BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY: HATTIE McDANIEL THE FIRST BLACK PERSON TO RECEIVE AN ACADEMY AWARD - "THE OSCAR"

Hattie McDaniel was born on 18th June 1895 in Wichita, Kansas, McDaniel was the youngest of thirteen children but brought up in Fort Collins and Denver Colorado.  It was there that she developed a natural flair for singing and the arts from her father Henry a Baptist Minister who played the banjo and performed in minstrel shows and her mother Susan Holbert who was a gospel singer.  By the time she was in High School McDaniel was singing, dancing and performing comedic skits professionally with her father's minstrel show troupe. Over the next fifteen years she developed her chops singing and dancing as a member of Professor George Morrison orchestra touring with his and other Vanderville troupe's

This allotted McDaniel the opportunity to perform on Denver's KOA Radio station in 1925 which made her one of the first Black Women to sing on radio. McDaniel talents soon took her to the West after her brother and sister Etta convinced her to move to Los Angeles where they managed to procure minor movie role for themselves. As you can imagine things were difficult for Black Hollywood actors at the time but she managed to survive by doing odd jobs in between major breaks like "Judge Priest" and "The Little Colonel" along side Shirley Temple. McDaniel experiences culminated February 29th 1940 when she left the world dumfounded after beating Geraldine Fitzgerald and others for best supporting actress honor for her role as "Mammy" in "Gone With The Wind" An Oscar .