Television is a uniting factor in all our lives—a cultural baseline that dictates many of the things we talk about at home and in the office. Television can start a national conversation—it can bring us together and help change the world. For this reason, it is so important to develop, showcase, and promote diverse stories told by a diverse group of storytellers. It is essential that we see an inspiring visual representation of the world when we turn on our TVs.
Many outstanding performers of color have graced our favorite television shows. Still, it’s a very fair criticism to say that for the majority of network television history, most TV actors were white. Not only that, but the stories being told were mostly from a straight-white-male perspective. Thankfully, that has changed, and representation continues to evolve. More and more diverse storytelling is finding its way to network television and streaming services alike, giving a giant pool of immensely talented actors a chance to demonstrate their skills to us all.
This Black History Month, we want to call out a few of the many Black artists who are making waves in the TV space. (And may we add, they are all very good at what they do.) It is through their talents that these three actors and their growing community are helping to rewrite the industry, demonstrating that more diverse storytelling can lead to huge audiences and bigger television successes.
Michaela Jaé “Mj” Rodriguez
On January 9, Mj Rodriguez took home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Series (Drama) for FX’s Pose, marking the first time in history that a transgender actor has won a Globe. Rodriguez previously made history when she became the first transgender performer to be nominated for a lead acting Emmy last summer. Rodriguez celebrated her win on social media by tweeting, “They will see that it is more than possible. They will see that a young Black Latina girl from Newark, New Jersey who had a dream, to change the minds others would WITH LOVE. LOVE WINS. To my young LGBTQAI babies WE ARE HERE the door is now open now reach the stars!!!!!”
Jonathan Majors
Before his breakout role in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, Jonathan Majors had already begun to establish himself as an actor worth watching. He landed his first significant role as real-life gay activist Ken Jones on ABC’s When We Rise while still studying at Yale University. After earning roles in the Christian Bale-starring revisionist western Hostiles and Carol Morley’s Out of the Blue, Majors received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco. His rise to prominence in Lovecraft Country earned him a shot at Big Screen infamy when he accepted the role of Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Studios’ upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. According to Majors, “Growth is uncomfortable; you have to embrace the discomfort if you want to expand.”
Issa Rae
After finding an audience on her YouTube web series Awkward Black Girl, Issa Rae has gone on to huge things—most notably co-creating and co-writing the HBO phenomenon Insecure. Running from 2016 until 2021, Insecure earned Rae multiple Golden Globe and Prime Time Emmy Award nominations. An author (check out her bestselling The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl) and a burgeoning movie star (see 2020’s The Lovebirds and the upcoming Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part One), Rae continues to use her YouTube channel to promote content created by Black artists. As she told Elle in 2017, “Confidence comes from creating something and knowing what I’m supposed to be doing and feeling like I’m good at what I’m supposed to be doing.”