Through starring in a host of classics, including Malcolm X, Philadelphia, Training Day and American Gangster, Denzel Washington has directly impacted popular culture. A dextrous performer who has grappled with various weighty topics over his career, ranging from apartheid-era South Africa to the American Civil war, there’s no surprise that Washington has remained an everpresent fixture of cinema.
However, more than just his acting talent has established such eminence. After all, he is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which shows that the effect of his efforts stretches further than being a luvvie alone. His continued efforts to support the greater good, racially and otherwise, were so vital that the late Chadwick Boseman once claimed that there would be no Black Panther and all it represents without him.
When paying tribute to Washington at the 47th AFI Life Achievement Award on June 6th, 2019, Boseman highlighted the importance of Denzel Washington outside of his acting. Remarkably, he even revealed that when he was younger, he could only embark on an acting course at the British Academy of Dramatic Acting because of Washington’s funding.
Boseman said: “I know personally that your generosity extends past what you have given on the stage and screen. Many of you already know the story that Mr Washington, when asked by Phylicia Rashad to join her in assisting nine theatre students from Howard University who had been accepted to a summer actor programme at the British Academy of Dramatic Acting in Oxford, he gracefully and privately agreed to contribute.”
He continued: “As fate would have it, I was one of the students that he paid for. Imagine receiving the letter that your tuition for that summer was paid for and that your benefactor was none other than the dopest actor on the planet. I have no doubt that there are similar stories at Boys & Girls Clubs and theatres, and churches across the country, where I know you have also inspired and motivated others. ‘An offering from a sage and a king is more than silver and gold. It is the seed of hope, a bud of faith.’ There is no Black Panther without Denzel Washington.”
Highlighting how Denzel Washington’s extra-dramatic efforts significantly impacted Boseman’s generation of Black actors, the Black Panther star concluded: “Not just because of me, but my whole cast; that generation stands on your shoulders. The daily battles won, the thousand territories gained, the mini sacrifices you made for the culture on film sets through your career. The things you refused to comprise along the way laid the blueprints for us to follow. So now, ‘Let he who has watered, be watered. Let he who has given be given to.’ It is an honour to now know you, to learn from you and join in this work. with you.”
