Fans are mourning actor Cameron Boyce, best known for his work on the Disney Channel and Adam Sandler’s “Grown Ups,” who died this week at the age of 20.
Boyce was an exceptionally warm-hearted artist, a young man who ran to do good deeds. He has happily served as a role model for Jewish children of color, children of mixed marriages, and all students who dream of delving into activism.
“His spirit will live on through the kindness and compassion of all who knew and loved him,” Boyce’s family said in a statement. They also shared that the actor died in his sleep from a seizure, “following an ongoing medical condition for which he was being treated.”
Featured on Disney Channel in the comedy “Jessie” and the Disney Channel Original Movie “Descendants,” Boyce had also starred in feature films and was set to play a recurring character in an HBO comedy by actress Kathryn Hahn and actor Kathryn Hahn. Oscar-winning actress Nicole Holofcener. .
But Boyce was also a different kind of descendant – the child of a white Jewish mother and a non-Jewish black father, Boyce was constantly aware of his lineage. His grandmother, Jo Ann Boyce, was one of the Clinton 12, the group of a dozen Tennessee schoolchildren who were the first black students to attend Clinton’s all-white high school in 1956, after the Affair Brown v. Supreme Court Board of Education. forced integration. Boyce used his Disney Channel platform to share his grandmother’s experience in a short film in 2016. As recently as his last interview last May, he told his story as a “student black in a school that the whole town wanted to stay white.” He told Haute Living: “We have to make sure – especially with some of the controversy that currently plagues us – that we keep pushing towards dreams that have yet to be realized.” When a Dazed reporter tentatively brought up Boyce’s grandmother, he replied, “I’m always happy when people ask me about it because to me, they don’t get enough credit.” He spent time in the interview promoting the book Jo Ann wrote about his experience.
Boyce was extremely proud of his minority identities, speaking openly about how his overlapping identities framed his worldview — and drove him to pursue justice. “Being African-American and Jewish, I have many ancestors and family members I can look to for strength and, most importantly, a grateful outlook on life,” he said. ]. “Each of them clawed and scratched to get my sister and I into the position we are in today.”
In September 2017, Boyce went public with the trip to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam where the teenage columnist and her family hid with other Jews until they were betrayed. Boyce shared footage of himself visiting the Secret Annex with his mother, a Jewish social worker who works with Los Angeles’ homeless population and provided care during the AIDS crisis. Boyce is not shy about showing gratitude for his mother; after meeting Joe Biden, he got permission to call his mother and put her on the phone with the presidential hopeful. In an Instagram post, Boyce paid tribute to the women in his life, including his mother, sister and grandmother, calling them: “Women who strike fear into the hearts of men who are afraid of inevitable change!”
A nod to philanthropy is expected of child stars, but Boyce went way beyond that, using his platform to raise funds, spread ideas and protest injustice. He has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Thirst Project, a nonprofit that focuses on clean water, raised money for the homeless in Los Angeles and supported the March For Our Lives protest. for gun safety.
“What you leave behind should be bigger than you,” Boyce said last year, addressing a crowd at the Biden event. “I really believe it.”
Jenny Singer is the Associate Life and Feature Editor for Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny