Do we like Samuel L. Jackson?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A long, decent record and real giving, with a couple of contested posts (a 2018 Pride Month joke and a sweeping 2026 swipe at Argentina) keeping him short of the top.
Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., in 1948 and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, mostly under his grandmother's strict eye. At Morehouse College he got swept up in the Black-power movement, and in 1969 he protested the lack of Black trustees by locking board members in a building for two days. He was expelled, spent two years as a social worker in Los Angeles, then went back and finished a degree in acting in 1972.
The arc from there is a long grind that turned into a monster career. He met Morgan Freeman and Spike Lee in 1981, and his turn in Jungle Fever in 1991 was so striking that Cannes created a Best Supporting Actor prize for him. Pulp Fiction in 1994 made him a star and earned an Oscar nomination, and Mace Windu and Nick Fury later made him the highest-grossing film actor on record, according to Guinness in 2011.
On the harm check, the main black mark is a 2018 tweet. He posted a photo of after-sex mints with the line “Must have been a party at The White House.” It was aimed at Trump-era Republicans, but some called it homophobic, and it was Pride Month. He answered on Instagram with “They just keep tryin'” and didn't apologise. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a jab at politicians or a cheap gay joke.
The 2026 Argentina post is the fresh one. He shared a message urging Black fans not to cheer for Argentina and calling it one of the most racist countries in the world, plus a meme of himself in an Argentina jersey. Argentines pushed back, a sociologist told Al Jazeera that racism there shouldn't be denied but shouldn't be pinned on a whole society over football, and some Argentines embraced the criticism. It's a broad brush from a bloke with a huge megaphone, though it's one post, not a campaign.
On the planet he's on the right side. In July 2025 he fronted a Vattenfall video promoting offshore wind, saying the turbines rise “like a middle finger to CO2”, a day after Donald Trump called windmills a “disgrace” on a visit to Scotland. We found nothing from him against trans people, women, or migrants, but we also found nothing from him specifically on trans rights, so that part of the record is honestly thin.
On how he treats people, the record is steady. In 2021 he and his wife gave $5 million to Spelman College, the largest alumni donation in its 140-year history, and the performing arts centre now carries their names. In 2022 they also wrote to a judge asking for an alternative to jail for Jussie Smollett, who had been found guilty on five of six counts of disorderly conduct, which is loyalty, though people will see it differently. No allegations of mistreating anyone turned up.