Filmmaker Spike Lee was elated when BlacKkKlansman was announced as the Oscar winner for Adapted Screenplay at the 91st Academy Awards. He urged people to be "on the right side of history".

Lee paced towards the stage and hugged presenter Samuel L. Jackson in what was an effusive reaction to the award announcement. He paid a tribute to his grandmother -- whose mother was a slave -- and who lived to be 100 years old and was responsible for putting him through Morehouse College and New York University film school.