Subscribe
Hellobeautiful Featured Video
CLOSE
Moet & Chandon At The 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards - Inside

Source: Michael Kovac / Getty

While Issa, Denzel, Anthony and Octavia may not have won big during tonight’s Golden Globes, we did have a few moments tonight to remind us of our #BlackExcellence.

First up was Sterling K. Brown’s big win for his Emmy winning role. The actor won the Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series for playing Randall in NBC’s beloved, This Is Us. He is the first African-American to win in his category ever.

Sterling made sure he thanked his wife and kids first.

Take a look:

“I’ve never been the first brother to do anything,” he said of the accomplishment backstage.

“I was the fourth black student council president, was the fourth JV captain to my basketball team. Finally, to be the first of something is really interesting because I never considered my self to be a trailblazer. I just try to stay in my truth all the time. If I come from a place of truth, that’s all I can do.”

He added: “I can’t worry about trying to be Jackie Robinson or anybody else. I’m honored at HFPA that they took upon a character from a little network television show where we have 42 min and 30 seconds to tell the same kind of story that other people get to do in 60 minutes. I feel a tremendous amount of pride and I look forward to seeing somebody else stand up here holding this trophy, not 75 years from now.”

The actor beat out Jason Bateman of Ozark, Freddie Highmore of The Good Doctor, Bob Odenkirk of Better Call Saul, and Liev Schreiber of Ray Donovan for the win.

And then there was Mama Oprah, who took home the coveted Cecil B. de Mille Award, the first Black woman to do so, in the show’s history. And trust us, she killed it.

“In 1964, I was a little girl sitting on the linoleum floor of my mother’s house in Milwaukee, watching Anne Bancroft present the Oscar for best actor at the 36th Academy Awards,” she said at the Beverly Hills awards show after a standing ovation. “She opened the envelope and said five words that literally made history: ‘The winner is Sidney Poitier.'”

(FYI: If you didn’t know Poitier was first Black man to be presented with the DeMille Award in 1982.)

“Up to the stage came the most elegant man I’d ever seen,” Winfrey explained.

“I’d never seen a black man being celebrated like that. I tried very many times to explain what a moment like that means to a little girl, a kid watching from the cheap seats, as my mom came through the door bone-tired from cleaning other peoples’ houses. Amen, amen.”

She added, “It is not lost on me that at this moment, there are some little girls watching as I become the first black woman to be given the same award. It is an honor and it is a privilege to share the evening with all of them.”

“I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this: What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have, and I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories,” she said.

She also turned to Time’s Up, calling in the women backing the movement who were in the room and beyond.

“I want, tonight, to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue.”

“They’re the women whose names we’ll never know,” she said to huge applause.

She also invoked the name of Recy Taylor, a Black woman who spoke out against her own sexual assault in the 1950s.

“For too long women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up,” she said to loud cheers. Eleven years after being called upon to investigate Taylor’s case in her role as secretary of the Montgomery, Alabama, chapter of the NAACP, Rosa Parks refused to obey a bus driver, and that choice “is now in every woman saying ‘Me Too,’ and every man who chooses to listen.”

Oprah added, “I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”

This what being Black and amazing looks like.

To our future!

RELATED NEWS:

#TimesUp: There’s A Silent Protest Happening At The Golden Globes & Mary J Blige Is In On It

Oprah Warns Fans That Someone Is Running A Scam By Impersonating Her On The Internet

And The Award Goes To: Best In Black Hair On The 75th Golden Globe Red Carpet
75th Annual Golden Globe Awards - Arrivals
13 photos

The grand return of the Melanin Awards amplifies and honors the finest Black-owned beauty brands with honest reviews, and discusses the evolution of beauty in Hip-Hop culture.