Chadwick Boseman Day. Remembering one of South Carolina's brightest stars

Late actor Chadwick Boseman is being remembered today on what would have been his 47th birthday.

An Anderson County native, Boseman is remembered in his hometown and beyond for his two-decade-long acting career, and his most known and beloved portrayal of Marvel hero Black Panther.

Boseman was a 1995 graduate of T.L. Hanna High School, where he was a member of the basketball team and the National Speech and Debate Association. His memory is honored at the school.

"We started the Chadwick Boseman Memorial Scholarship right after his passing. We felt it was important to involve the Boseman family and his former classmates in the scholarship. It took us a couple of years to get the scholarship up and going," said T.L. Hanna High School Principal Walter Mayfield.

The Chadwick Boseman Memorial Scholarship was first awarded last year to Faith Bonner, who received $1,000 to attend North Carolina A&T.

Boseman was also posthumously honored by his hometown through a public arts endowment, established by the city of Anderson. "Warrior: An Art Exhibit" was held a year after his death at Wren Pavilion in downtown Anderson and featured tributes to Boseman from 17 Anderson artists.

Why is Chadwick Boseman Day Nov. 29?

Chadwick Boseman Day has been celebrated annually on Boseman's birthday, Nov. 29, since his death on August 28, 2020, at his Los Angeles home.

How did Chadwick Boseman die?

Boseman died of colon cancer at 43, after a four-year-long private battle with the disease.

A week after his passing, Boseman was remembered at the William A Floyd Amphitheater in Anderson with a memorial ceremony and screening of "Black Panther."

Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts, Deanna Brown Thomas, daughter of James Brown, and Boseman's childhood pastor, Rev. Sam Neely spoke at the event which brought hundreds of fans to the actor's first home.

Chadwick Boseman's education and legacy

From Anderson, Boseman headed to Washington D.C., graduating from Howard University in 2000 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in directing.

In 2018, he received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the university when he returned to give the commencement address at the May graduation.

After his death, he was memorialized at the college, which renamed its College of Fine Arts in his honor in May 2021.

Chadwick Boseman's movie legacy: Black Panther, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson

While likely best known for his titular role in "Black Panther" (2018), which he first took on in "Captain America: Civil War" (2016) and reprised in "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) and "Avengers: Endgame" (2019), many of the roles Boseman took on were portrayals of real-life heroes.

Boseman played baseball legend Jackie Robinson in "42" (2013), musician James Brown in "Get On Up" (2014), and Civil Rights activist and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in "Marshall" (2017).

His final two films were "Da 5 Bloods" (2020), directed by Spike Lee, in which he played Norman Earl "Stormin' Norm" Holloway, and "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom" (2020). The sequel to "Black Panther," "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," was released in 2022 and used archival footage of Boseman to allow him to appear in the film.

Boseman received posthumous nominations for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards in 2021 and won Best Actor at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards and Golden Globe Awards for his role of Levee Green in "Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom." He also won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role from the Screen Actors Guild Awards for the role.

He was the first Black actor to ever be nominated posthumously for an Oscar, one of seven actors in total, according to PBS.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Chadwick Boseman Day: Celebrating 'Black Panther', Anderson, SC native