Lena Horne becomes first Black woman to have a Broadway theater named in her honor

Late actress, singer, and civil rights activist Lena Horne has become the first Black woman to have a Broadway theater named in her honor.

Lena Horne makes history with naming of Broadway theater

The theater, orginially named Mansfield Theatre, is located on West 47th Street and was built in 1926. In 1960, it was renamed the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in honor of the late New York Times drama critic.

The Lena Horne Theatre (formerly Brooks Atkinson Theatre) in Manhattan, New York, seen in November 2022. (Photo: Epicgenius, Wikimedia)

Loved ones and the community came together to officially celebrate the unveiling of Horne’s theater, Wednesday.

The renaming comes a couple of weeks after another Broadway theatre was named after actor James Earl Jones.

Legendary actress

Horne, who won multiple Tony and Grammy awards, was a trailblazing entertainer who broke down barriers in Hollywood while battling racial segregation.

She became the first black woman to be nominated for a Tony Award, for her starring role in the 1957 calypso musical Jamaica.

In 1981, she received a special Tony Award for Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, a one-woman Broadway show in which she sang and discussed the ups and downs of her life.

“She opened so many doors for us that we as people of colour can thank her for being a beacon of light,” singer and actress Vanessa Williams told ABC News.

Horne’s granddaughter, Jenny Lumet, attended Wednesday night’s unveiling and said she was overwhelmed by the honor.

“I didn’t quite realize how emotional it was until I started speaking about it,” she said.

“My grandmother would’ve pretended not to be as thrilled as she was. But she would have been completely, completely thrilled.”

Besides an actress, Horne was a talented singer who got her start at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem when she was a teenager.

She won four Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1989, while her 1957 live album, Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria, was the best-selling record by a female singer in RCA Victor’s history.

Lena Horne died in 2010 at age 92.