Oscars history (1923-2024): Did you know only six Black actors have won Best Actor award so far?
Will Smith
The night Will Smith won his first Oscar trophy will never be forgotten. At the 94th Academy Awards, just before taking the historic awards, Smith slapped Chris Rock after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's bald head. However, keeping the slap gate aside, Will won the Best Actor trophy for his outstanding performance in the biopic King Richard. He was the fifth black actor in the 94 years of Academy history to win the coveted trophy in the Best Actor category.
Sidney Poitier
In the year 1963, Sidney Poitier became the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his performance in Lilies Of The Field. Poitier was also the first Black man to be nominated for any acting Oscar for The Defiant Ones (1958).
With his outstanding work in cinema and the historic win, he had opened doors for racial minorities in the cinema world, decades before the #OscarsSoWhite and Black Lives Matter movements.
Denzel Washington
Decades after Sidney's historic win, in the year 2002, Denzel Washington became the second black actor to win the Oscar trophy in the Best Actor category, for his role as corrupt detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller 'Training Day'.
Although, for his role as Private Silas Trip in the Civil War drama Glory (1989), he won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Washington won the Oscar the same night when Poitier was given an honorary award.
Halley Berry
The same night, when Denzel Washington
took the Golden trophy in the Best Actor category and became the second Black male actor to win the trophy. Halley Berry made Oscars history in the year 2001 as she became the first Black actress to win the trophy in the Best Actress category for the film Monster's Ball.
Jamie Fox
In 2005, Jamie Foxx made history by becoming the first African American to be nominated for an acting Oscar in two categories in the same year. Although, he took the trophy of the Best Actor for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film Ray.
Forest Whitaker
Forest Whitaker is the fourth black man to win an Academy Award, for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 2006 film The Last King of Scotland.
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