THE LOCAL & FLY

Following the creation of the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag in 2015, the academy made some changes. It added 774 new members to its voting board. 30 per cent are people of colour, including Nigerian star actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde. So, winners for the 2019 Oscars were decided alongside these new board members. Last night’s wins is a sign of the future as we hope to see more diversity in the Academy Award nominees.

African American Winners 2019 Oscars

Black Panther’s costume designer, Ruth Carter, won Best Costume Designer and the production designer of the same movie, Hannah Beachler, won in her category. These women made history with their wins, as Kyle Buchanan noted in a tweet. Before them, only one African American woman (Irene Cara) had won an Oscar for anything other than acting.

These wins came after Regina King won Best Supporting Actress for her role in “If Beale Street Could Talk”.

• My Father’s Shadow: Nigeria’s Landmark Moment at Cannes 2025
• Film Production Companies Making Nollywood Movies Look Good
• List of Nollywood movies in 2021

Spike Lee also won his first ever Oscar for his movie” BlacKkKlansman“. This was following his boycott of the academy awards for having all white nominees some years ago. He gave a speech about slavery, noting that it is 400 years since blacks were taken from Africa into slavery.

Despite all the backlash that the movie received, Egyptian American Rami Malek won Best Actor for his performance as Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody”. His performance was unavoidably remarkable.

See full video of the event below:

Follow Nollymania on Facebook and Twitter. And remember that sharing is caring!