And so he did, giving Ledward multiple opportunities to share her truth about the bittersweetness of it all.
Accepting on his behalf during the Critics’ Choice Awards in March, she admitted, “For those of us who know Chad—intimately, personally, professionally, those he taught, those he gave a word of advice, those who taught him—it is so hard to find a celebratory feeling in these moments, as much as we are proud of him.”
She concluded invoking a Greek proverb: “‘Societies grow great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they may never sit.’ And our society may be a far cry from great, but I know that the seeds you planted will grow into forests.”
Then it was onto the NAACP Image Awards, the scene of their tender moment just two years prior, where she used the platform to remind Black people to be vigilant about their health and, if they’re at least 45 years old, get screened for colon cancer. A disease that’s “beatable,” Ledward said, so long as it’s caught early enough.
Boseman was “an uncommon artist and an even more uncommon person,” she said. “But the manner in which we lost him is not uncommon at all. Not in our community…Don’t put it off any longer, please get screened. Please, you are so needed and you are so loved. Please take your health into your own hands.”