2020 has been a difficult year, but Emmy-award-winning actress Regina King has turned this year’s biggest trials into triumphant through her fierce advocacy and history-making career moments, which is why the mega-star has been crown one of PEOPLE’s People of the year.
King’s 2020 Highlights:
King Speaks on Racial Injustice
This summer as nationwide protests spread regarding the murders of Geroge Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, King used her platform to spark conversations about police brutality and urged her fans to ban together to end discrimination within our country.
“I do believe in the good of humanity,” King tells PEOPLE. “And I want us to be on the other side of us coming together as humankind. But we cannot become complacent. We still have to fight. We’re going to get more scraped knuckles and skinned knees. But after those wounds heal, we’ll have the beauty in the bruises.”
King Advocates for Minority Communities Affected by COVID
The Oscar-winning actress used her platform to show support and spread awareness to Black and Brown communities disproportionately affected by the spread of COVID.
King partnered with Vaseline and Direct Relief to provide aid to the communities affected.
“We were actually kind of trying to figure out those things before COVID hit, and before the most recent events that took place with police brutality, and we were trying to figure out what that was going to be,” she says in an interview with PEOPLE. “And then these two things happened and it kind of became obvious to us as partners that there was nothing else bigger or more important than speaking about the systemic differences for marginalized people.”
History Making Director
King’s directorial debut for the film One Night in Miami became a historic moment. The actress became the first African American woman to be selected by the Venice Film Festival.
Earlier this fall, we covered the historic moment. The film follows Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammed Ali, (played by Leslie Odom Jr) as he celebrates beating the heavyweight boxing champion, Sonny Liston, with his three friends, Jim Brown (played by Aldis Hodge), Sam Cooke (played by Eli Goree), and Malcolm X (played by Kingsley BenAdir).
To learn more ways King turned 2020 into a year of triumphant watch her full episode of People of the Year streaming now.
