"It's been a long time coming," Ruth Carter said at the Oscars on Sunday night after winning an award for best costume design for "Black Panther."

"Marvel may have created the first black superhero but through costume design we turned him into an African king," she said in her speech. Carter, who has been designing for film since her first gig working for Spike Lee's "School Daze" in 1988, thanked the director in her speech.

“I can't say enough about how the pageantry of the film has connected with people in such a beautiful way,” Carter told NBCBLK in March 2018. “People want to honor themselves, they want to honor culture, they want to honor Africa. They just want to be happy to be who they are, not trying to be something they aren't.”