When I was fourteen years old, I traveled to North Carolina with my mother to her hometown of Greensboro and experienced a kind of racism that gave me a serious wake-up call about discrimination. I was angry, confused and hurt that we could have been arrested just for shopping like normal people and the experience still affects me. This was in 1968, the same year that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and I felt strong in my blackness because of the achievements of the civil rights movement that took place during this time. At this Five and Dime discount store, as I browsed and touched things, a white clerk followed me and my mother warned me not to put the hat she was looking at on my head.
Defiantly fourteen years old and coming from Ohio, where white people were a bit more subtle with their racist attitudes, I felt the injustice of that moment and walked out of the store before he had us arrested. Outside the store, I decided to take a drink from the public fountain until I noticed that the fountains were marked separately as “Whites” and “colors.” The white fountain was cooled by electricity but the Colored fountain was a small porcelain fountain with warm water. This was traumatic for my young revolutionary spirit, which had been slowly strengthening and developing as he learned more about himself in a climate of social injustice. The examples of self-pride and strength were the people in my family and the community around me, both the men and women who raised me taught me to be proud of who I am as an African American.
African-American women in my formative years were portrayed in low-key roles that didn’t stand out. Influenced by the traditionalism of the 1950s, the images we saw on television and in the movies consisted of black women as a bitch, housekeeper, maid or mommy and as slaves or bare-breasted Indians in the Tarzan movies.
Fortunately, the women in my life were strong, educated, and challenged those stereotypes of a black girl to seek other definitions of my femininity. The earliest film and television images of women of color were censored portrayals of talented actors who were suppressed due to racism. Artists like Nina Mae McKinney, Fredi Washington, Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne broke industry barriers to make it possible for us to witness today’s talent.
Consistently, black women appeared in roles as caretakers and servants to their white counterparts because white actors could not be upstaged. Many blacks had to reject their own blackness and compromise the creative integrity of their acting skills because the images they were allowed to portray were controlled by studio heads who were white at the time.
Nina Mae McKinney (b. 1912 – d. 1967) was the first black movie star and actress in Hollywood, but we know nothing about her. She has paid full attention to the industry picks as her favorites.
Fredi Washington, (b. 1903-d. 1994), a woman with very light skin and light eyes, was not liked by blacks or whites even though she was actually a black woman. Because she didn’t look black enough, Hollywood directors often encouraged her to pass as white so they could make her a bigger star. Her most significant role was the movie “Imitation of Life” in which she played a black woman posing as white.
Dorothy Dandridge, (b. 1924 – d. 1965) appeared in films from 1930 to late 1962, was born during the depression era in the United States, was the first black actress nominated, and received an Academy Award for Carmen Jones in 1954.
Although we did not have cable during that time, movies and television were a prominent channel of entertainment and a powerful method of influencing the belief system of black people. Representing their race during the 1950s and 1960s was extremely important to black actors because of how racism was reflected and reinforced on television and on the big screen.
The November issue of Ebony Magazine features the stars of the movie due out this month called “The Secret Life of Bees” in an article by Lynn Norment that looks at how the actresses connected the past events of the fight for the civil rights with current American history. This is why this magazine is about connection, because it is through connection that we learn to broaden our understanding of life. The connection to the achievements of our predecessors is the key to making sense of the historical events taking place today. It is important that we are aware of our history and the role of the people whose determination and tenacity opened the door for us on television and film to express ourselves in the many ways we do today.
During the filming of the film, director Gina Prince-Blythwood chose to immerse two of the actresses in a real situation of racism to make them aware of the climate of the time. The story takes place in 1964 during a time of openly demonstrated racial and social hatred. Exposing the actors to this experience allowed them to feel real discrimination. No one can describe it to you and give you an accurate account of how deeply it hurts. I felt completely bereft because part of me wanted to fight and another part of me wanted to scream out loud when I was fourteen in that North Carolina store 40 years ago. Today the same attitudes appear every day in the media. There is so much social injustice today, we still have a lot of work to do, but I am grateful that films like this show us today the connection with the past and the present.
I am also grateful to women of color who were brave enough not to give up or give in when told they were not good enough or talented enough to represent their race. The grace and determination they demonstrated is the force that fuels and motivates us today. Give thanks for the ancestors on whose shoulders we stand, Ashe’, Ashe’, Ashe’.