Peace, Chadwick Boseman
photo by Sam Jones
On Friday, August 28, Chadwick Boseman’s family announced that the actor died from cancer after quietly battling it for four years.
I admired the way he carried himself with humble confidence and his creative output. In several interviews, I’ve watched Boseman talk about the power of saying No to opportunities that didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t want to play stereotypical roles, opting instead for more nuanced ones that–unfortunately–were harder to come by but yielded more fulfilling results.
He showed all who were paying attention that if you’re deliberate in your purpose, good things will happen. And for him they did. In films he starred in, the Howard University alum (something we share in common) showed Black men in their full radiance. He was James Brown. He was Thurgood Marshall. He was Jackie Robinson. He was the Black Panther.
Boseman has one more movie that will come out this year, the film adaption of Black playwright August Wilson’s Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. But the latest one we can all watch right now is Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. He plays US Army squad leader Stormin’ Norman, a character who essentially only exists as a memory because he died in the Vietnam War. For friends who survived, Norman is a hero, their compass, the guy they idolized, and want to represent many decades later. It’s fitting that the freshest Boseman role in my mind is one where he is a legendary Black soldier.
I’m sad he’s gone. But damn, he served us well.