Billy Porter became the first black gay man to win an acting Emmy and his speech was inspiring

Billy Porter became the first openly gay black man to win best lead actor in a drama series for his role in Pose at the 2019 Emmy Awards.

His speech was a thing of wonder and began with the words of the great James Baldwin:

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth that I had been taught about myself and halfway believed before I could walk around this Earth like I had the right to be here.

The rest of his speech was equally powerful and concluded with the words:

Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. We are the people. We as artists are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet. Please don’t ever stop doing that. Please don’t stop ever telling the truth. I love you all. They’re telling me to please stop. God bless you. God bless you.

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