00:00You invented melanin.
00:02Melanin all day.
00:04I think so.
00:05I invented melanin.
00:07I was like, she didn't hear it.
00:09You invented melanin.
00:10Thank you, girl.
00:11Do you feel that?
00:12No, no.
00:13Stop.
00:14Get to the interview.
00:15Stop it.
00:16Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to be talking to you about stuff.
00:17Hey, guys, it's your girl Danielle Young here on the red carpet for the 50th NAACP Image Awards.
00:22It is so special because this award show is for us, by us.
00:25So, of course, we talk to all the representations of Black excellence about just what it is to be Black, proud, and excellent.
00:33It always feels amazing.
00:34I never feel more comfortable than when I'm around us.
00:37And it's just such a beautiful feeling to be surrounded by the people who inspire me, who are the reason that I'm here today.
00:44The next generation, like being in a movie right now with Marce Martin, for example.
00:48I look at her, I see her doing her rounds, and I have a sense of pride.
00:51Like I saw her in Jimmy Kimmel, and I was like, look at the future, look at the now and the future to see who she's going to inspire.
00:57It's just, it's great.
00:58It's nice to be celebrated and acknowledged by other folks, but it's so much better when we celebrate and acknowledge each other.
01:04Yes.
01:05So, to be doing this award and to be a part of it, 50 years in it, it's amazing.
01:10Man, it's just such an honor.
01:12It's like, that's what I worked for my entire life, to be a part of a space like that.
01:15Well, without getting too deep into it, I got to deconstruct a lot of the stuff that we're told not to be proud of.
01:20Yeah.
01:21And I tend to, you know, search for those things and amplify them, but just in general, you know, celebrating our culture and celebrating us that, you know, the people that are working for us, especially fighting for us behind the scenes.
01:33And just researching and highlighting our history and the people that are making history currently and how beautiful we are, you know, inside and out.
01:46The magic of being a person of color, a black person specifically.
01:51A queen of black excellence.
01:52Oh, thank you.
01:53Thank you for noticing.
01:54That's my goal, to do all things in excellence, so that we understand that we have the capacity to do that.
02:02And we stop accepting less than the truth of who we are, which is what tonight is all about, celebrating the truth of who we are.
02:10We're doing it, not waiting for somebody else to give us permission.
02:15I love it.
02:16I mean, I feel like I need to thank forefathers that came before for this moment to be possible, because literally for this to be going on for almost half a century and every year it gets bigger, better and blacker.
02:28Yes.
02:29You know, and you know, it's like it's still important.
02:31It's still relevant.
02:32It's still important.
02:33And we're here and we're here to celebrate one another.
02:35You know, at a time when people think that all we do is fight.
02:37All we do is break people down.
02:38It's like, no, no, no.
02:39This is black excellence personified.
02:41Me being black and me being me are one in the same.
02:44There's no need for me to do a whole song and dance about it.
02:47It's except the full package that includes the color of my skin, the heritage, the beauty and excellence and all of that comes with that.
02:54And in knowing that it's still a lot of hard work to go forward, a lot of challenges, but I'm ready for it because I was built ready.
03:01Like when you look at the background of our people, I'm built for this life.
03:05Built strong.
03:06Built strong.
03:07When somebody says black excellence, it is talking about somebody that is at the top of their game and somebody that you want to emulate and to look up to and to go forward and to carry our race to the top of the mountain top and whatever that means and whatever you're doing.
03:23I define black excellence as making my mom, my grandma, my dad proud and not selling myself out and sticking to who I am, you know?
03:31Just being here and just to be amongst like my community and just celebrating the life of black people and just showing how we're black and we're proud and color like doesn't really like mean anything when it comes like success and just being yourself.
03:41I think it's the acceptance of self.
03:42I think so many people try and put their own connotation on who you are.
03:46And I think once you own that and know that and walk in that, that's what black excellence is confidently.
03:51We as a people, wherever we come from, the entire global diaspora of black people, we have carried such an incredible burden, but we've also been the moral conscience of the world.
04:03I mean, we really have had to teach this country about liberty and freedom and what all of the founding documents were supposed to mean because if they didn't mean anything for us, they couldn't mean anything for anyone.
04:14So in this country, we have really carried the conscience forward and the torch of freedom forward. We've done that. We had to teach this country what it meant to have real liberty.
04:22They had to learn by having to learn to respect our humanity. We made them do that. And so I'm so proud to be black. I'm so proud of what we have accomplished.
04:31This is just one piece of what we've been able to do. We can do it all.
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