Black History Fact #27: Hattie McDaniel

What's going on, everybody. Welcome to another episode of a day with crime, black history fact edition. Of course I am your man, David. Let's jump in. 

 So today we are going to talk about Hattie McDaniel.

She was the first African-American to win an Oscar, but she was not allowed to attend the, gone with the wind national premiere. So I had him and Daniel was able to carve out a piece. Had him today was able to carve out a place for herself in Hollywood, despite rampant racism in a consignment to bid. [00:01:00] She paved the way for many African American women, but not without her fair share of obstacles, her performances as mammy and gone with the wind, which was in 1939, won her best supporting actress at the Oscars that year.

However, the national movie premiere was in Atlanta because of George's Jim Crow laws. She was prohibited from attending the. Had he went on to star in over 300 films was inducted into the black filmmakers hall of fame in 2006 and was the first Oscar winner to appear on a postage stamp. Despite her ultimate success, her choices in so far as she had any in roles were often criticized.

The NAACP was stands for the national association for the advancement of color. Said Hollywood's roles for African-Americans or narrowed for servants or character whose main purpose was being comically slow in Dem with it. Hattie was [00:02:00] criticized for selling for Hattie was criticized for settling for lesser roles than her white colleagues.

Despite this had, he went on to have a stellar career. And when she was inducted or when she got her Oscar, I should say. Here's the speech that she gave academy of motion, picture arts and sciences, fellow members of the motion, picture industry and honored guests. This is one of the happiest moments of my life.

And I want to thank each one of start over academy of motion, picture arts and sciences, fellow members of the motion, picture industry and honored guests. This is one of the happiest moments of my life, and I want to thank each one of who had a part in selecting me for one of their. For your kindness that has made me feel very, very humble.

And I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything that I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry. My heart is too full [00:03:00] to tell you just how I feel. And may I say thank you and God bless. So let's talk about Hattie McDaniel for a minute.

So yes, she won the first Oscar. So it was the first African-American ever to win an Oscar for a movie, which was gone with the wind. That was very controversial, especially now with everything that's happened in 2020, there's been some controversy behind gone with the wind because of what, you know, the content of the movie and the time it was shot and all that good stuff.

Um, but she did pay, play Mamie in the movie. Uh, so she was born June 10th, 1893, and she did pass away October 26th, 1952. Again, she won for the best supporting actress, um, in the movie and she became the first African-American to. In addition to acting in the, go with the wind. She recorded 16 blues sides between 1926 and 19 27, [00:04:00] 10 were issued and was a radio performer and television star.

And she was the first black woman to sing on radio in the United States. So blue sys records as what we would know them as today, she appeared in over 300 films. Although she received screen credits for only 83. And countering racism and racial segregation throughout her career McDaniel was unable to attend the premiere of gone with the wind in Atlanta, because it was held at a whites only theater.

And at the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, she sat at a segregated table at the side of the room, the ambassador hotel, where the ceremony was held was for whites only, but allowed McDaniel in as a favor. And when she died in 1952, her final wish to be buried in Hollywood cemetery was denied. Because the graveyard was restricted to whites only.

Now look at that today. You know, that's very different. There's all kinds of black people were probably buried in Hollywood cemetery at this moment, but [00:05:00] back then you couldn't do it. And even though she is winning this high honor, the first one of her race to do it, she was still shunned and not for a favor.

So that may had to be, they never say who the favorite was. But of course it had to be a favor for somebody who was white obviously, and who had, you know, some kind of high clout to be able to get her in there, to sit at the back of a table by herself, still segregated, but she did get that award. McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood walk of fame in Hollywood.

One is located at 69 and 33 Hollywood Boulevard for her contributions to radio and one at 17, 19 vine street for acting in motion. She was inducted into the black filmmakers hall of fame in 1975. And in 2006, she became the first black Oscar winner honored with a U S postage stamp in 2010. She was inducted into the Colorado women's hall of fame living on her early [00:06:00] life.

She was the youngest of 13 children. She was born in Denver in 1893 to formerly enslaved parents in Wichita, Kansas, her mother, Susan Holbert. I was born in 1850 and passed in 1920 was a singer of gospel music and her father, Henry McDaniel, 1845 to 1922. He fought in the civil war with the 122nd United States colored troops in 1900.

