I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because we all know the press is under siege these days. But we also know it\u2019s the insatiable dedication to uncovering the absolute truth that keeps us from turning a blind eye to corruption and to injustice, to tyrants and victims, and secrets and lies. I want to say that I value the press more than ever before as we try to navigate these complicated times, which brings me to this.<\/p>\n

What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I\u2019m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell, and this year we became the story. But it\u2019s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It\u2019s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics or workplace.<\/p>\n

So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They\u2019re the women whose names we\u2019ll never know. They are domestic workers and farmworkers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they\u2019re in academia, engineering, medicine and science. They\u2019re part of the world of tech and in politics and business. They\u2019re our athletes in the Olympics and they\u2019re our soldiers in the military.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s someone else: Recy Taylor, a name I know and I think you should know, too. In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she\u2019d attended in Abbeville, Alabama, when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone, but her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case, and together they sought justice. But justice wasn\u2019t an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted.<\/p>\n

Recy Taylor died 10 days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday. She lived as we all have lived \u2014 too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. And for too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared speak their truth to the power of those men.<\/p>\n

But their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.<\/p>\n

And I just hope \u2014 I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth, like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented, goes marching on. It was somewhere in Rosa Parks\u2019s heart almost 11 years later, when she made the decision to stay seated on that bus in Montgomery, and it\u2019s here with every woman who chooses to say, \u201cMe too.\u201d And every man, every man who chooses to listen.<\/p>\n

In my career, what I\u2019ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome. And I\u2019ve interviewed and portrayed people who\u2019ve withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.<\/p>\n

So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, are fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say \u201cme too\u201d again. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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