Zendaya is a biracial actress known for her roles as K.C. in Disney’s K.C. Undercover¸ and for her social media presence. She is outspoken on black issues and appeared notably on Beyonce’s visual album Lemonade, which is a celebration of the black, female experience. Zendaya uses various social media platforms to be outspoken on issues closest to her like photoshopping in the fashion industry. An outspoken feminist, Zendaya asked fans to donate money for her twentieth birthday to the Convoy of Hope, an organization which provides women internationally with the funds to better their living situations, start businesses, etc. Zendaya is proud of her black heritage, and frequently uses her Instagram and twitter to encourage other black women to love their blackness, call out racist trolls, and overall make melanin look damn good.
The twenty-year-old is heavily rumored to play Mary Jane in the upcoming Marvel movie Spider-Man Homecoming. While there has been a huge outpouring in support of the casting—even by the likes of Stan Lee himself!—Zendaya still faces a racist backlash by those who believe roles originally given to white actors should not be offered to people of color.
Support her in her K.C. Undercover, and in her role in Spider-Man Homecoming.
Nicole Beharie might not be an actress you’re familiar with because of her arguably shorter list of roles. You might know her from her roles in The Express, 42, or opposite Michael Fassbender in Shame. But, if you’re a Fox network fan and you’ve got a love for supernatural thrillers, you definitely knew her from Sleepy Hollow. Beharie played Abbie Mills, a small-town detective in the eponymous town of Sleepy Hollow who grudgingly accepted the biblical stories of Ichabod Crane, a man hurtled years into her timeline to help her accept her role as a Witness. Together, the two were meant to stop the Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse and save the world from impending doom—at least until Beharie’s character was killed off in season three. Amid rumors that Beharie was not treated well despite her character’s importance, and with the sort of bloodless, unemotional exit one can expect for a character in the first five minutes of any crime show, fans were in uproar. For a large part of the show’s second season, Abbie’s role as a Witness had been diminished, and fans were seeing many roles by people of color all but disappear in. At the start of the episode, the hashtag #RenewSleepyHollow had begun to trend in the hopes that the next season might respond to Abbie’s treatment, but by the end the hashtag had disappeared, replaced instead with #CancelSleepyHollow. After months of fans tweeting that Beharie’s character deserved better, they had instead watched her character, one intrinsic to the plot, be cut from the show completely.
Though Beharie has left Sleepy Hollow¸ you can still expect great things from the Julliard trained actress. If you can handle horror, support her in her upcoming role in Jacob’s Ladder, which is currently in post-production
Leslie Jones is not a name you’ve been hearing for too long, but you’ve definitely been hearing it. Jones wrote for and was featured on Saturday Night Live, but is best known for her role as Patty Tolan in the remake of Ghostbusters, a film mired in sexist backlash because the remake replaces the boy’s club of main characters with a squad of female comedians. Being the only person of color in the title cast, Jones has received racist mentions on Twitter, death threats, and most recently had private photos of her released online. Though Jones has deleted her social media twice because of hate speech, she’s come back both times determined to change the narrative surrounding black women in media. It was through her twitter we’ve also learned of her struggle to find a designer for a dress to wear to her red carpet debut.
Her enthusiastic twitter posts during the Olympic Games earned her a plane ticket to Brazil, where she met up with the Final Five, cheered on the US Women’s Volleyball duo alongside the men’s basketball team, and met Simone Manuel and Katie Ledecky. No matter how you feel about Jones, you’ve at least gotta appreciate her excited patriotism.
You can watch Leslie Jones as FBI Agent Scanlon in Mastermind September 30th and as Ms. Crawl in Dreamworks Sing on December 21st
Viola Davis is captivating as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder, and rightfully won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her role as a high-profile defense lawyer who teaches a class at Middleton University. Not only was this award well-deserved, Davis’s step onto the stage to receive it was historic: she was the first Black woman to have won the award in the over sixty year run of the accolades. Her speech acknowledged the lack of diversity in entertainment media and took the time to thank show writers for creating Black roles. She prefaced her gratitude with a quote from Harriet Tubman: “In my mind I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me, over that line. But I can’t seem to get there no-how. I can’t seem to get over that line.” Tearfully, Davis accepted her award and thanked her fellow Black actresses—including Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, and Nicole Beharie—for “taking us over that line.”
Viola Davis reprises her role as Annalise Keating in How to Get Away with Murder this fall, on September 22nd.