I didn’t know her personally.

I didn’t know it would hit me so hard.

Lena Horne has died.

“My identity is very clear to me now. I am a black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.”

She said that at age 80. I so wish she was free to say it much sooner.