‘Black Panther’ actor’s legacy a powerful symbol for Oakland
It isn’t Chadwick Boseman’s face that’s painted across the sides of countless Oakland businesses, or stenciled onto the backs of stop signs in the city, but the mask he wore as the star of the film “Black Panther.” It’s easy to spot replicas of that visage each Halloween, on the faces of Black and brown kids as they dart like miniature Wakanda warriors between the front doors of houses in Oakland.
Boseman died at 43 in his home in Los Angeles on Friday after battling stage four colon cancer, and his unexpected passing shocked the country. Celebrities, famous athletes and politicians took to social
media to share their thoughts about Boseman, with many mentioning the importance of his portrayal of T’Challa, the superpowered king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda in “Black Panther.” Oaklanders posted photos of their ticket stubs from the opening night of the movie in 2018, with captions bemoaning the loss of The Town’s adopted son.
Oakland native and “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler released a lengthy tribute to the late actor on Sunday: Boseman “would often speak about heritage and what it means to be African. When preparing for the film, he would ponder every decision, every choice, not just for how it would reflect on himself, but how those choices could reverberate.”
Through what came off as careful consideration of the roles he chose — James Brown, Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall — Boseman became the Black community’s orator of Black stories to white Hollywood. His position was bolstered by box office success. In a movie industry scrambling to rectify its lack of diversity over the last few years, Boseman’s death is a crushing blow to Black art.
His death also bookends a twoyear period since the movie debuted wherein Black Oaklanders celebrated Boseman for what he represented outside of being a Hollywood star: He was a symbol of power for a Black Bay Area populace. Since portions of the film were shot in Oakland, the East Bay city was on the receiving end of some muchdeserved positive adulation, which empowered locals to celebrate the Black roots of the place they call home.
The reaction makes sense for a city where the Black Panther Party was founded. The film’s name evokes the memories of Oakland’s history as a bastion for community programs and social justice activism. The synergy between the film and Oakland’s past has a tangible quality as well, one that’s most evident in the murals of Boseman as Black Panther that can be found in the same West Oakland neighborhood where Bobby Hutton, the Panthers’ first recruit and the group’s treasurer, was killed by police 52 years ago.
The timing couldn’t have been better for the film. The country was grappling with race issues stoked during the 2016 presidential election when it hit the box office in spring of 2018. Now, as the country sits on the doorstep of a racial reckoning, one spurred by recent police violence against Black bodies, Oakland protests are serving as a key component of the movement. The line connecting Boseman’s work as Black Panther to Oakland’s status as a modern beacon for radical change, powered by emboldened Black voices, becomes more clear. He made proBlackness trendy to nonBlack crowds, which undoubtedly helped shape the public’s reception of new Black activism when it was most important.
Black Panther wasn’t the first movie to feature a Black superhero inspired by comic books, but it was Hollywood’s most ambitious in terms of budget and marketing. What made it more unique was how instead of focusing on Black pain, it celebrated Black excellence. When the film premiered at Oakland’s Grand
Lake Theater in 2018, lines stretched around the block. The media treated the affair as though it were a red carpet gala, which was something that had never happened, locally, for a bigbudget film starring Black actors. At the center of it all was Boseman, and Oakland.
Wakanda was the fictional African nation Boseman’s character called home in Black Panther, and it was visualized on screen as a dreamscape unencumbered by the darker points of reallife African history, including colonization and the slave trade. Oakland was not the setting for Wakanda in the film, but at the end of it, Boseman’s character T’Challa announced he had purchased a condemned building in Oakland, meaning he wanted to set it on that path.
His plan was to turn the building into a tech training hub for the community. Art imitated life a few days after the movie’s release when Disney announced a $1 million donation to fund the expansion of STEM centers in Oakland and 11 other cities all over the country. At the time, Cal Stanley, president of the Boys and Girls Club of Oakland, told The Chronicle that once the funds were equally divided, Oakland would get about $83,000, which would be enough to renew an existing educational center.
The donation wouldn’t have been possible without Boseman’s heartfelt portrayal of his character in the film, thus leading it to box office success. His character’s love for Oakland, which was inspired by director Coogler’s Oakland roots, helped the city become a destination for the funds.
In a statement in 2018, Robert Iger, chairman and CEO of Walt Disney Co., said, “It’s fitting that we show our appreciation by helping advance STEM programs for youth, especially in underserved areas of the country.”
As much as Boseman helped shape Oakland’s future through his work, his lasting legacy is still clear in its present. On Friday night, while hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Oakland protesting police killings and racial injustice, a projection of the words “Wakanda Forever” — which were said by Boseman and various other characters in the movie — were displayed on a building in the city. The phrase, just like Boseman’s work behind the Black Panther mask, is sure to have a lasting legacy in Oakland.