7. Hattie McDaniel won an Oscar for Gone with the Wind
The first Black performer to win an Academy Award, Hattie McDaniel was denied the opportunity to attend the film’s 1939 premiere in Atlanta. Loew’s Grand Theater on Atlanta’s Peachtree Street followed the segregationist Jim Crow laws of the day, allowing only White patrons. When Clark Gable heard of McDaniel’s not being allowed to attend, he threatened to boycott the premiere. McDaniel intervened, persuading the star to attend the showing. For the Academy Awards held on February 29, 1940, McDaniel was seated at a segregated table, though her White agent joined her during the pre-ceremony dinner. In her acceptance speech, McDaniel said “I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry”.
McDaniel faced discrimination throughout her career, which included over 300 film appearances, blues and jazz recordings, and eventually television. In 1950 she became the first Black actor to play the lead role in a television series, ABC’s Beulah. Yet throughout her career, she faced criticism from Black leaders and organizations including the NAACP, condemning her for perpetuating Black stereotypes for personal gain. The NAACP, through Walter White, it’s then-president, accused her of being an agent of Black oppression. She endured the attacks, remaining completely apolitical throughout her career. When she died in 1952 Hollywood Cemetery, segregated at the time, refused to allow her to be buried there. In 1999 Hollywood Cemetery erected a cenotaph in her honor, though she remains interred at the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.