Jesse Williams Speech

On June 26, 2016, Jesse Williams accepted the Humanitarian Award onstage during the 16th annual Black Entertainment Television Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, California. The modern day activist was rewarded for his “commitment to furthering social change,” and his work in raising awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement. Williams acceptance speech took a turn from the cliche “thank you mom, thank you dad, thank you chair, and thank you table...etc.” to dedicating the award he worked hard for to black people in general. Williams spoke out about cultural appropriation, racial issues, and social injustice. The poetic speech was a call to action for black people to stand up and fight for equal rights and justice in America.

Jesse Williams works with other activists in The Advancement Project, a "multi-racial civil rights organization" founded in 1999. He executive-produced the BET original documentary Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement. According to BET, The film "chronicles the evolution of the Black Lives Matter movement through the first-person accounts of local activists, protesters, scholars, journalists and celebrities," He also appeared in the documentary, which premiered in May on BET. He protested and marched in Ferguson the unjust killing of Michael Brown...and the list goes on an on. In his award-winning speech, Williams confesses, “I just want to thank [my parents] for teaching me to focus on comprehension over career, and that they make sure I learn what the schools were afraid to teach us.” Here, Williams alludes to the fact that he has been enlightened on social injustice issues since youth. With America’s Eurocentric curriculum, students are not privy to that knowledge. Furthermore, Jesse builds up his image not only as aware but also as humble. “Now, this award – this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country – the 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.” This statement paints Williams as a humble figure who is doing what he does for

His primary emotion that he appeals to is frustration and anger. He states, “yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday so I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on 12 year old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better than it is to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt.” Jesse Williams strategically names those unjustly treated by the law enforcement and states that not much has changed since slave labor times, which is how the black community feels. He matches the frustration of everyday people who are not as well off as the A-List stars in the room. This helps him to continue to be successful in pushing his change objective. He tapped into frustration, grief, and anger. Negative emotions are easier to create than positive ones. These emotions conjured up will be the driving force in continuing Williams’s efforts. Williams goes on to say, “There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done. There is no tax they haven’t leveed against us – and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here.”