TAGGED AS: movies
(Photo by Barry Wetcher/©Open Road Films/courtesy Everett Collection)
Delivering the 150th commencement address at his alma mater, Howard University, in 2018, Chadwick Boseman told the graduates: “Purpose is the essential element of you. It is the reason you are on the planet at this particular time in history. Your very existence is wrapped up in the things you are here to fulfill.”
On that day, the actor’s words inspired the young people listening to him in the audience, and who saw or read his words online. On the big screen, his work – his own life’s great purpose – inspired millions of young minds across the planet and helped them find a purpose of their own. The gifts he left through his galvanizing portrayals of Black legends like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and James Brown will be reopened over and over in homes and classrooms for years to come.
As a mother, I can’t begin to express the gratitude I have for the art Chadwick created – “thank you” doesn’t feel like nearly enough for the legends, both real and fantastical, he gave us to cheer on. But I do thank him and will never stop thanking him: What he left behind for all of us, but most importantly, the most precious members of the Black community, our children, cannot be quantified.
Chadwick Boseman was destined to immortalize legends because he was a legend in the making the entire time that he was with us.
I loved playing baseball growing up and Jackie Robinson was huge in the cultivation of my love for the sport. After my first viewing of 42, I remember being enthralled with Chadwick because he made me feel like I finally knew Robinson beyond what I had learned of him through documentaries and books. I left the theater with a greater appreciation for someone who had already had such a significant impact on my life long after his death. I can only imagine how seeing 42 as a child would have further inspired me, connecting me to an ancestor by reminding me that it was a flesh-and-blood human being who did these extraordinary things. It brings me great joy to know my child and so many other children will have this humanized, knowable version of Robinson thanks to Chadwick’s incredible performance.
The same can be said for his portrayal of Civil Right activist and eventual Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in Marshall. Chadwick brought the same personable touch he displayed in 42 to a man who had always been larger than life for my entire existence because of his impact during and well after the Civil Rights Movement.
Chadwick brought an incredible degree of care, and purpose, to the table when he took on such legendary roles. In interviews, he discussed his understanding of the impact these heroes had and what they meant to us; on screen you can feel the responsibility he felt playing them. He was such a gifted vessel, bringing such a humanity to these figures without making them feel any smaller than their places in history. It’s easier to connect and learn from those who came before you when you can see parts of yourself in them. Chadwick knew this.
(Photo by ©Warner Bros. Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection)
While his depictions of real-life heroes hold great significance, and earned him great acclaim, his most powerful work came from a fictional character whom he made feel real as these legendary men.
Chadwick Boseman will be remembered mostly by young Black children as T’Challa, the Black Panther. The humility he brought to this powerful character made him relatable in ways that inspired record-breaking numbers of moviegoers. He made the Black Panther indestructible to time. The world of Black Panther became something incredibly special thanks to Chadwick and everyone involved in bringing its characters to life. Because of Chadwick and his fellow creatives, Wakanda is no longer just this fictional place, it’s a connection for all of us across the diaspora to come together to celebrate each other and share joy in what this level of representation meant collectively and individually.
You may remember the many campaigns created to raise money to take children to see Black Panther in theaters; these educators, parents, and others understood the importance of what it means for kids to see people who look like them being superheroes. These ordinary people became heroes within their communities. The way the young, the old, and everyone in between dressed in costumes or their Sunday Best to go to the movies in celebration is something I will never forget. And the beauty of it all is that the momentum continues. For years to come, Black Panther will continue to release the energy it absorbed through our jubilant commemoration of it, just like the suit Chadwick wore on screen.
(Photo by D. Stevens/©Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)
I am so happy that, as a community, we celebrated Black Panther the way we did and never reined in our love. I hope Chadwick felt the force of that love and that thoughts of it brought him some comfort when he needed it most. I hope when he made his walk into the ancestral planes to take his place alongside long-lost loved ones and the legends he immortalized, he was enveloped with the same love and passion he left for us here on the other side.
I hope he knows that he inspired so many to be the hero of their own stories because we were all able to witness him be the hero of his own.
