Chadwick Boseman’s widow, Simone Ledward Boseman, accepted his posthumous award for outstanding actor in a motion picture at the 2021 NAACP Image Awards, Saturday with an emotional acceptance speech. Boseman received the award for his role in Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
“As always, he would give all honor and glory to the most high God,” his wife began. “He would thank his mom and dad, and he would give honor to the ancestors as we now honor him. Thank you NAACP Image Awards for always giving him his flowers. He was an uncommon artist and an even more uncommon person. But the manner in which we lost him is not uncommon at all. Not in our community.”
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Boseman died last year after suffering from a previously undisclosed four-year battle with colon cancer. He most famously starred in Marvel’s Black Panther.
“Black people in this country are 20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer and 40 percent more likely to die from it. The age for routine screening has recently been lowered to 45 so if you are 45 years of age or older, please get screened. Don’t put it off any longer, please get screened,” she said
Check out Simone Ledward Boseman’s acceptance speech below.
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