Watch The Stunning #BlackLivesMatter Speech That Wowed Samuel L. Jackson (And Got Timberlake In Trouble)

At yesterday’s BET Awards, Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams rocked the premises with a powerful speech that Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Samuel L. Jackson said reminded him of a “1960s activist”.

“That brother is right, and he is true,” Jackson added.

Williams received the Humanitarian Award for his role as an outspoken activist for the black community and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

At the beginning of his speech, he paid tribute to the “real organisers all over the country, the activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families [and] the teachers.”

He then went on to criticise the system “built to divide and impoverish and destroy us”, encouraging Americans to “mobilise”.

“We’re going to have equal rights and justice in our country, or we will restructure their function, and ours,” he said.

Over five minutes, he evoked the slain Tamir Rice (“I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive by on a 12-year-old playing alone in a park in broad daylight, killing him on television and going home to make a sandwich”) and called out those who have “extract[ed] our culture, our dollars, our entertainment, like oil; black gold.”

You can read the full transcript here or watch it in full below. You really should.

Justin Timberlake was just one viewer who was deeply moved by the speech, Tweeting the following:

Buuuuut, social media was quick to remind him that, maybe, he’s partly responsible for taking advantage of black culture (and staying silent when the community could use his support).

@jtimberlake inspired to do what? Continue to emulate black culture through your music while ignoring issues affecting black people?

— Chrystal (@chrystallll) June 27, 2016

@jtimberlake @iJesseWilliams Such a privileged white misinterpretation. You're exactly who he was talking about. Huge part of the problem.

— Wife School Dropout (@aliciafiasco_) June 27, 2016

Timberlake, still not quite getting it, offered an apology.

Sorry JT. Twitter never forgets.

Photo: BET.