BlacKkKlansman was never an oddsmaker’s favourite for Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars. The Spike Lee movie had 25/1 odds to win Best Picture, an award which controversially went to Green Book. Based on a true story, BlacKkKlansman is about the first African-American cop in the Colorado Springs department named Ron Stallworth.
Did Spike Lee win an Oscar for BlacKkKlansman?
Yes, but Lee did not win the Oscar for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars.
He, and his writing partners Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott, won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
BlacKkKlansman is based on the memoir of the real Ron Stallworth.
Accepting his speech, Lee gave an impassioned and powerful speech.
He said: “The word today is ‘irony’; the date, the 24th, the month, February, which also happens to be the shortest month of the year, which also happens to be Black History Month.
“The year, 2019. The year, 1619. History. Her story. 1619. 2019. 400 years.
“Four hundred years. Our ancestors were stolen from Mother Africa and bought to Jamestown, Virginia, enslaved.
“Our ancestors worked the land from can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night.
“My grandmother, who lived to be 100 years young, who was a Spelman College graduate even though her mother was a slave.
“My grandmother who saved 50 years of social security checks to put her first grandchild — she called me Spikie-poo — she put me through Morehouse College and N.Y.U. grad film. N.Y.U.!”
He added: “Before the world tonight, I give praise to our ancestors who have built this country into what it is today along with the genocide of its native people.
“We all connect with our ancestors. We will have love and wisdom regained, we will regain our humanity. It will be a powerful moment.
“The 2020 presidential election is around the corner. Let’s all mobilize. Let’s all be on the right side of history.
“Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing! You know I had to get that in there.”
Spike Lee received two previous nominations for his 1997 documentary 4 Little Girls and for 1989’s Do The Right Thing.
As Lee himself said, there is a deep irony to his losing out on Best Picture to Green Book.
Green Book tells the story of a white man who drives the African-American pianist Don Shirley through the southern United States.
At the 1990 Oscars, Do The Right Thing lost out to Driving Miss Daisy for Best Screenplay.
Backstage, Lee told reporters: “I’m snakebit. Every time someone’s driving somebody, I lose.”
BlacKkKlansman is now playing in select cinemas.