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COMMEMORATION


Blues,” which received an NAACP Image Award for Best Dramatic Series that season. Two months after the assassination of Medgar Evers,


on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would again carry the torch and inspire the world as he led the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. As a crowd of 250,000 gathered for the largest civil


rights demonstration in history at that time, Dr. King’s speech looked back to how far African Americans had come since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the fl ames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” Dr. King was imbued with the


From top: a crowd of 250,000 on the Mall during the March on Wash- ington, August 28, 1963; civil rights activist and NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers, 1960, in Jackson, MS


Because of his lifelong pursuit


of full equality and justice for people of color — whether it was desegregating public spaces or leading the charge, with the aid of Federal troops, to help James Meredith become the fi rst African American enrolled in the University of Mississippi — Medgar Evers frequently found himself singled out as a threat to the Jim Crow status quo. On the morning of June 12, 1963, only a few hours after


President John F. Kennedy gave a nationally televised address supporting Civil Rights, Medgar Evers was shot in the back and killed by Byron De La Beckwith. The investigation of Evers’s assassination and De La


Beckwith’s conviction 30 years later would be the subject of the NAACP Image Award-nominated fi lm Ghosts of Mississippi. Medgar Evers’s story also inspired a 1991 episode of the NBC TV series In the Heat of the Night, entitled “Sweet, Sweet


fi erce urgency of how far they had to go, even as he had a fi xed eye on a more hopeful future ahead for his children, future generations — us. This year, as we


commemorate our past struggles for true emancipation and our current triumphs symbolized by a second inauguration for the fi rst African-American president, the occasion of the 44th NAACP Image Awards reminds us to carefully consider the images we choose to refl ect the content of


our character in fi lm, television, literature and music because they matter not just to us, but they are also the foundation on which the next generation will create a vision for themselves and the generations that follow. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America


is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” — President-Elect Barack Obama, November 5, 2008, Chicago, IL


CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY


In a year that marks the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, a number of fi lms and projects celebrating black history are generating buzz, including the following. Kicking off Black History Month, Betty and Coretta — which premiers February 2 on Lifetime and stars Angela Bas-


sett as Coretta Scott King and Mary J. Blige as Dr. Betty Shabazz — tells the story of the widows who created a lifelong bond following the assassinations of their husbands Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. Ruby Dee appears as the narrator/historical witness. 42 stars Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey, the Hall of Fame baseball executive who signed Jackie Robinson to the


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Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, as the fi rst black major league baseball player of the modern era. (Beyond baseball, Robin- son served on the Board of Directors of the NAACP from 1958 to 1966.) Chadwick Boseman, best known for his work on Lincoln Heights and Persons Unknown, will play Robinson. Legendary Pictures’ 42, which also stars Alan Tudyk and Christopher Meloni, will hit theaters April 12 to commemorate the 66th anniversary of Jackie Robinson Day (15th).


Watch the 44th NAACP IMAGE AWARDS Friday, February 1, at 8/7C on NBC


GETTY IMAGES


GETTY IMAGES


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