The second actor Sheryl Lee Ralph’s name was called on Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards, her life was forever changed. And the second Ralph opened her mouth to sing (not speak) her acceptance of that historic award, she changed the life of five-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist Dianne Reeves a thousand miles away in Denver.

“I am an endangered species.

But I sing no victim’s song.

I am a woman. I am an artist.

And I know where my voice belongs.”

“Endangered Species” is a song from Reeves’ 1994 album “Art and Survival.” It’s about Reeves and her unsettled place at her record company at the time. It’s about women. It’s about sexual violence. It’s about reproductive rights and a woman’s ownership of her own body. And it is about to take on a whole new significance in the ongoing movement for social justice in America.

“This song will be the new anthem of many women effective tonight!” one viewer wrote overnight on a YouTube posting of Reeves’ song. And Reeves is over the moon about that.

“I haven’t slept since I found out,” she told the Denver Gazette. “That song has been under the surface for many years, and now, thanks to Sheryl, it’s out there. I would be very excited and very proud and very honored for that song to become a new anthem for women.”

Coincidentally, Reeves already had been considering making an updated recording of the song in the wake of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision striking down women’s abortion rights.

“With all that’s been happening lately, I said, ‘I think I need to do a new version of ‘Endangered Species,’” Reeves said. “And when Sheryl sang it last night, that was my answer from heaven saying: ‘Do it. Now.’ ”

Ralph, an accomplished actor in every medium, including Broadway turns in “Dreamgirls” and “Wicked,” became the first Black woman to win the Emmy Award as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 35 years for her performance as a veteran kindergarten teacher in the public-school comedy “Abbott Elementary.” She was visibly moved when her name was read, and she had to be helped to the podium to speak. But when she got there, she opened up like a blooming flower. Without speaking a word, Ralph dug Reeves’ lyrics up from her guts and released them into the rafters of the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. And, through the power of television and the internet, to every corner of the globe.

“To think that in that moment — her greatest moment, the moment that she has been waiting for, and working toward — Sheryl had the grace and generosity to empower and bless somebody else … oh my goodness, it gave me the chills,” Reeves said. “I am just so grateful.”

Reeves wasn’t home when the award was announced. My best friend called me, and my phone just blew up,” she said. “I rushed home and put on the TV, but I couldn’t find it. So I went to Twitter, and there it was.”

Reeves, who graduated from George Washington High School and studied classical voice at the University of Colorado Boulder, was 38 and already had released eight albums in 1994 when her Blue Note label moved to Capitol Records. “Now I wasn’t at a jazz label anymore,” Reeves said. “Capitol was more pop-oriented, and that just wasn’t who I was.

“So I said, ‘You know what? This next one might be my last record, so I am going to say everything I want to say on it.’”

She named that album “Art and Survival,” she said, “because that’s where I was at the time. I was trying to survive through my art.” If she was going out, she thought, she was going to go out with a song like “Endangered Species.”

“I wanted people to know who I am and how I think,” she said. “I wanted to be unapologetic about my songwriting choices and just sing what was in my heart.”

Though the song did not garner immediate popular success, “it did have a cult following,” Reeves said.

“If you go on YouTube, you can find European skaters using the song in competition,” she said. “When Hillary Clinton spoke at a big women’s conference in China in 1995, they opened the whole thing with that song. It’s also been featured on ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’ So, it’s been out there.”

Reeves met Ralph in the late 1990s after Ralph founded a nonprofit called Divas Simply Singing, which brings artists together to raise money for women’s health. Ralph had heard Reeves’ song and invited her to sing it at several fundraising events. “It was an incredible experience,” Reeves said. “I know how much that song means to Sheryl, and it has been with her ever since.”

Reeves is about to blow up anew on several other fronts. She has contributed vocals to the highly anticipated Viola Davis film “The Woman King,” opening Friday. And she is about to embark on her latest international tour that includes stops in London, Sweden, Spain, Portugal and New York’s Lincoln Center. She swears “Endangered Species” already was on the set list — but she knows fans will be expecting it now.

“I am glad that new people can hear what my music is about — because it really is about empowerment,” Reeves said. “Not just for women, but for everybody.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, staffers were still scrambling to put Ralph and Reeves together on a phone call. Asked what she wants to convey to Ralph, Reeves said: “I just want to thank her for being who she says she is — and doing all the things that she believes are right and good,” Reeves said. “I want to tell her how much she has changed my life in this moment.

“She could have chosen any song and I would have been powerfully moved, given the passion and the strength that she put into it. But the added extra that she chose my song? That just wore me out.”