The legendary Ruth Carter is finally an Oscar winner.

She won Best Costume Design for Black Panther. She was previously nominated in 1992 for Spike Lee’s Malcolm X and Steven Spielberg’s Amistad in 1997.

“Marvel may have created the first Black superhero, but through costume design, we turned him into an African king. It’s been my life’s honor to create costumes. Thank you to the Academy, and thank you for honoring African royalty and the empowered way women can look and lead on screen,” she said during her speech.

She also thanked Lee, who was nominated this year for BlacKkKlansman. “This has been a long time coming, Spike Lee, thank you for my start. I hope this makes you proud.”

Back in 2018 during press for Black Panther, Carter told Shadow and Act: “It’s about time that this country opened its eyes to many cultures and their diversity and their beauty and give them back their history and embrace it. It should never have been a ‘melting pot’ and melt away everyone’s culture from Native Americans to African-Americans. It should have always been a place where you can come and be where you are. That’s what was stripped away from Americans that came to or were brought to this country as the land of the free. It wasn’t free. They were stripped of their identity. It’s about time the country led the way of embracing our difference and not look at everything outside of this country as different or dumb.”

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

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