00:00Now, I am so incredibly humbled and honored to present Andra Day with the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Breakthrough Star Award.
00:20Thank you so much to everyone at Essence.
00:24I have to tell you, honestly, I'm so nervous right now and I'm really not good at speeches.
00:31And I just think all of the women tonight, thank you so much, Laverne, have been so profound and have really said it all.
00:38So I think I'll just try to give you my experience.
00:42This award means so much to me. It means more to me than any award I've ever received.
00:47And I say that because I received this award from people, from women, from my community who understand, who stand in solidarity with me.
00:56And I stand in solidarity with them. You know, I love the term breakthrough.
01:01I love that term because I think breakthrough is the essence of Black women.
01:06And I think breakthrough is the essence of who Billie Holiday was and the road that she paved for us to walk on.
01:14And Black women are constantly breaking through, you know, through so many different barriers and through so many different boxes that people try to put us in.
01:23And it is truly a part of our story and now a part of our identity.
01:26I remember when I was on set, one of the things that we had to break through is people would say to me constantly, you know, this will be the hardest you'll ever work in a movie because there's not meaty roles like this for Black women.
01:41And I just remember thinking to myself, well, who possibly has meatier roles than Black women?
01:48You know, it's for somebody to say that it's very clear that our stories have not fully been told.
01:53And so while I thought I might retire when I was on set, just after just everything we had kind of gone through, I realize now that I can't because that's like trying to retire from being a Black woman.
02:04It's not possible. And if I can be another hat in the ring to tell more of our stories and to have more revelatory aha moments to show not just the depth of Black women's struggle,
02:16but the breadth of their contribution and how great their triumph has been, then I want to be a part of that.
02:22And I just want to say, you know, thank you so much, Essence, for being such a huge part of that in my story.
02:28Thank you so much to Felicia Fant and to my amazing Sorra sister, Susan L. Taylor, for always believing in me.
02:34And that was my first cover. And this event was actually my very first red carpet.
02:39And so, you know, I just want to just express how grateful I am to Black women because we are constantly breaking through and breaking through for each other.
02:49So, yeah, like I said, I'm not really that great at speeches, but I'm just going to leave it at that and say thank you so much for this award.
02:56This is my highest and my greatest honor because you are my sisters. Thank you. God bless.
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