50 Fifty Reel Challenge

BLACK HISTORY #19

Peter Ramsey became the first African-American to win BEST ANIMATED FEATURE for the film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" back in 2018.

Peter A. Ramsey (born December 23, 1962) is an American illustrator, storyboard artist, and filmmaker. He is best known for directing DreamWorks Animation's Rise of the Guardians (2012), becoming the first African American to direct a major American animated film, and co-directing Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018).

For Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he became the first African American to be nominated for and win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

His first job in Hollywood was painting a mural, but soon he was working as a storyboard artist and production illustrator on 26 films including Predator 2, Backdraft, Independence Day, Fight Club and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

He was a second unit director for Poetic Justice, Higher Learning, Tank Girl and Godzilla. Aron Warner, the producer of Tank Girl, suggested he join DreamWorks Animation. After initially being uninterested, Ramsey joined DreamWorks as a story artist for Shrek the Third and Shrek the Halls.

BLACK HISTORY #16

In 1958 Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American actor to be nominated for a film. Almost 30 years after Hattie McDaniel took the honors in 1939. The film below "The Defiant Ones" was his nomination for the role. It's a gritty of story of racism seen through the eyes of two escaped convicts one black, the other white, trying to elude capture to gain their freedom.

Sidney would have to wait until 1963 for his actual win, for his role as the handyman working for nuns in "The Lillies of the Field".

Poitier becomes quite the powerhouse of roles in the 1960's, appearing in 3 of the most successful films of 1967. "To Sir with Love", "In the Heat of the Night" which took Best Picture at the Oscars and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".