Lavender Power is that Resilience You Have Inside

to thrive past the abuse of violence & sexual trauma

Introducing Dorothy Dandridge

 
 
 
 
    In 1999, Halle Berry won a Golden Globe after triumphing over several abusive relationships by bringing her role model Dorothy Dandridge to the screen in HBO's Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. 
 
"Domestic violence is something I've known about since I was a child," Berry revealed. 
  
"My mother was a victim of it.  Early on in my life I made choices, and I chose men that were abusive because that was what I knew growing up."
 
The Academy Award winning actress is partially deaf in one ear because she was brutally beaten up by a Hollywood leading man she dated when she broke into acting in the early 1990s.  It's long been speculated that Berry's abuser was actor Wesley Snipes.
 
Berry survived the abuse, and through therapy, she learned what to do when a relationship turns violent. Now, the actress is leading a courageous campaign to help other battered women.
 
 Dorothy Dandridge, also a relationship abuse survivor, was the first African American woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award.  
 
Dorothy had the drive and the talent to make it but the color of her skin held her back and her life soon began a downward spiral which in the end turned tragic.
 

 
 
 
 
 
SEARCHING FOR ANGELA SHELTON
 
 “I lied for my dad the whole time. I’ve been making excuses for him since I was 8 years old,” says Angela.
 
  “I’m on a mission. I’m on a crusade and I cannot stop, because a lot of people said, ‘You’re an actress, you’re in Hollywood. You’re gonna reveal that you were molested as a child? Are you crazy? There goes your career.' But, honestly, I don’t care.”
 
CBS  July 30, 2004
Actress Forced to Confront Her Secret Past