Lena Horne was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City.Reported to be descended from the John C. Calhoun family, both sides of her family were a mixture of African American, European American, and Native American descent and each belonged to what W. E. B. Du Bois called "The Talented Tenth.Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights movement. In 1941, she sang at Cafe Society and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen". Horne had a son Edwin Jones (February 1940 - September 12, 1970) but unfortanatly died of kidney disease that same year Horne's father Edwin "Teddy" Horne died at age 78 on April 18, 1970. Mrs. Horne also had a daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley who she was survived by also with many granchildren. "I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked."-Lena Horne