The family moved to Colorado living first in Fort Collins, and then in Denver, where he attended Denver east high school from 1908 to 19. And in 1908 into the contest sponsored by the women's Christian temperance union reciting convict Joe later claiming she had won first place. Her brother, Sam McDaniel, 1886 and 1962 played the Butler in the 19 48, 3 Stooges short film, heavenly days.

And her sister Etta McDaniel was also an actress.[00:07:00] 

So, what did she have to go through? You know, if you wonder, you know, to go with gone with the wind now, back in those days, like, I think I said earlier, yes, there was a whole entire thing where black people, and even, I would say even up until like sometimes in the eighties, um, black people was only cast for certain parts.

Pimps and hookers and drug dealers and things of that nature. It got to a point to where Robert Townsend even wrote a movie called Hollywood shuffle. And if you ever saw that movie is about all of the parts that black people always, always will be put into. And at the end, he says, there's always work at the post office.

What he meant by that is he would rather work at the post office then the mean himself, his race and his talent to take on one of these roles that are stereotypes. So I've already going to go with the wind as the competition to win the part of mammy and gone with the wind was almost as fierce as that for Scarlet O'Hara.[00:08:00] 

First lady, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote to film producer David O Selznick to ask that her own mate Elizabeth McDuffie be given the part McDaniel did not think she would be chosen because she had earned her reputation as a comic actress. And one source claimed that Clark Gable recommended that the role be given to.

In any case, she went to her audition, dressed in an authentic maid's uniform and won the part upon hearing of the plan, film adaptation, the national association for the advancement of colored people, also known as the NAACP fought hard to require the film's producer and director to delete racial epithets from the movie.

In particular, your offensive slur nigger, and to alter scenes that might be incinerary. And that in their view were historically inaccurate of particular concern was a scene from the novel in which black men attack Scarlet O'Hara after which the KU Klux Klan with his long history of [00:09:00] provoking terror on black communities is presented as a savior.

The wealth of south black men were being lynched based upon false allegations. They had harmed white. That attack scene was altered and some offensive lingers was modified, but another epitaph Darcie remained in the film and the film, his message, but respect to slavery remained essentially the same consistent with the book.

The film screenplay also referred to poor whites as white trash. And to describe these words equally to characters black and white. Lowe's grand theater on Peachtree street in Atlanta. Georgia was selected by the studio as the site for the Friday, December 15th, 1939. Premier have gone with the wind and studio head.

David O Selznick asked that McDaniel be permitted to attend, but MGM advised him not to because of Georgia segregation, laws, Clark Gable threatened to boycott the Atlanta [00:10:00] premiere, unless McDaniel were allowed to attend. But McDaniel convinced him to attend anyway, so there you have it. That's how she got in park Gable.

Wasn't having it. He was going to not attend. And then, you know, we have David sales, Nick who asked for her to come in and then that kind of rings a little bit true. If you guys go back to when, uh, Jamie Fox one, his Oscar for. I can't remember all the movies up against that time. But long story short is that there was kind of like some noise about that too, because clearly in that year, Ray was the best movie and Jamie Fox gave the best acting job of any of the films he was up against.

And I'm not saying that because he was black. I'm saying that because it was true. I don't care what color he was. I would tell you the same thing. If you guys ever studied what he went through in that. I mean, he actually walked around his house for almost a year blind, just so he can authentically play Ray.

Well, they wasn't going to give it to him because if you guys don't know [00:11:00] this, it is true. And it's still true to this day. The Oscars is a heavily, heavily racist to a lot of degrees. Uh, and I know he was going to say, oh, you know, you got so many blacks in there. I don't have the number in front of me, but we have less than what 18.

And if you look at all of the prominent actor and actresses that are African-American, that should be in there. We should have a whole lot more people that are black that's in the Oscars. That's why a lot of African-Americans don't pay attention to the Oscars. Um, they don't really care about it cause they don't feel like it has anything to benefit them because you see the same thing over and over and over again.

Well, they were going to. The other actors who were white, who were up for the award, pretty much said that they were boycotted. If they did not give Jamie Fox, the well-deserved Oscar that he had already earned. So even though this happened way back, you know, in the thirties and fifties, uh, it still continued on up until now.[00:12:00] 

So most of Atlanta is 300,000 citizens crowded the route of the seven mile, which is 11 kilometers motorcade that carried the films, other stars and executives from the airport to the Georgian terrace hotel, where they stayed while Jim Crow laws kept McDaniel from the Atlanta premiere. She did attend the films, Hollywood debut on December 20th, 1939.

