Actor and activist Jesse Williams has social media alive and buzzing this evening and it has very little to do with his looks.
The network President, Debra Lee, presented the Humanitarian Award at 2016 BET Awards to Mr. Williams this evening and the actor gave an acceptance speech for the ages.
“Tonight's honorary (sic) has been a tireless champion of change, and a voice for the voiceless," she shared with the crowd. "Jesse Williams is the essence of a modern civil rights legend in the making. And a true pioneer of our new generation of leaders."
Jesse Williams took the mic and let loose.
“We know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm, and not kill white people every day, so what’s going to happen is, we’re going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours.”
Bringing up the fact that Saturday would’ve been Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday, Williams said, “I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad day light, killing him on television, and then going home to make a sandwich.”
Speaking to a standing ovation from the crowd, Williams also referenced Sandra Bland and Eric Garner. He continued: “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 has been no tax they haven’t levied against us and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. ‘You’re free,’ they keep telling us. ‘But she would’ve been alive if she hadn’t acted so free.’”
BET is very anal about showing clips or offering transcripts of their events because they must milk every penny they can make from reruns, so it is very hard to find a video of the entire speech. Williams spoke about Tamir Rice and what would have been his 14th birthday; he spoke about people calling Michael Brown a thug for shoving the clerk, but having no problem with the savagery of a cop shooting a teenager six times.
The speech was nothing short of electrifying. Thank you, Mr. Williams!