Will Smith, Viola Davis, Angela Bassett, Danielle Deadwyler Speak From the Heart at AAFCA Awards: ‘We Pursue That Which has Been Prohibited’
variety.comJulia MacCary editor Will Smith was the surprise guest that set the room abuzz Wednesday night at the 14th annual African American Film Critics Assn.
Awards at the Beverly Wilshire hotel. But Smith had tough competition in the emotional-speech department from fellow honorees that included Danielle Deadwyler, Viola Davis, Angela Bassett and Gina Prince-Bythewood.
Deadwyler, who won lead actress honors for her tour de force role in “Till,” drew the crowd’s the attention to the world-changing impact of Mamie Till-Mobley, whose provocative decision to show pictures of her son’s brutalized corpse helped ignite the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s.
Like other speakers, Deadwyler drew a direct comparison to the conditions that existed more than a half-century ago to the present day, when politicians are pursuing racist legislation designed to restrict the teaching of American history in schools as it relates to the Black experience over the past 400 years. “The act of looking, the act of witnessing is present a dire choice,” Deadwyler said, citing the rise of “forces that seek to exclude our work.” But as artists, “we pursue that which has been prohibited.
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