There was star-studded gathering at the 26 Bridge venue Tuesday night as celebrities such as LL Cool J, Michael K. Williams, Angela Yee and Steve Buscemi came to an awards ceremony and fundraiser for Jamie Hector’s decade-old youth organization, Moving Mountains. The organization focuses on helping inner-city youth pursue careers in the arts.
In an exclusive interview with the Amsterdam News, Hector, who played Marlo Stanfield in HBO’s “The Wire” and plays Detective Jerry Edgar in the Amazon Studios show “Bosch,” was ecstatic about the event, describing it as “remarkable” and praised all the people who gave speeches that night. When asked about his role as Tupac’s stepfather, Mutulu Shakur, in the upcoming Tupac biopic “All Eyez on Me,” Hector described it as “an honor.”
When asked about the Trump administration’s plans to deport Haitians who were granted temporary stay in the U.S. because of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Hector said he was “disappointed.”
“It’s painful to see so many of my kinfolk that came from Haiti because of the problem of having to go back and not being able to plan a life here and progress,” Hector said. He added that he hoped there was a way for the deportations to stop.
The Trump administration has extended the Temporary Protected Status of the nearly 60,000 Haitians, allowing them to stay in the U.S. through January 2018, but still plans to deport them.
The celebrities who attended the gala dropped some hints about future plans and current shows, with LL Cool J talking about how his “NCIS: Los Angeles” character, Sam Hanna, would be affected by his wife’s death next season. “It’s going to be a long road to recovery for him leading into season nine,” he said. “That’s what people should prepare for. He’s a changed man, and that character will be forever changed by what happened to him.”
However, Michael K. Williams, famous for playing Omar Little in “The Wire” and Chalky White in “Boardwalk Empire,” didn’t say anything too specific about future plans. “You never know,” he said. “If the writing and opportunity and the cast is correct [then] yeah y’know…if the project is right I’ll be there.”
When asked about which of his many roles was his favorite, Williams joked that we’d have to get back to him in about 10 years for him to tell us. “I’m still a baby at this,” he quipped with a smile.
There was also some news about “Atlanta,” the hit show on FX. Isiah Whitlock Jr., who played Donald Glover’s father on the show, repeatedly gave assurances that the show would be coming back. It was just taking a break because of Glover having to be in the upcoming Han Solo movie.
However, not all the interviews with celebrities went over well. Mona Scott Young, the executive producer of “Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta,” was irked when asked about the current feud between her and the show’s star, Joseline Hernandez. Young said that the show would continue without Hernandez, and also added that her working relationship with Hernandez’s partner Stevie J (real name, Steve Aaron Jordan) was still intact.
Fortunately, the awards ceremony itself had a much more jovial mood with LL Cool J and Steve Buscemi being honored with awards from Moving Mountains. The two shared humorous anecdotes, much to the delight of the audience, with LL Cool J joking that without the arts, “I’d probably have a court date today,” and that he’d probably be sticking people up in the audience.
Buscemi told an amusing story about the late Brooklyn District Ken Thompson getting him and his fellow firefighters out of jail after they had been protesting the closure of a fire house.
Much was made of the late district attorney that night, as Hector found the time to praise Thompson by describing him as someone who “spoke for the forgotten, the targeted, the disadvantaged [and] the young.” He also spoke about how Thompson’s widow, Lu-Shawn Thompson, gave him permission to name a scholarship after the deceased prosecutor.
Two Moving Mountains members, Kayvon Kirkman, 19, and Ferdinand Amaru McKenzie, 17, won scholarships that awarded each of them $2,500. They were the scholarship’s first recipients. The pair spoke at length about the violence in their communities and their schools. “No kid in Brooklyn, California, Detroit or Chicago wants to be a statistic,” said McKenzie.
Pastor A.R. Bernard noted, “Young people are 60 percent of our present but 100 percent of our future.””
Williams, the presenter of the ceremony, was especially effective at regaling the crowd, telling jokes about how he was a “Twitter gangster” when he defended LL Cool J’s legacy on Twitter, dancing onstage and generally being the force of charisma he was well-known for. However, he became serious when talking about the recent shooting of a 5-year-old Bronx boy named Jaheen Hunter. After imploring the crowd to shout Jaheen’s name alongside him, Williams said he was tired of “crying” and “feeling sorry” about these types of shootings and added that the youth needed “an alternative to these streets.”
Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, was also present at the event and praised Hector as someone who gave back to his community through efforts such as Moving Mountains. “So many folks make it big and they can’t wait to move away and get away [but] Jamie’s staying in the community,” Canada said.