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Emmy Award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph stood before the Calabash International Literary Festival on Sunday, delivering more than excerpts from her acclaimed memoir Diva 2.0: 12 Lessons from Me to You. It was more than a speech; it was a time-travelling tour through the soul of a woman who has lived, loved, lost, and soared. She brought the pages to life, guided by numbers shouted from the audience, each one corresponding to a year of her ever-evolving journey.
In a “reasoning” session hosted by poet laureate and academic Kwame Dawes, Ralph turned the crowd into co-authors of her narrative. “Give me a number,” she urged, and as the audience called out ages – from as young as three to as seasoned as 68 – she responded not just with anecdotes, but with testimony, humour, and the unshakeable cadence of a woman who’s lived with intention.
She recalled herself at the age of three – a little girl with a passport, travelling back and forth to Jamaica. “I came to Jamaica, and I remember it so clearly,” Ralph said. “I was in my little yellow dress, doing my little ska moves.” Her Uncle Ernest stood nearby with his children: Michael, Dee, and Christine. “I asked Dee to dance. He refused. And I remember turning to Uncle Ernest and saying, ‘If he doesn’t dance with me, I’m going to kill him’.” The crowd burst into laughter. “What was in that little girl’s mind?” she asked. “But even then, I had a spirit. I didn’t know what giving up was – I just knew I had to get what I came for.”
Years later, at 18 years old, that same spirit stood in a phone booth at Rutgers University, holding the receiver tight as she prepared to tell her mother she had chosen a life in the arts. “Not medicine. Not law. Acting,” she recalled. “I thought she might slap me through the phone. But something in me knew – I was the woman she raised me to be.”
Then, at 23 years of age, she was abruptly fired from a musical – dismissed for “not fitting stylistically”. A lesser resolve might have crumbled. “I was devastated,” she said, “but 10 days later, I was cast in a new Broadway show.” That moment shaped her resilience. “You can be delayed,” she told the Calabash crowd, “but that doesn’t mean you’ll be denied.”
By the age of 40, the world saw a confident artist – a mother of two – navigating the balance between career and family. What the world didn’t see was the collapse of her marriage, the shadows of self-doubt that crept in behind the spotlight. “I wondered if I was going to be the only one in my family to get a divorce – I felt like I had failed,” she admitted. “But my mother – God bless her – said, ‘No matter how bad it is, nobody but that man could have given you those two children.’”
At age 50, Ralph wasn’t just reflecting on the longevity of a career that spanned Broadway, film, and television – from Dreamgirls to Moesha and Sister Act 2. She was celebrating deeper joys: the mentorship of Sidney Poitier, the legacy she was building for her children, and the love of a man who stood tall beside her. “I had met and married a man,” she said of Senator Vincent Hughes, “who wasn’t afraid of my light – he stood with me in it.”
But it was in her 60s, she said, that everything truly came to a crowning moment. On September 12, 2022, she stepped onto the stage of the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and made history – becoming only the second black woman ever to win the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. The award was for her role as Barbara Howard in Abbott Elementary, the hit ABC show created by Quinta Brunson.
“Every door I looked in, every wall I climbed, every glass ceiling I tried to break – it was worth it,” Ralph told the crowd. “This show was written for us, by us, and ended up being loved by the world.” And in this role, unlike many others, she didn’t have to shrink or shift herself to fit in. “I was perfect, just as I am – and forever grateful.”
Like in Dreamgirls, she stood centre stage at the Emmys, to thunderous applause. Red lights blinked to signal her time was up – but Ralph stood firm. “I had a diva moment. I had earned the right to take up space,” she said, feeling the spirit of that fearless little three-year-old girl, she once was.
Ralph closed her Calabash 2025 speech by singing, “I am an endangered species, but I sing no victim’s song. I am a woman, I am an artist, and I know where my voice belongs,” receiving a standing ovation from the audience.
English (US) ·