AFRO Exclusive! Davidson Talks Memoir

By Micha Green
AFRO D.C. Editor
[email protected]

The comedy-sketch show “In Living Color” first aired April 1990, and 30 years later, one of the show’s stars, celebrated actor and comedian Tommy Davidson, has released a memoir that talks about his life in color- as a Black man in America. 

Living in Color: What’s Funny About Me, Davidson’s new memoir, chronicles his life from realizing he was Black, and what that meant, to his family, fame and surviving in Hollywood.

In an exclusive interview with the AFRO, Davidson shared his trajectory, personal ponderings and research that has led to powerful ideas about race, division and love, and why he chose to write this book.

“My sister called me and she said, ‘Why don’t you ever talk about mom?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’  And she said, ‘You should talk about her in your interviews.’ And I had to think about why I didn’t want to do it.  And it all of a sudden came over me… I was ashamed of her. And I didn’t really realize that carried over from my childhood,” Davidson explained. 

The actor was adopted by his White mother at a young age and was literally saved from the trash, treated in the hospital and was cared for like her own.  Growing up in the notoriously rough Trinidad neighborhood of D.C., and then moving to the 16th Street area, Davidson experienced a great deal of racism, however his mother and family always taught him love for mankind.

“[My mother] took this little Black boy out of the trash and she made me the man that I am.  And it was a plan-I think she did it on a purpose. I think she wanted to plant somebody in the future, who wasn’t racist and who was a Black man who was balanced and could bring some love to the world.  I really think those were conscious decisions. So I said, ‘this deserves more than me just doing an interview, maybe it’s time for me to do a book.’”

Davidson went into detail about the horrors he experienced as a Black kid in D.C.  The young Davidson had no idea what race even was, prior to the merciless taunting and prejudice.

“The shame was left from me as a kid because I had to fight all the time,” he said.  “People were calling them, ‘White cracker,’ and me ‘White cracker lover,’ and I was like five.  I went to my mother and I was like, ‘Why do they keep calling me White cracker lover, because I love graham crackers?’ And that’s when she broke the news to me: ‘Well that’s what people your color call people my color when they don’t like them.  And I said ‘So what color am I?’ And she said, ‘You’re Black,’” the actor explained.

It was from that lesson he decided to research why people had so much hate in their hearts and thought of division. He learned about ancient Africa’s educational and spiritual system of Kamet, he read books of all sorts of genres and he grasped how those of European descent in history had prioritized division and not put love and spirituality first.  

The ideals that Davidson possesses regarding how racial hatred has come to be is truly worth hearing, as this reporter was invested for almost an hour.  Local audiences will get the opportunity to hear Davidson and how he has come to “live in color,” March 11-13 in the Washington Metropolitan area.

While he has a major career and platform, such as touring and participating in the re-boot of the hit Disney Show The Proud Family, Davidson said this book gives him the ability to truly articulate his worldview.

“If given an opportunity to speak my experience then this is what it is,” he said.

“And this is for you, the coalminer in Matawan; this is for the poultry worker in South Carolina, this is for the bus driver in Alabama, this is for the painter in California, this is for the teacher in Massachusetts. This book is for everyone.”

On March 11, Davidson will be with Stedman Graham at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, in the Oprah Winfrey Theater from 7-9 p.m.  The following day he’ll be at Howard University for a book signing at 5 p.m. On March 13 Davidson will be at the Capital Comedy Festival at DAR Constitution Hall, which also features Don DC Curry, Gary Owen, Sommore and Tony Rock.