What seemed like a pretty routine evening of going out to dinner and seeing a movie with my then-girlfriend would turn out to be one of the most noteworthy days throughout my adult life.
That relatively warm Saturday evening on April 13 was the kind of one where the sky was clear with a nice breeze suitable enough for patio seating at the restaurant.
Major League Baseball designates April 15 as “Jackie Robinson Day”, a celebration of the historic day in 1947 when the holiday’s namesake broke the color barrier by becoming the first Black baseball player called up to the majors. Warner Bros. Studios released their biopic “42” chronicling Robinson’s first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
And I was stoked to see it.
I remember digging through my closet the night before and pulled out my Mitchell & Ness Dodgers jersey and hung up my Brooklyn “B” cap, as I couldn’t wait to see a movie about how one of my favorite athletes came to play for one of my favorite teams.
The name Chadwick Boseman was relatively foreign to me at the time. I’m far from a cinema connoisseur, so back then I don’t think I would’ve been able to name anything else I would’ve seen him in; much less actually seen him in.
But seeing him in that film really gave me the pleasure of suspending my disbelief and gave me the feeling that I was really seeing Robinson play at Ebbets Field.
His ability to take on a role and immerse himself in it so deeply to the point that viewers lost themselves in a false reality began to grow evermore poignant with leading roles in biopics chronicling the lives of other Black iconic historical figures including James Brown in “Get on Up” and Thurgood Marshall in “Marshal”.
It seemed fitting that someone who delivered the stories of three iconic Black historical figures with so much passion take on one of the most iconic fictional Black characters in comic book lore as King T’Challa: Marvel’s “Black Panther”.
I don’t think that even casual fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who saw 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War” in theaters didn’t get giddy when the world was introduced to the silver screen’s rendition of the king of Wakanda.
I never will forget the buzz from the anticipated standalone film Marvel Studios commissioned behind the character; heck, I myself was caught in the center of it taking off from work early to see a Thursday evening screening of it ahead of its Feb. 16, 2018 release date.
What I witnessed that night, as well as what I feel the world witnessed that night, was the culmination of inclusion working at its peak form. A film with a $200 million budget raked in $1.3 billion.
What I saw was the world accepting that a person of color can save the world, too.
What I saw was an actor who assumed each character he portrayed with so much conviction that he became those characters.
Now that we are aware that he portrayed those roles and inspired a world of fans while fighting his own battles with cancer, we know that his inspiration was more than just on the screen.
Now we know that it wasn’t the vibranium suit, the perm in his hair, or the jersey on his back that did it; it was his resilient spirit that made Chadwick Boseman a real-life superhero.