September 21, 2015

Viola Davis Becomes the First African-American to Win Emmy for Best Actress in Drama


Last night, Viola Davis made history by becoming the first African American to win the award for best actress in a drama series. In her acceptance speech, the How to Get Away with Murder actress delivered a stirring message on diversity and the lack of opportunity women of color face in Hollywood.

“In my dreams, I see a line,” an emotional Davis said. “And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no how, I can seem to get over that line.”

“That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. Let me tell you something—the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You can not win an Emmy for roles that simply are not there.”

Both her historic win and speech were met with congratulations on social media:

Bravo!

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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