"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
"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 which this book is named. I am a daughter and a mother, a
sister and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the
dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as
immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by his
hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last,
has something meaningful to say." *-*Cicely Tyson