Posts Tagged ‘1940: Hattie McDaniel’s Stirring Academy Award Winning Speech As The First Black Oscar Winner’
1940: Hattie McDaniel’s Stirring Academy Award Winning Speech As The First Black Oscar Winner
ON February 29, 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award, winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for giving life to Mammy, the Gone with the Wind house servant. Fay Bainter heralded McDaniel by telling the audience that the gong “opens the doors of this room, moves back the walls, and enables us to embrace the whole of America….”
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