Friday's finale of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier saw Sam Wilson officially take up the mantle of Captain America, and #SamWilsonIsCaptainAmerica ended up trending worldwide all weekend. A Black man wielding the shield is a huge deal, and, as you might expect, that wasn't lost on Anthony Mackie.
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the actor opened up about what it means to him to be the first Black Captain America and shared his reaction to seeing "One World, One People."
"Well, you know it’s interesting. It’s humbling, really," Mackie admitted. "It didn’t hit me until the show came to a conclusion Friday and I watched it with my boys. And it’s really...there are no words to explain it."
As you might expect, he didn't have too much to say about what comes next for this version of Cap, but did elaborate on how personal wearing the stars and stripes is for him.
"I remember it was 2008 when I first moved to Brooklyn, and I was walking down the street and I saw this little kid. And he had taken like a cereal box and like cut eyes, and put the cereal box on his head like spray-painted it blue and put an A on it. And I was like ‘Yo, what are you doing man?' He was like, ‘I’m fighting bad guys! I’m Captain America!’" Mackie recalls.
"And to see that little kid and think about almost thirteen years later where I am now, you know in the universe, it’s really humbling and exciting at the same time. Cause there is that significance to little kids around the world."
It's an amazing thing, that's for sure, and it's going to be a lot of fun to see where Marvel Studios takes the new Captain America next. If The Falcon and The Winter Soldier made anything clear, it's that Kevin Feige and company won't be glossing over the importance of what it means for a Black man to hold that mantle in today's America.
As for Mackie, it's clear he's going to make an awesome Cap.