CultureTechLens logoCULTURETECHLENS

“Culture, Clearly Seen.” Black Cultural Intelligence

Subscribe to CTL 10

Keith David

CTL-E-5835 · Person · other · 1956–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07091 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5835.

Keith David, born Keith David Williams on 4 June 1956 in Harlem, New York City, and raised in Corona, Queens, is an American actor and Juilliard graduate whose deep voice and screen presence have carried a career of more than four decades. On screen he is known for roles in The Thing (1982), Platoon (1986), They Live (1988) and the drama Greenleaf (2016–2020). As a voice actor he defined a generation of animated characters: Goliath, the lead gargoyle of Disney's Gargoyles (1994–1997), Al Simmons / Spawn in Todd McFarlane's Spawn (1997–1999), and Dr. Facilier, the villain of Disney's The Princess and the Frog (2009). The Television Academy records his Emmy win for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance as narrator of the Ken Burns documentary Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2005).

Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text

Keith David, born Keith David Williams on 4 June 1956 in Harlem, New York City, and raised in Corona, Queens, is an American actor and Juilliard graduate whose deep voice and screen presence have carried a career of more than four decades. On screen he is known for roles in The Thing (1982), Platoon (1986), They Live (1988) and the drama Greenleaf (2016–2020).

The record

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 8; 40-record packet). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Keith David entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5835 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 923 (Voice Actors list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black American actor and voice artist; Harlem-born, Juilliard-trained. Vital status: LIVING — honored with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star unveiled on his 70th birthday, 4 June 2026 (Los Angeles entertainment coverage, accessed 2026-10-16). STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Emmy winner for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance (2005) as narrator of Unforgivable Blackness (Television Academy); Goliath across 78 episodes of Gargoyles (1994–1997) — Television Academy/Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16. No Grammy claim is asserted: a GRAMMY.com artist page for this subject was not found in this session's search, so that anchor was not used. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and studio/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5835-keith-david.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings/performances are)

Sources

More person records

Browse the full directory: all entity records

Record CTL-E-5835 · Combined Graph record U-07091 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources.
Directory: all entity records · the knowledge graph

Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

Cite this record

Cite as: CultureTechLens, “Keith David (CTL-E-5835),” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5835/

Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Keith David (CTL-E-5835).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5835/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Keith David (CTL-E-5835) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5835/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Keith David (CTL-E-5835).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5835/

Citation guidance for teachers, journalists, and funders: How to Cite Us.

From the Archive

The archive in pictures

The people, places, and institutions this work documents. Photographs from the CultureTechLens research record — rights-cleared, credited, and cited like everything else here.

Apartment houses and funeral parlor in Negro section of Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLens
Apartment houses and funeral parlor in Negro section of Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLensPhoto: Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress
Children at the table in a kitchenette apartment, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLens
Children at the table in a kitchenette apartment, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLensPhoto: Russell Lee, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress
Children asleep in a kitchenette apartment, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLens
Children asleep in a kitchenette apartment, Chicago, 1941 — CultureTechLensPhoto: Russell Lee, FSA-OWI, Public Domain, via Library of Congress

Trust & evidence

Evidence before authority. CultureTechLens publishes its methods, its limits, and its corrections alongside its findings. Claims carry grades — VERIFIED, SUPPORTED, PROVISIONAL, DISPUTED, UNRESOLVED — and unknowns are never reported as zero.

Every claim graded. Every source named. Every correction public — see the corrections log.