Video Story: By Lee Cowan, CBS Sunday Morning | It felt like those we lost this year were as numerous as raindrops. Luminaries like Robert Redford, who challenged Hollywood to do better, to think harder, to take risks. He was of Hollywood, but he preferred to live away from it. His Sundance Film Institute and Festival gave independent filmmakers a bit of sun at Sundance, promoting what he told “Sunday Morning” in 2018 were “the smaller stories. The more offbeat stories. The more controversial.”
Redford lived long enough to see fellow Oscar-winner Gene Hackman pass away. Hackman shone just as brightly. He could be gentle, as in “Hoosiers,” and powerful, as in “The French Connection.”
The real-life heroes from the civil rights movement are sadly getting more scarce every day. Sam Moore’s song “Soul Man” was meant to show pride and resilience.
And there was one person who lived those values for 111 years: Viola Fletcher, the oldest witness to the Tulsa Race Massacre. Then there was Charles Person, the youngest among the original famed “Freedom Riders” protest in 1961. Joseph McNeil took a stand … by sitting, at a Whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter. Jo Ann Allen, one of the “Clinton 12,” was among the first to endure the desegregation of schools all across the South. Bobby Cain was, too. He became the first Black student to graduate under those conditions.
A decade later, courage like that inspired the likes of Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods to record a song with a message of belonging, “Get Together.”
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hail-and-farewell-a-tribute-to-those-we-lost-in-2025/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab4g&eid=2cb35cd3386304065c93556b4826f98e9bf63eb2&ET_CID=512523&ET_RID=65787148