Civil rights group plans Oscars protest over all-white nominees

African-American civil rights groups plan to protest outside Sunday’s Oscars show, where every single one of this year’s 20 acting nominees is white. The demonstration will revive debate about diversity at the Oscars-awarding Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, whose voting members are overwhelmingly white and with an average age in their 60s. Critics rounded on the Academy as soon as the nominations were announced last month, with all-white acting categories for the first time in nearly two decades: the last time was in 2011, and before that, 1998.

The goal of the protest is to send a message to the Academy, send a message to Hollywood, send a message to the film industry. And the message is very simple: you don’t reflect America, your industry doesn’t reflect America.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, head of the LA Urban Policy Roundtable group

Notable snubs included Britain’s David Oyelowo, widely tipped for playing Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma”. The film’s director Ava DuVernay, was also left out, although the movie is among eight picture nominees. Sunday’s diversity protest is planned for 2pm (2200 GMT), only minutes before Hollywood’s finest begin taking to the red carpet for the pre-show fashion parade, and barely three hours before curtain up on the 2015 Oscars.