#WomanEmpowermentWednesday Hattie MacDaniel

• Chairman of the "Negro Division" of the Hollywood Victory Committee
• Performed with the USO
• Made personal appearances at military hospitals
• Performed at war bond rallies
• Member of American Women's Voluntary Services
• First African American Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actress, Gone With the Wind, 1939)
• First African American to sing on the radio (Professor George Morrison's Negro Orchestra, 1915)
• First African American to star in her own radio show
• While on set of "Gone With the Wind," pressured director Victor Fleming to take out all uses of the word n****r in the script
• Produced an all-female, all-black minstrel theater company that mocked popular black stereotypes 
• With acting wages, bought instruments for a low-income school to save their music program

Additional Sources

Hattie McDaniel winning Best Supporting Actress

The History Chicks Episode 50 Hattie McDaniel