D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai, star of Reservation Dogs, made a powerful statement on the Emmys red carpet, pairing a standard black tuxedo with a bloody red handprint painted across his mouth. 

The 22-year-old actor is of Oji-Cree First Nations descent, and he was the first Indigenous North American to be nominated in the ceremony’s leading actor category. 

The red handprint across the mouth has become a symbol of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, which raises awareness regarding the Indigenous women who have gone missing and have been murdered across North America. 

The murder rate for women on reservations in the United States is 10 times higher than the national average, with murder even being the third leading cause of death for Native women. 

The government officially launched a national inquiry into the missing and murdered women and girls in 2016, citing these atrocities as “race-based genocide.” Amnesty International has also said that the number of those murdered or missing amounts to a “genocidal crisis.” 

Regarding the handprint symbol, Woon-A-Tai shared a photo from the red carpet on his Istagram writing, “I did this for those who ain’t here, not 4 me, not 4 y’all.”