Anthony Mackie tells Jimmy Fallon his goal is to get '1 million men to vote' in the upcoming elections
Anthony Mackie was reduced to tears while talking on the subject of racism with Jimmy Fallon. The 41-year-old actor and film producer was on Thursday, June 11, night's episode of 'The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon'.
He began by talking about his film 'The Banker' that released earlier this year. The movie is based on two black men in the 50s and 60s and their endeavor to become bankers and landowners that was made nearly impossible because of their African-American heritage. He spoke about the overwhelming experience he had at the premiere which took place at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the same place where Martin Luther King was assassinated.
He said it was a life-changing experience for him and that he had never experienced anything of that magnitude. Being able to stand at the same balcony where MLK was assassinated blew his mind and he said, "This man worked so hard. then gave his life and here we are 55 years later dealing with the exact same thing and that's what hurts."
He then spoke about all the sacrifices his family had to make in order for him to be where he is in life right now. "My grandfather was a sharecropper. My dad was a contractor. He had to drop out in school in eighth grade to work with his grandfather so that he could give me the opportunity to Juilliard and be a stupid actor". Tracing back to his experience at Lorraine Motel, he said that it made him and his friends realize that something needs to be done and that "there's power in numbers".
He said, "There's a great opportunity right now to change the scope of the world," referring to the Presidential elections in November. Mackie noted that there are a lot of people in positions of power right now that are "just not right" and he and his friends have put together a website called iamaman.vote and their goal is to get 1 million men to register to vote.
The conversation might've started on a heavy and hard-hitting topic but the men turned it around later by speaking about their experiences working at the grocery store. Mackie used to stock the store and always asked for the baby food aisle and confessed that he would eat all the baby food and put the empty containers right at the back of the shelf. Eventually, he was caught and fired from the job, he said jokingly.
The pandemic opened his eyes to the struggles of the grocery store workers who continued to work by risking their lives to put food on their table. This led to him putting together a grocery workers relief fund that is aimed to help the workers in the New Orleans area pay their utility bills and he even donated $50,000 towards it. Watch the whole video by clicking on the video below.