Mishael Morgan Marks First Woman Of Color To Win Lead Actress Daytime Emmy Award
Mishael Morgan won the Lead Actress Emmy Award for her role as Amanda on The Young and the Restless. She is the first Black and first woman of color actress to win a lead actress Emmy since the inception of the awards in 1974. Morgan was previously twice nominated in the supporting actress category in 2018 and 2019. The only other woman of color to be nominated for the lead actress was Debbie Morgan with three nominations in 2009, 2011, and 2012. Morgan was the first Black and first woman of color to ever win an Emmy in the supporting actress category in 1989 as a tie with Caucasian actress Nancy Lee Ghran. She was previously nominated in the younger actress category in 1985.
In an interview with Soap Central, Morgan details her reasoning for submitting herself to the Lead Actress category of the 2022 Daytime Emmy Awards:
SC: What made you decide to submit yourself in the Lead category this year? Was that decision based on the material that you were given, or...?
Morgan: It was a combination of things. It kind of hit me personally when I thought, "Who is the ethnic lead on the show?" And it's funny because I was talking to Bryton James [Devon Hamilton], and I was telling him that it breaks my heart, and I love Kristoff [St. John, Neil Winters] so much, but now that Kristoff isn't here anymore, I was telling him, "You are the male ethnic lead. You run the African American storyline on the show." And he was like, "Yeah, I don't know. I'm not really a lead." And I said, "But you are! You decide if you want to be the lead." And while I was telling him that, I started thinking about it for myself, where I was like, "Okay, yeah, I guess I decide!" I was kind of throwing it around in my head, but what solidified it for me was I went out to lunch with Ptosha Storey, who plays my mom [Naya Benedict] on the show. We had done some amazing scenes together, and I was telling her that she should consider submitting, and she was like, "Can I, really? Is that something that I could do?" And I was like, "Yeah, they have a Guest Star category, and you've done so many episodes, so you may even be able to go into Supporting." And then she said, "Because you're going to go into Lead, right?" And I was like, "Oh, no. I've never done Lead." And I told her how I felt, and she said, "You definitely have to go into Lead. Mishael, I came on the show to support your storyline. Your grandfather came on the show to support your storyline. They brought your sister on the show to support your storyline. So, you are not a supporting character in your storyline! You're the lead!" And I was like, "You know what, you're right!"
Morgan’s win is a history-making moment that reminds us of the long history of discrimination against actresses of color in soaps being able to be considered for the leading actress Emmy’s who deserved to be nominated such as but not limited to Renée Elise Goldsberry (ex-Evangeline Williamson, One Life to Live), Ellen Holly (ex-Clara Hall, One Life to Live), Renee Jones (ex-Lexie Carver, Days of Our Lives), Florencia Lozano (ex-Tea Degado, One Life to Live), Amelia Marshall (ex-Gilly Grant Speakes, Guiding Light), Tracey Ross (ex-Eve, Passions), Victoria Rowell (ex-Drucilla Winters, The Young and the Restless), Tamara Tunie (ex-Jessica Griffin, As the World Turns) and Tonya Lee Williams (ex-Olivia Winters, The Young and the Restless).