The Life Of Chadwick Boseman
“People don’t want to experience change; they just want to wake up, and it’s different.”
This year has been marked with loss and struggle. Among the people we lost is one of the most inspiring legendary heroes - Chadwick Boseman.
We are simply devastated by his death, and the news was truly unreal for us. However, we strongly believe that if his legacy lives on, if the lessons he taught us live on within us, then his beautiful life will gain an even more important meaning. Today we will go over Chadwick Boseman’s life and remember his legacy.
The Life Of Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman was born in South Carolina, Anderson on November 29th, 1976. His mother Carolyn Boseman was a nurse, and his father Leroy Boseman was a textile worker at a factory.
Although many people believe that Boseman was primarily just an actor, in fact, he always had a passion for writing and directing, even from an early age.
In his junior year, a classmate was shot. It is believed that this event served as inspiration for the first-ever drama Boseman wrote, directed, and played in – Crossroads.
Later in life, he graduated from Howard University in D.C. as a Bachelor Of Fine Arts and directing. Originally, his passion was directing, and he pursued further education at the British American Drama Academy in London.
He wasn’t intending to become an actor, however, to become a better director he wanted to understand the process through which an actor goes so that he can connect with actors more easily.
After that, he came back from the US and graduated from the New York Digital Film Academy. From there on, he started to get some roles and began his career both as a writer/director and an actor.
He was cast in his very first role back in 2003, in an episode of Third Watch. He also portrayed roles in some episodes of Law & Order, CSI:NY and ER.
He landed a recurring role in Lincoln Heights, and his very first regular role in the series Persons Unknown back in 2010. Even the greatest starts started small, from somewhere.
In 2013 his breakthrough role was in the movie 42 in which he played the baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson. At that point, Boseman was considering giving up acting and devoting himself full time to directing.
However, even though the other 25 actors were being seriously considered for the role, the bravery of Boseman portrayed in his acting, that they gave him the role.
“Some people would view Jackie Robinson as a very safe African-American, a docile figure who had a tendency to try to get along with everyone, and when you look at his history, you learn that he has this fire that allows him to take this punishment but also figure out savvy ways of giving it back.”
In 2014 he appeared on both Draft Day and Get On Up. Later in 2016 he signed a contract with Marvel and landed the role of T’Challa or Black Panther for which he was the most known.
“In my culture, death is not the end, it’s more of a stepping off point.”
How Did Chadwick Boseman Become A Symbol For Black Power?
During his career as an actor and director, Boseman often struggled simply because of his race. He faced many difficulties and he even said:
“The industry looks for white actors and actresses, but it’s not the same for black actors. We have to really put the work in.”
In the daytime opera All My Children, which was a role that he landed early on in his career, he voiced his concerns about racism and a lot of racist stereotypes in the script which led to him being recast.
Further, along with his career, he also starred in Gods Of Egypt, which was backlashed because Boseman was one of the rare members of the actor’s crew that was in African-American descent, for roles that were featuring Egyptian gods.
He spoke out a few times about the difficulties he faced in his career, the racial inequality, and how difficult it is to land a role as an African-American actor.
Furthermore, he also stated that we are not reading about the current history, we are living it, so it’s on us to break the pattern of racism and stereotypes.
I hesitate to say this is bigger – those are real historical figures and moments, but what this is, it’s a cultural moment that is happening right now. We’re not remembering breaking the color barrier or how funk was created. We’re living this.
In 2015, Boseman started dating Taylor Simone Ledward, which he later got engaged to and married secretly in 2019.
In 2016, Boseman was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer, and he has never spoken about it publically. Due to the severe treatments, a lot of his fans noticed that he was getting skinnier, however, his condition was still kept private.
He endured both chemotherapy and surgery, however, cancer continued to spread to stage IV. Because of complications in his condition, Boseman passed away at the age of 43 on 28th August, with his closest family by his side.
Now and forever, a legend.
May He Rest In peace!
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