Chadwick Boseman Silences ‘Black Panther’ Naysayers With SAG Award Win And By Being “Young, Gifted, And Black”

Black Panther made history AGAIN by winning the SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. It was a triumph for inclusion and representation in the industry and it was the first big win for a comic book movie at a major awards show. It also is the first movie from a February release to ever win, putting the game-changing Marvel film to potentially win the Academy Award for Best Picture. T’challa himself, Chadwick Boseman, took the stage with his fellow Wakandans to deliver an inspiring speech

“Well, I’ll be…I didn’t think I was gonna have to speak,” he joked. After thanking director Ryan Coogler and Kevin Feige, he said, “I think of two questions we have received: 1.) Did we know that this movie was going to receive this kind of response? 2.) Has it changed the industry?”

“My answer to that is to be young, gifted, and black,” he began in what would be a rousing speech that silently threw shade at Black Panther naysayers and the Academy’s attempt to introduce the “Popular Picture” award which many said would devalue the groundbreaking Marvel Studios blockbuster.

“We all know what it’s like to be told that there’s not a place for you to be featured,” he said. “We know what it’s like to be told that there’s not a screen for you to be featured on — a stage for you to be featured on.”

He continued, “We know what it’s like to be the tail and not the head. We know what it’s like to be beneath and not above…and that is what we went to work with every day because we know that had something special that we wanted to give the world…that we could be full human beings in the roles that we were playing. That we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see.”

He went on to talk about working with the amazing cast, director and producer and how he hoped that his acting peers could experience. “If you could experience that, you will be a fulfilled artist.”

He then went back to the second question: “Has it changed the industry?”

“It’s a pleasure to be celebrated by you, to be loved by you — one thing I do know of it changed the industry is that you can’t have a Black Panther without a ‘2’,” he said.

Wakanda Forever, indeed.

Watch the full speech below.