“This is exactly the way to celebrate our industry and our commitment to humanity on and off screen,” Foster said. “I don’t do this very often, but this year is a different year, this is a singular time — it’s time to show up, time to engage. As the very dead Frederick Douglass once said, ‘any time is a good time for illumination.'”

majored in Afro-American literature (she wrote her thesis on the black female writer ...