NAACP Image Awards

The award ceremony was first organized and presented on August 13, 1967, by activists Maggie Hathaway, Sammy Davis Jr. and Willis Edwards, all three of whom were leaders of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP branch.[1][2] While it was first taped for television by NBC (which broadcast the awards from 1987 to 1994 in January, on weeks when Saturday Night Live wasn't airing a new episode), it would only be broadcast in primetime beginning in 1996. Due to changes in timing of the awards, there was no awards ceremony held the following years: 1973, as the timing was changed to honor a full calendar year early in the following year (reverted to a "late-in-year" ceremony for 1981–1990); 1991, as the timing returned to late in a calendar year to honor that same year; 1995, but note that the reasoning is not clear.

The first live broadcast of the awards, also on the Fox Network, occurred in 2007 for its 38th edition (up until 2007, the ceremony had been broadcast with tape delay) and the annual ceremonies usually take place in or around the Los Angeles area, in February or early March. The 44th edition aired on NBC. Sources have had trouble verifying the winners in the top categories from 1983 to 1995.

The New York firm Society Awards manufactures the trophy since its redesign in 2008.

In 1987, the NAACP came under fire for dropping their Best Actress award for that year. They defended this position, citing a lack of meaningful roles for black women.[15] In 1990, they were criticized once again for not awarding Best Actress.[16] This was the fourth time it could not find enough nominees for Best Actress.[16] Sandra Evers-Manly, president of the organization's Beverly Hills/Hollywood branch, said, "The [film] industry has yet to show diversity or present realistic leading roles for African-American women."[16]

In other years, some nominees have been called undeserving of NAACP attention. In response, some NAACP representatives have argued that the quality of an artist's work is the salient issue, with factors such as criminal charges inconsequential in this regard. For example, in 1994, Tupac Shakur was a nominee for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture for the film Poetic Justice despite the filing of sexual assault charges against him in December 1993.[17] More specifically, Shakur had been accused of felony counts of forcible sodomy and unlawful detainment in New York City, when a woman alleged that he and two other men held her down in a hotel room while a fourth man sodomized her.[18] Shakur was also indicted for two counts of aggravated assault in an unrelated incident in which he supposedly shot and wounded two off-duty police officers.[18] In the same year, Martin Lawrence was criticized for winning Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series and Outstanding Comedy Series and the show was criticized for its sexual controversy.[18] In 2004, R. Kelly's Chocolate Factory was nominated for Outstanding Album[19] while he was under indictment for charges related to child pornography.[20]

Other nominees have faced controversy due to their portrayals of major civil rights figures. In 2003, the movie Barbershop received five nominations, including Outstanding Motion Picture and Outstanding Supporting Actor (for Cedric the Entertainer's performance). In the film, Cedric's character makes pejorative remarks about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Michael Jackson, and Jesse Jackson, content that elicited criticism, including Rosa Parks's refusal to attend the awards event.[21] The rap group OutKast received six nominations in 2004 but faced criticism because they had previously recorded the song "Rosa Parks", which had resulted in Parks suing them over the use of her name.[20]

These are the major categories:

• Official website