And upon sales Nick's insistence, her picture was also featured prominently in the pro. So she wasn't even going to get any kind of recognition as far as her picture being on the program. Name of marquee, none of that, even though she's worked for that Oscar for her performance as the house slave who repeatedly skulls her owner's daughter Scarlet O'Hara played by Vivian Lee and scoffs at Rhett Butler played by Clark Gable.

McDaniel won the 1939 academy award for best supporting actress and the first black actors that have been nominated and winning. I loved mammy McDaniel said when speaking to the white press about the character, I think I understood her because my own grandmother [00:13:00] worked on the plantation. Not unlike Tara, her role in gone with the wind had alarm some whites in the south.

There were complaints that in the film, she had been too familiar with her white owners. At least one writer pointed out that McDaniel's character did not significantly depart from Mamie's persona and Margaret Mitchell's. And that in both the film and the book, the much younger Scarlet speaks to Mami in ways that would be deemed inappropriate for Southern teenager of that era to speak to a much older white person and that neither the book, nor the film hints of the existence of Miami's own children, dead or alive, her own family, dead or alive or real name or her desires to have anything other than a life at Tara serving on a slave planet.

Moreover while Mamie skulls, the younger Scarlet, she never crosses. Mrs. O'Hara the more senior white woman in the household. Some critics felt that McDaniel not only accepted the roles, but also in her statements [00:14:00] to the press AqueSys in Hollywood stereotypes, providing fuel for critics of those who were fighting for black civil rights later, when McDaniel tried to take her mammy character on a road show, black audiences did not prove receptive.

And it says while many black people were happy over in Daniel's personal victory. They also viewed it as bittersweet. They believe gone with the wind, celebrated the slave system and condemned with the forces that destroyed it for them, that unique oxalate McDaniel had one and suggested that only those who did not protest Hollywood's systemic use of racial stereotypes could find work and success there.

So my kind of think on is yes. I know a lot of African-Americans kind of got down on her case and said, you're just taking the roles of the white people's giving you. But back in those days, it's not like she had a lot of choice. As you heard me say earlier, she did 300 films, but only got credit for 89 of the 300, which she did.

That's just how it was. Yes, I do believe that the [00:15:00] role of mammy was glorifying racism as well as slavery. Yes, it is a movie that my mom actually liked because it had Clark Gable. But as we sat down to watch that as a child, she also pointed out to me where all the wrongs were and where all the stereotypes were were, were being display.

HBO, who I believe owns the rights to the film, pulled the film in 2020, and everybody had a fit because after the murder of George Floyd and everything else that was going on in the world, as you guys already know. The word council culture was born and that's when a lot of things was coming down and going around and rename well, HBO, I think it was pulled, gone with the wind and stated that it would be back instead.

It would be back, but they wanted to right. Some wrongs without changing the movie, they wanted to kind of give you some dialogue of what they felt was wrong with the film and words and things of that nature. So being that we're talking about, [00:16:00] that I will tell you flat out, I don't know if I believe a hundred percent with council culture.

Cause it does erase history. I think that we need that there so that we can sit down with our children and say, this is why the world is what it is. You know, if we tell our children that, Hey, there's this a Confederate general and this is what he stood for, but there is nothing to prove of that. Um, they're going to have a hard time reliving the history or knowing what the history is and I'll point it out flat out, nobody who was black ass for counseling.

Okay. I can get tired of hearing. Well, the black people wanted this change. You have not heard one black person and set up and go, we want this torn down. We want you to be named bans. What'd you do all of this because what we never said that we have asked in the past. Okay. In the past years ago, we've asked for things like ancient mamma to be changed.

And all they did was they took off her red checkered outfit and they gave her a big old Afro. So it was the same thing. So as African-American. We pretty much understand that no matter if we want something to change, it's never going to change because they're not willing to change it. And so we just move on [00:17:00] this council culture was a thing that you guys are seeing pretty much, because I think that finally, uh, like some, one of my friends said in 2020, everybody got to sit at home and they watched a man die and they had to be confronted with racism, head on, like, he was never before.

And so I think that that's why council culture to place. And I'm glad that had him. He dang is where she is, because I believe it wasn't for her. And she never won that Oscar. Then the few blacks that we do have in the academy right now would have never been able to get where they're going. What?

