[videowaywire video_id=”KNT4ZZ16Q12J288M”]
*Six black actresses took the stage together at the NAACP Image Awards Monday to declare “time’s up” for sexual harassment and abuse.
In a group message about the #MeToo Movement delivered before the best actress in a drama series prize, Kerry Washington, Tracee Ellis Ross, Lena Waithe, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Angela Robinson and Laverne Cox shared a message encouraging viewers to “stand by us, stand for us, stand with us.”
Each woman delivered a sentence of the statement before passing it on to the other. “We are America’s black women,” Washington said, starting off the message. “Forces of nature,” Ellis Ross added. The group said that black women had “always been on the front lines of change” and challenged viewers to “stand by us, stand for us, stand with us.”
Upholding the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, the group then delivered a series of messages starting with the phrase “Time’s up.” “Time’s up on complaining about an imperfect system if we aren’t willing to fix it, time’s up on our silence, time’s up on the abuse of power,” the women said together.
Robinson received a rousing applause when she told the audience, “The midterms are a perfect moment for us to use our voices.”
“We cannot sit this one out. If we can take back a senate seat in Alabama,” Smollett-Bell said, to more applause, “then we have the ability to shift the balance of power.” The women finished their speech by encouraging viewers to register to vote.
After the speech, Robinson tweeted an image of the group with the caption, “Incredible sharing the stage with these incredible women at the #NAACPImageAwards to represent #timesupnow.”
Watch the moment in the video above.
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