Most of you may only know Jesse Williams as the dreamy, green-eyed Dr. Jackson Avery on Shonda Rhimes’s hit show, "Grey’s Anatomy."
But Williams is much more than an actor, and has been for quite some time. He’s a modern-day civil rights activist, who immediately flew to Ferguson, Missouri and advocated for criminal charges after a police officer killed an 18-year-old Michael Brown, leaving him lying in his own blood for hours, on Aug. 9, 2014.
Learning from the book of Harry Belafonte, a singer and social activist of the 1950s and 60s, Williams isn’t afraid to scream “Black Lives Matter” at the top of his lungs on CNN, MSNBC, Twitter and BET, where he was honored with the 2016 Humanitarian Award on Sunday.
In case you missed it, here are a few snippets of his electrifying speech, which empowered several hashtags on Twitter and Facebook; #JesseWilliamsforPresident #JesseWilliamsAppreciationDay and more.
“Now this award – this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country – the real activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.”
** Williams is acknowledging all the true unsung heroes who fight for equality across the country every day.
“Now, this is also in particular for the black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.”
** This is a monumental section of his speech, considering Black women who have lost children to police brutality are expected to maintain composure and nurture the world as cameras are shoved in their faces instead of grieving and caring for themselves.
“Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm and not kill white people everyday. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours.”
** According to the Washington Post, Black men represented nearly 40 percent of those who were killed while unarmed in 2015. Meanwhile, Black men only represent 6 percent of the population.
“And let’s get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote – the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, alright – stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for Black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.”
Read the entire speech here at genius.com and watch below.
