LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 14: Phylicia Rashad speaks onstage during The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards astatine Peacock Theater connected September 14, 2025 successful Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images)
CBS via Getty Images
On August 10, the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival (MVAAFF) held its yearly C-Suite Luncheon, bringing together personage tastemakers and influential culture-shifters, including Tonya Lewis Lee, Phylicia Rashad, Sheryl Swoopes, Joteka Eddy, and Carlotta Walls LaNier.
Conceptualized by MVAAFF laminitis Stephanie Tavares-Rance, the luncheon and its accompanying acme are designed to inspire, connect, and uplift business owners and women leaders of color. This year’s luncheon centered connected the taxable of bequest and was sponsored by AARP, pinch a speech focused connected Rashad’s enduring career, from The Cosby Show to HBO’s The Gilded Age, as good arsenic AARP’s caller study, Bridging the Gap: The Path to More Authentic Portrayals of Black Adults successful Movies and TV.
As antecedently reported, the study recovered that Black adults be movies and devour tv and streaming contented astatine higher rates than the U.S. organization overall. It besides recovered that audiences position older Black women arsenic influential taste figures and want to spot much authentic practice of them connected screen. When they are represented, viewers study emotion much positively astir aging.
The discussion, led by AARP CEO Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, emphasized the value of bequest and longevity, peculiarly for women complete 50. AARP’s Movies for Grownups initiatives and its efforts to combat property favoritism successful Hollywood were besides highlighted. The speech underscored the important economical powerfulness of the 50-plus demographic, which contributes $12.5 trillion to the U.S. economy, arsenic good arsenic the request for much meticulous and authentic representations of Black women successful media.
Rashad reflected connected the group and communities that shaped her ain knowing of legacy.
“My mother. My father, my grandparents, the communities successful which they were born, and I was privileged to cognize arsenic a kid — that’s what I deliberation astir erstwhile I perceive astir legacy, because that’s what flows through,” she told Minter-Jordan.
Looking ahead, Rashad emphasized that bequest is not simply thing inherited, but thing actively created and passed forward.
“It’s thing that we go very conscious of. Something that we speak of consciously together. Something we now consciously convey to our young people,” she said. “But it’s really astir the measurement we live. About the measurement we interact pinch each other. The measurement we clasp ourselves, deliberation of ourselves — this is what creates legacy.”
Reflecting connected her portrayal of Lena Younger successful A Raisin successful the Sun, Rashad explained really her knowing of her ain family history informed the role.
“When it came clip to play Lena Younger, I understood who the female was. She was not a portion of furnishings pinch a wig connected it. She was a female who knew really to turn things. And I knew that from my greater family. I americium truthful proud of the bequest that has been handed to me. I americium truthful proud of this heritage.”
Rashad besides said astir her continued committedness to learning done her work.
“I emotion getting a book and going backmost into history,” she said. “I emotion learning because I’m looking astatine humanity and saying, ‘OK. We’ve done this a fewer times now. Let’s get it correct now. Let’s get it right.’”
For Rashad, that pursuit of humanity extends beyond immoderate azygous domiciled aliases genre.
“And particularly correct now, being a quality being is truthful important. I look for the humanity successful each world. I’m not considering thing else, and I’m not reasoning thing else. This is what my mother taught me. This for maine is freedom. I americium not circumscribed by anyone else’s idea.”
When asked really she responds to roles and shows that do not accurately picture the Black experience, Rashad kept her reply simple: “And if there’s thing connected tv that I don’t like, I simply don’t watch it.”
Reflecting connected her extended career—from Clair Huxtable to countless different iconic characters, Rashad said she is astir proud of the measurement her activity has illuminated the humanity we share.
“Whether it’s Ma Pop, Aunt Esther, Clair Huxtable aliases whoever,” Rashad said, “I want my work, much than thing else, to show that arsenic quality beings, we are overmuch much alike than we could ever beryllium different.”
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