Jamie Foxx stepped to the podium like a young urban preacher to deliver an emotion filled address to the thousands standing before him and millions watching world wide. While in Washington, D.C. celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, Jamie Foxx had a clear message and urged the crowd, “Don’t make me preach!”
Oscar winner Jaime Foxx has transformed himself from the comedian that everyone loved for dressing in drag to a serious actor with a social conscience. Foxx told the audience that he and his celebrity peers should pick up the torch of civil rights and they should become the new civil rights leaders. Foxx passionately spoke, “I will tell you right now that everybody my age and all the entertainers, it is time for us to stand up and renew this dream.”
While Jamie Foxx wasn’t initially supposed to speak, he spoke from the heart about celebrities having a certain responsibility to their community. He referenced the activism we saw in legendary entertainers like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte, who famously had a beef with Jay Z over this very topic, when he talked about entertainers being socially aware.
He even recounted a story about having dinner with Belafonte and his 19-year-old daughter Corinne. During the dinner Harry Belafonte was reflecting on marching in protests with Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Martin Luther King. Things got interesting when Jamie’s daughter wasn’t sure who Al Sharpton was because during the dinner Belafonte referred to the aforementioned civil rights leaders by their first names. After recounting that story, Jamie Foxx said, “What we need to do now is the young folks pick it up now,” Foxx told the crowd, “so that when we’re 87 years old, talking to the young folks, we can say it was me, Will Smith, Jay Z, Kanye, Alicia Keys, Kerry Washington, the list goes on and on.”
You can watch his speech below.
