African American Achievement in Front of and Behind the Camera

Actor Louis Gossett, Jr. talks about winning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for An Officer and a Gentleman in 1983 - the first African American man to win for acting in a supporting role, and only the second African American man to win for acting up to that time. Though he celebrates this achievement, he shares that it did not necessarily translate to more work in the film industry:

"I didn’t work in movies for another year. People weren’t ready for me to win, I guess. Television was ready, ’cause I worked every week in television, but movies took a minute."

Watch Louis Gossett, Jr.'s full interview (co-produced with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Visual History Program) to hear stories from his Emmy-winning role on Roots, his Oscar win, and much more.

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Actress Nichelle Nichols tells the story of how she nearly quit Star Trek after its first season, when she attended a dinner and was approached by Martin Luther King, Jr., who was a fan of the show and convinced her to stay on. Part of his appeal to her was based on how the show portrayed African Americans:

"He said, 'For the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day, as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance and, but who can go into space, who can be lawyers, who can be teachers, who can be professors. Who we are in this day and yet you don’t see it on television until now.'"

Watch Nichelle Nichols' full interview to hear more stories from her groundbreaking career.

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Host/producer RuPaul Charles talks about being such a unique figure in popular culture, and how being a groundbreaker did not feel like a burden because he had felt different his entire life:

"The not normal was my normal...I always felt like the boy who fell to Earth, I really did. And I was looking for others like me."

Watch RuPaul Charles' full interview to hear stories from his career from "Super Model" to RuPaul's Drag Race.

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Weatherman/host Al Roker talks about being hired in his first job, as a weatherman in Syracuse, NY, and the push for greater diversity that was happening at that station - and the benefit to the station of that effort:

"I think our station had much better minority representation and female representation than anybody else in the market. And I don’t think it was inconsequential. I think there was a correlation between that and the fact that we were number one."

Watch Al Roker's full interview to hear about his years on the Today show and much more.

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Performer Della Reese shares the story of how she met television host Merv Griffin and the barrier they broke when she appeared on his talk show:

"At that time, if you had a hit record...if you were black, you could sing on the show, but nobody ever invited you over to sit down and talk. They would open the curtains, you would sing, they would close the curtains, and the master of ceremonies would start some other conversation and move on to the next thing... [Merv] knew that I could carry on a conversation, and so he broke the barrier, and he invited me to come over and sit down on the couch."

Watch Della Reese's full interview to hear stories from her career, from starting out as a gospel singer to Touched by an Angel, and more.

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Performer/producer/show creator Keenen Ivory Wayans tells the story behind the origins of his groundbreaking sketch comedy series In Living Color, including the fact that just before airing, the network got nervous about the edgy nature of the content:

"Peter Chernin, who was head of [Fox], sat me down and he said, 'We're really nervous about airing this...undoubtedly it is great and funny... but I'd like to air a tamer version and then when we build an audience, we can push the boundaries.' And I said, 'I don’t want to do that. I want to kick the door in, guns blazing. If they like it, they like it. If they don’t, I'm good with that. But I don’t want to trick the audience. I want them to know what we're doing.' ... And they aired it. And the rest is history."

Watch Keenen Ivory Wayans' full interview for stories from his career, including his debut on The Tonight Show, In Living Color, and much more.

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Actress Ellen Holly describes the impact of her original One Life to Live storyline, where she played an African American woman passing as white, and how the audience reacted when her true identity was revealed:

"The people who were angry when they thought she was a white woman seeing a black man, when they found out she was black, they worried that she was a black woman getting engaged to a white guy - and everybody was going through all of this, they're making adjustments... For my money, it’s the most brilliant use of the serial form in the history of the world."

Watch Ellen Holly's full interview for stories from her years on One Life to Live.

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Actor John Amos talks about an experience he had on the set of the miniseries Roots, which he describes as something similar to a seizure. He shares the conclusion he came to on the meaning of this incident:

"I’ve decided that it was my ancestors talking to me, telling me that this was not just a role, but I was going to be their voice, I was going to be the voice of those slaves that had been captured and enslaved and that I must stay with my convictions as to what this character was."

Watch John Amos' full interview to hear about his long career, including Good Times, Roots, and much more.

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