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Daniel Sunjata
Born	December 30, 1971 Evanston, Illinois

Daniel Sunjata (born Daniel Sunjata Condon;^[1] December 30, 1971) is a Tony Award-nominated American actor who has performed in film, television and in the theater.

Career

Sunjata played the role of a sailor on shore leave on the first post-9/11 themed episode of Sex and The City. He has portrayed Langston Hughes in the film Brother to Brother and James Holt, a fictitious fashion designer in The Devil Wears Prada. He currently stars as firefighter Franco Rivera on the television program Rescue Me. During the summer of 2007, he also starred in the ESPN miniseries The Bronx is Burning as Reggie Jackson.

In 2003, he won a Theatre World Award for his breakout Broadway performance as a gay, Major League Baseball player who comes out to the public in Take Me Out, the Tony award-winning play, which also earned him nominations for a Tony Award and Drama Desk Award.

Personal life

Of partial African-American heritage, Sunjata grew up in Chicago, the adopted son of a police dispatcher and a civil rights worker. He graduated from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, where he played center for two state championship football teams. He completed his undergraduate studies at Florida A&M University and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He then received his master's degree in fine arts from the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University.

9/11 Related Activity

On September 9, 2007, at Webster Hall in New York City, Sunjata gave a speech at a 9/11 fund-raising event sponsored by We Are Change.

On September 27, 2007, Sunjata was honored at The Latin Pride Awards, which were held in Boston, Massachusetts, with a special recognition entitled "Voice of the Millions" which is awarded to people who use their public visibility to speak out on behalf of others who cannot. The award was given for his advocacy of a new and independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks, and also for his representation of the Latino community in a television program, Rescue Me, as firefighter Franco Rivera.

On September 12, 2008, Sunjata spoke again at another New York fundraiser sponsored by We Are Change to benefit the first response units for the 9/11 attacks, focusing on the many first-response units who were allegedly told by the Environmental Protection Agency that the air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe.

Also in September 2008, Sunjata revealed that plotlines featuring 9/11 alternative theories and the plight of the first responders would be featured in the fifth season of Rescue Me.^[2]

In 2009, the fifth season of Rescue Me includes a 9/11 Truth subplot focused through the character of Franco Rivera (played by Sunjata) who stirs up controversy in the firehouse when he announces to a journalist that he firmly believes 9/11 was an inside job.^[3]

On April 30, 2009, Daniel Sunjata announced his participation as narrator in Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup, a film directed by Dylan Avery and produced by Korey Rowe and Matthew Brown.^[4]

On May 4, 2009, Sunjata published an essay entitled "Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit: a message to the corporate media and our elected officials," calling for an open investigation into the September 11, 2001, attacks. ^[5]

Regarding this, Sunjata has also stated:

I am the first to admit that I am no journalist, no expert by any stretch of the imagination. But even with the subplot featured on Rescue Me, the response I got from various magazines and websites on this piece was that there was NO STORY HERE. It is not news to them that such informed dissent has been expressed by those who cannot be dismissed as insane lunatics. Popular Mechanics was thrown in my face repeatedly as having already debunked every claim I made and every reference I included. One editor even equated 911 Truth with those who deny evolution in favor of creationism! Its just pathetic actually, because I KNOW these individuals are more intelligent than to believe the excuses that they offered in order to avoid dealing with me. And given what I know about how publicity works, their crab-like side stepping is all the more conspicuous. If FOX & Friends finds Rescue Me's inclusion of 911 Truth newsworthy enough to attack, one would think that an essay written by the actor in the center of the "controversy" would be a hot commodity; even if only to try and further condemn the movement or to make me look like a loony-tune. When you bring hard facts and credible references to the table, however, the modus operandi is BLACKOUT. And if you have no microphone, no camera, no platform...then you are shouting into a vacuum. Maddening. Frustrating. But not enough to deflate our firm intention to see justice done in this matter.^[6]

Filmography

References

External links

• Daniel Sunjata at the Internet Movie Database
• Daniel Sunjata at the Internet Broadway Database
• Philly
• Variety

Audio Interviews on 9/11:

• http://prisonplanet.com/audio/140407sunjata.mp3
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3444675507397031384&q=daniel+sunjata+mark+dice
• http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/911_truth_statement_from_daniel_sunjata.htm
• http://www.radiodujour.com/people/sunjata_daniel