Tamara Tunie waited 39 years for her first Emmy. She won it for a daytime show about a Black family.

Tamara Tunie waited 39 years after her first soap opera role for her first Emmy, and she won it for the show that finally put a Black family at the center of daytime. On Oct. 30 at the Hollywood Palladium, she took the Daytime Emmy for outstanding lead performer in a drama series for CBS’s “Beyond the Gates.”

She is only the second Black actress to win the category, after Mishael Morgan in 2022, in an awards history that runs 53 years. This year was also the first time two Black actresses were nominated in it together: Tunie and her co-star Karla Mosley, who play on the same show. They beat Stacy Haiduk, Michelle Stafford and Heather Tom.

Tunie made her daytime debut in 1987 on “As the World Turns” and left the genre in 2009. She came back after 17 years away. “My heart is so full right now,” she said on stage. “This is the best welcome back to daytime ever.” Then she named the women before her: “There is a host of Black actresses who paved the way for me.”

“Beyond the Gates” follows an affluent Black family, a premise daytime drama avoided for most of its history. In its first year of eligibility it drew 15 nominations and won four awards, including emerging talent for Ambyr Michelle. Tunie plays Anita Williams Dupree.

The night was bigger than one show. Tracee Ellis Ross won outstanding travel and adventure program for “Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross,” her first Emmy after five Primetime nominations. Keke Palmer won outstanding daytime short-form program for “Glam Through the Ages,” which she co-created and executive produced, her first Daytime Emmy. Star Jones won outstanding daytime personality, daily, for “Divorce Court,” after 14 nominations.

Count those numbers again. Jones was nominated 14 times before she won. Ross needed five Primetime nominations before this one. Tunie needed four decades. These women were never short of talent. The industry was slow to put them in front of voters, and slow to build a show where a Black matriarch could carry the lead.

The fix is not complicated, and “Beyond the Gates” is the proof. Networks should keep commissioning series built around Black families and give them the same patience and promotion that soaps with decades of history get. The Emmys followed the work this time. Next season will show whether the networks do the same.