In the early days of Hollywood, black actors were scarce or non-existent.
Some early Hollywood movies would simply use white actors in black face over hiring black. The earliest filmed version of “Uncle Tom”, in 1903, had an all-white cast, all in black face, playing the major parts with black people used only as extras.
In 1929, the first Hollywood film with an all-black cast, “Hearts in Dixie” was released.
It featured the first star black actor, the controversial Stephin Fetchit.
Fetchit gained his fame and fortune by playing “the laziest man in the world” in films.
This perpetuated the Coon stereotype that black people were lazy, unintelligent and spoke poorly.
Many blacks fought to break down these stereotypes according to Jerry Anderson, a ULM history professor.
“Early motion pictures generally depicted African Americans in a way that reflected whites’ stereotypes of them,” Anderson said. “Around the 1920s, however, black filmmakers became increasingly prominent and actively attacked the depiction of African Americans in mainstream motion pictures,” Anderson said. “Though the effects were limited at the time, their efforts did help mute the expression of racism in film. One result was that the broader society came to see African Americans as actors in their own right.”
Hattie McDaniel, one of Fetchit’s co-workers, starred in a famous movie that rewarded her for fighting stereotypes in 1939.
“One expression of this shift was Gone with the Wind, an admiring depiction of the South. Though later generations of historians have faulted the film for depicting a southern viewpoint on the Civil War and slavery, it included a serious black character in the form of Mammy,” Anderson said. “Hattie McDaniel, the actress who played Mammy, went on to win an Academy Award for the role. She was the first African American to do so.”
In 1963, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Academy Award for “Best Actor in a Leading Role” for his portrayal of Homer Smith in “The Lilies of the Field.” Poitier impacted Hollywood in a major way according to Terry Jones, a ULM history professor.
According to Jones, the movie helped break down racial barriers in film. In this movie, Poiter’s character marries a white woman and meets her family for the first time.
“I think Sidney Poitier is one of the most important black actors in history. I was a teenager when his movie ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’ came out in 1967. My high school was still segregated at the time, and Jim Crow laws were rigidly enforced in much of the country,” said Jones.
