In an event that no one—except host Anthony Anderson, a little bit—came right out and called the answer to this year’s single-tone slate of Oscar nominees, the NAACP held its annual Image Awards last night, with Creed star Michael B. Jordan, Fox’s Empire, and Anderson’s own Black-ish all taking home a healthy showing of awards. Jordan pulled down the year’s top acting honor for his work in the Rocky spinoff, with his Entertainer Of The Year statue making a nice matched set with director Ryan Coogler’s nods for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing In A Motion Picture. (The actual Outstanding Picture award, meanwhile, went to the somehow even more Outstanding-er Straight Outta Compton).
Over in TV, Empire and black-ish swept their respective categories; Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson took home Outstanding Actor and Actress In A Drama, respectively, with Henson joining numerous other voices trumpeting black performances during the night. “We don’t need to ask for acceptance from anyone. We are enough, we’ve been enough and we always will be enough,” she said, echoing what we’re going to assume is the prevailing assessment at Fox, where Empire continues to be one of the biggest things on TV. On the comedy side, Anderson himself nabbed Outstanding Actor In A Comedy, providing the setup for the future trivia question, “At what event did Transformers performer Anthony Anderson beat out Don Cheadle, Dwayne Johnson, and Andre Braugher for an acting award?”