Photo: Paula Lobo/ABC via Getty
Michael Strahanis a man of many talents.
Not only is he aSuper Bowl championandpro football Hall of Famer, but Strahan has brought his television personality to a national stage as a host on Good Morning America since 2016. And while Strahan enjoys his work in front of the camera, he is even more excited to see Black people in leadership roles behind the scenes.
“I think it’s very important. I grew up and a lot of us, we didn’t necessarily have, I guess, a lot of eyeballs. … When you looked at Black entertainers, it was just that — just the entertainment side of it. It wasn’t very much more than that,” he told:BLACKPRINT’s co-chair Tiffany Lee during the Black employee resource group’sJuneteenth, Celebrating Freedomvirtual event.
“It wasn’t the news. It wasn’t anything outside of making you laugh or being the butt of a joke,” he said.
The 49-year-old explained that even as he has made his way into the television industry, he’s slowly been seeing progress with Black people as the leads in shows and even more who are now show creators, producers, and owners of different productions.
“Now for myself to be on a news channel every morning, I think that’s big,” he said. “It gives the next generation, and I could give it … it gave me some hope. And what I saw as a kid, when I saw someone that looked like me, it gives them hope that they can do it and even do greater things.”
Strahan believes influence also lies beyond what people can visually see on television.
“It’s great to be in front of the camera, don’t get me wrong, but I love the representation in the office,” he explained. “Love the representation of those who run entertainment, run the studios, have talent agencies. I think that that is the next phase that we need to understand, and that people need to accept us in, is that we’re outside of entertainers. We also have the mind to run the business end of all of this.”
Michael Strahan.Paula Lobo/ABC via Getty
Strahan also spoke on the importance of recognizing the resilience of the Black community, especially with Juneteenth gaining more national visibility as a holiday.
“I don’t look at it as a Texas thing. I look at it as the history of all African Americans or all enslaved Americans here, or African Americans here, because you’re not free until you’re all free,” he said. “And it took two-and-a-half years before the news reached Texas. So, I look at it as the celebration of the freedom of all Black people here in this country. And it’s something that we should be celebrating and it’s something that we celebrate so that it never happens again, first and foremost. And also, something that you take pride in the history that we do have, and we’re just going to build … and then be prideful in what we’ve built since then.”
He has enjoyed digging into his own ancestry in recent years, too, as Strahan learned that many of his family members were entrepreneurs, school creators, and some of the first Black landowners in his home state of Texas.
“I think now, in the environment that we’re in right now, there’s so much pride in being Black,” he shared. “And there’s so much pride in our history that right now I think the resurgence is being celebrated a lot more than it ever has in my lifetime.”
source: people.com
