Story at a glance
- Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed Black Panther, died of colon cancer at 43.
- Many celebrities and fans mourned his death and remembered his legacy as the first Black actor to play a superhero in a major motion picture.
- Whoopi Goldberg is calling for Disney to create a Wakanda-themed park in remembrance of Boseman.
As the country mourns Chadwick Boseman’s death, the legacy of the first Black superhero lives on. Now one major fan is calling on Disney to commemorate the Black Panther with a Wakanda theme park.
Dear People in charge of building NEW experiences Disney Land and World we don’t really need another Frozen land BUT what we could use is Wakonda, please Disneyworld Disneyland PLEASE build in Chadwick Boseman’s name WAKONDA
— Whoopi Goldberg (@WhoopiGoldberg) August 31, 2020
Whoopi Goldberg’s call for a Wakanda theme park at Disney World and Disneyland had more than 50,000 likes and 7,000 retweets by the next day. The actor, comedian and television personality was one of many celebrities and fans who paid tribute to Boseman after his death was confirmed on Aug. 28.
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“1 of my all time favorite people on the planet Chadwick Boseman has passed away after a 4 years of fighting cancer. An wonderful actor & a truly nice man. R.IP. condolences to his family,” Goldberg wrote on Twitter.
Boseman played T’Challa, also known as the Black Panther, in the first such movie with a majority-Black cast, becoming a role model to Black children and adults, who had never before seen a superhero on-screen that resembled them. His homeland of Wakanda is a fictional country in sub-Saharan Africa known for its technological marvel and futuristic design.
Disney has featured a Black Panther character at its California Adventure park, which is soon to debut where the new Avengers Campus was set to open this year — although it has since been delayed as the coronavirus pandemic temporarily closed the park and halted construction. A Wakanda-themed attraction or park would be a historic representation of Black characters and African culture in one of — if not the — most famous amusement parks in the world.
Earlier this year, Disney announced Splash Mountain, a theme park attraction based on the 1946 movie “Song of the South,” would be reimagined as a “The Princess and the Frog” experience after criticism about the original movie’s racist depictions of Black people.
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