TIME the Closers

25 BLACK LEADERS WORKING TO END RACIAL INEQUALITY

- - BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK, NIK POPLI, JAMIE DUCHARME,ALICE PARK,SOLCYRÉ BURGA,REBECCA SCHNEID,BELINDA LUSCOMBE,ELIANA DOCKTERMAN,SIMMONE SHAH,ANDREW R. CHOW

COLMAN DOMINGO

THE OSCAR-NOMINATED ACTOR LEADS WITH RADICAL LOVE

IF YOU CAN'T SPEND AN HOUR OR TWO WITH COLMAN Domingo in real life, you can still find the key to his spirit in a photograph from Easter 1976. There's Colman at age 6, a pint-size gent perched between his older sister and brother, wearing a candy-striped blazer so groovy you wouldn't be surprised to see it on Sammy Davis Jr. at a Cocoanut Grove show. He brought this picture along when he appeared on The View in November, and after the show's hosts had finished cooing, he provided the backstory: The navy pants he's wearing had a matching jacket, but it was too small. He grabbed the striped one instead, though his mother said it didn't quite match. "But it makes me feel good!" he told her, and instead of arguing, she told him, "Wear what makes you feel good," setting him on the path he follows to this day.

Domingo, 55, is known for his creative yet classic redcarpet style, inspired by influences ranging from Fred Astaire to the Ohio Players, Cary Grant to Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. It makes perfect sense that he's been named a chair of this spring's Met Gala, the theme of which is "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style." Style is integral to his spirit, as a way of communicating, of pushing out into the world, of connecting with Black men and women who came before him-which is to say that anyone who believes style is superficial hasn't met Domingo. How he dresses, how he moves, even how he sips from a coffee cup: all these things are so casually entwined with who he is that they charge the air around him.

Generosity begins with the self, and Domingo is so at ease that he has extra grace to spare. "Everything I do is about radical love," Domingo says, over a coffee at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. "It's about seeing each other.