Okay. I don't have it. I'll tell everybody not to mess with me.

Yeah, I'll be out[00:18:00] 

and I can look up.

And so due to what she went through, you know, it did give us a slew of black actors and that justice, you know, Sidney Portier was the second black act, a black actor to win an Oscar in 1963. Um, well, actually he went to 58 and the 63, you want one for the defined ones and more one for lilies of the field.

You know, James Earl Jones, Paul Winfield, Dexter Gordon Morgan Freeman. There's a Washington Lauren's first burn, but look at the gear gaps. 58 63. Uh, both of those was Sidney Portier [00:19:00] 1970 was James Earl Jones in 72 was Paul Winfield. Another black didn't win again until 86, which was Dexter Gordon, then 89 from working.

And then Denzel Washington, and finally got his in 1992 from Malcolm X, another role that could not be denied then when it comes to another woman, you know, it was 54 in Dorothy Dandridge one, you know, after she did so. And I'll leave you guys a list of all of the problems that African Americans that did win or was nominated because all of them would, did not win.

So I don't want you guys to understand people's like, well, you're a whole lot. It was, it was nominated, nominated. This is not the same as one. If I was to count for you.

So about 19 solves one off 19, maybe 21 at academy war. Cause the last one was for Peter Ramsey in 2018, who did a Spider-Man however, [00:20:00] uh, still we have about 19, uh, 19 African-American actors and actresses. Versus the slew of African-American actors and actresses that we currently do have that I feel should have won an Oscar way by now.

All right. So the sad thing is, is now they cannot find where her Oscar is. So it says the whereabouts of McDaniel's Oscar are currently unknown. In 1992 jet magazine reported at Howard university could not find it and alleged that it had disappeared during protests in the 1960s in 1998, Harvard in 1998, Howard university stated that it could find no written record of the Oscar having arrived at.

In 2007, an article in the Huffington post repeated rumors of the Oscar had been cast into the Potomac river by angry civil rights protestors in the 1960s, the assertion reappeared and [00:21:00] the hover dimples under the same byline in 2009 in 2010, Monique, the one of the Oscar for best supporting actress and pressure's wearing a blue dress and gardenias and her hair as McDaniel had at the ceremony in 1900.

I mean her acceptance speech, state, McDaniel for doing all that she had to so that I would not have to her speech revived interest in the whereabouts of McDaniels, Oscar in November, 2011, WB Carter of the George Washington university law school published the results of her year and a half long investigation into the Oscars.

Carter rejected claims that students had stolen the Oscar and thrown it into the Potomac river as wild speculation or fabrication that traded on long perpetrated stereotypes of blacks. She questioned the sourcing of the husband and post stories. And instead she argued that the Oscar had lightly been returned to how universities channel.[00:22:00] 

She questioned the sourcing of the hovered and post stories. And instead she argued that the Oscar had likely been returned. To Howard university's chaining Pawlak theater collection between the spring of 1971 in the summer of 1973, or have possibly been boxed and stored in the drama department at the time, the reason for his removal, she argued was not civil rights on arrest, but rather efforts to make room for a new generation of black performers.

If neither the Oscar nor any paper trail of his ultimate destiny can be found at Howard today. She suggested inadequate storage or record keeping in a time of financial constraints and national turbulence, maybe blame. She also suggested that the new generation of caretakers may have failed to realize the historic significance of the award.

So then you guys have it. That is pretty much Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to ever win an art. [00:23:00] And it was not allowed to go to the premiere. And this happened throughout a lot of the history of African-Americans. If you guys are a big comedy fans and you guys watched things like Steve Harvey, Steve Harvey has talked about not being able to just perform in certain places because he was black.

Um, and how hard it was for him to come up to where he is now. So, unfortunately this still goes on today, but. Well, he wanted to pay homage and think Hattie McDaniel for all of the things that she went through and did and sacrificed so that she would pave the way for other African-Americans to follow in her footsteps.

 all right, guys that does with this. And I thank you for tuning in to yet another black history fact here. Join me tomorrow, I have another one for you. 

As always need to get ahold of us, feel free to drop a line. At a day with crime@gmail.com. [00:24:00] Also, don't forget to visit the website, www.adaywithcrime.com. It is your one stop shop for everything that is a day with crime. Alright guys, as always be safe all there and be good to yourself. and each other. And I'm going to catch you guys on the next one.