal court for black voting rights, and continue to speak widely for citizen involvement in democracy. Dee was celebrated as a "national treasure" when receiving the National Medal of Arts from President and Mrs. Clinton at the White House in 1995. She was awarded an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle Award in 1994 and is an inductee in the Theater Hall of Fame and NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame. In 2000 she received a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. Dee is the author of several books for children and adults.