Hazel Scott

 

Possibly one of the most famous and highest-paid Black entertainers during 1940 was a woman. During a time when women had little respect and when black women had even fewer amounts of respect. She was a woman that had enough power to include in her contract that she would not perform in segregated crowds, she would not play a maid or mammy during a time when that was the only role for black women, and she even became the first African American to have her 15-minute television show. Yet this women’s name isn’t a household name she isn’t as well-known as Duke Ellington or Marilyn Monroe. Hazel Scott is the embodiment of black excellence, yet she is not remembered or celebrated as much as she should be.

Hazel started by being accepted into the Julliard school of the arts at the young age of 8 where she began to hone her musical talent. After school, Scott began performing professionally for her mom’s band and then began performing around the city in ballrooms, radio shows, and on Broadway. It wasn’t until 1939 that she began performing at Café Society a place where both Black and White people could go to listen to music equally without any type of segregation. Hazel impressed her audience with her style of playing, it was described as classical music that easily flowed into improvised classical. This made Hazel become the club’s headliner, but she refused to stop there.

Hazel moved on to movies signing with RKO, but Hazel refused to let her big break into fame be her playing the stereotypical maid or mammy. Hazel only played in movies as herself and demanded she is paid equally to her white counterparts. Some of the movies she played in were I DooD it, the Heat’s On, Broadway rhythm, and Rhapsody in Blue. In each of these roles, Hazel Scott played herself, playing the piano as a respectable young black woman.

While Hazel’s movie career did not last long, she still became a huge activist and superstar in many black households. Before Hazel Scott, a respectable black woman had never been seen on screen before let alone the actor behind that woman is being paid the same amount as their white counterparts. This caught the eye of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. one of the first Black congressmen. Hazel’s life became so intriguing she earned her very own television show the Hazel Scott show airing 15 minutes on television.

However, before everything Hazel was Black, she never sacrificed anything to get to where she wanted to be. She stated, “I've always known I was gifted, which is not the easiest thing in the world for a person to know, because you're not responsible for your gift, only for what you do with it.” Hazel knew she had a gift, and she was going to use her gift to break down as many barriers as possible. Unfortunately, in a world that believed that untalented white men were superior, standing up to oppression was Hazel's downfall. She was made out to be a communist supporter and her channel was listed as a red channel.

Hazel is not talked about today because she accomplished the American dream in without conforming to what white society wanted her to be. Hazel stood for something, she showed African Americans that they too could achieve the American dream and they could demand to be treated equally therefore she had to be stopped.

 

Additional Links 

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/hazel-scott 

https://www.thehazelscott.com/filmography

https://www.washingtonpost.com/theater-dance/2022/10/13/hazel-scott-jazz-pianist-mccarthy-huac/