In a recent Instagram post, Deadpool actor Ryan Reynolds announced that he and his wife, actress Blake Lively, had donated $200,000 to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. The donation was made in support of the nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, an African American man who was choked after being arrested for passing and possessing an insignificantly small amount of counterfeit currency.
“We contributed $200,000 to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund,” the couple stated in their lengthy but thoughtful post. “We stand in awe of this organization and its leader, Sherrilyn Ifill. And this is just a start.” In the paragraphs that follow their announcement, Reynolds and Lively share their thoughts on the history of racial violence in America, and express their sympathies for the cause which the protesters are fighting for.
The money they have donated, an incredibly charitable amount compared to what some other prominent Americans have offered, will be used – among other things – to pay the legal bills of protesters who have been apprehended by authorities in the past few days, as well as offer financial support to various ongoing and future civil rights lawsuits.
After announcing their donation, the actors also pledged to stay informed about the country’s social and political issues, and vote in upcoming local elections, which have been judged as more important than state and even federal ones when it comes to preventing hate crimes and other such injustices.
Of course, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are far from the only celebrities who have shown their support for the movement. Earlier this week, actor John Cusack made the news when he was harassed by cops for filming a burning car in downtown Chicago. Meanwhile, around the same time, The Flash star Kendrick Sampson was shot by rubber bullets while attending a protest in Los Angeles.