Double Victory

by Cheryl Mullenbach

  Lolita Espadron looked forward to going back home to New Orleans after the war. Even though it is known as a city with terrific food, fabulous music, and plenty of lively nightclubs, all Lolita wanted was to spend some quiet evenings at home listening to her radio. It wasn’t that she didn’t like socializing with her friends at clubs. But Lolita had filled an unusual role with the Red Cross in Sydney, Australia. After working her usual eight-hour day at the Booker T. Washington Red Cross Club, she organized outings for groups of servicemen and -women to nightclubs in the city. Most of the clubs that served black servicemen reserved a table for Lolita and her group of war-weary soldiers who were looking for a break from the fighting. Lolita was just the “organizer”—the soldiers brought their girlfriends. Everybody looked forward to an evening of good music, great dancing, and a meal that wasn’t in the mess hall.

  Lolita commented at the end of the war that she never knew going to nightclubs could be work. Many nights after working her long shift at the Red Cross club all she wanted to do was go to her room and relax, but she didn’t want to let the fun-seeking soldiers and their girls down. By the end of her duty in Australia, Lolita had had her fill of the nightlife. She looked forward to returning to New Orleans to take up her old job as a social worker. But she did spend a little time wondering if she would be satisfied with her social work after the “glitter and glare” of the night life in Sydney. “I wonder how I’ll fit in,” she said about her return to the postwar world.

  Backing the Attack for Democracy

  Segregation and discrimination were part of American life in the 1940s. It was a time when black people were intentionally excluded from civic organizations and government programs. It was a time when black people were forced to sit in separate sections of buses, trains, and public buildings. It was a time when black people were told their blood was inferior to white people’s blood. Segregation and discrimination were two evils of American society in the 1940s. Most white Americans accepted and didn’t question the racism that existed.

  It was also an unusual time. The country was at war with forces that threatened the ideals of democracy. Many Americans feared their way of life was in danger. And when the country went to war, many Americans volunteered to help win the war and preserve their way of life.

  Thousands of black women who had been victims of segregation and discrimination volunteered to serve their country in a variety of ways. Many of them were treated cruelly in return. Five black entertainers who volunteered to entertain American servicemen at a camp in Arizona were forced to sit up all night on a train because the rail company refused to give them sleeping berths. Marie K. Clarke volunteered to join a nurse aide class and was told she wasn’t needed because she was black. Gabriel Jones and Ellise Davis volunteered to donate blood and learned it would be labeled “Negro blood.” And Mildred McAdory volunteered to organize a scrap drive only to end her day bruised and in a roach-infested jail cell.

  Why did these women, and so many others like them, volunteer to serve a country that tolerated segregation and discrimination? The black Red Cross volunteers who took the pledge of nurse aides hoped to make a “contribution to civilian defense and to suffering humanity.” Eva White, the mother of six who volunteered as a nurse aide when her children were in school, said she got great satisfaction knowing that she was doing something for her country. Henrine Ward, who served with the Red Cross in England and France, said she wanted to “make our colored warriors comfortable” when they were 3,000 miles from home. Hazel Payne, nicknamed the First Lady of the Alcan, said she volunteered because “this democracy is worth fighting for.”

  5

  ENTERTAINERS

  “We Don’t Take Your Kind”

  We don’t take Negroes here. —Hotel clerk in Ohio

  I’m sorry, we don’t take your kind.

  —Hotel manager in Washington, DC

  You’ll have to eat in the kitchen. —Waitress in Missouri

  All across the United States in the 1940s black citizens met with discrimination when they tried to stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. It meant that black people planned ahead when they took trips. Travelers prepared sack lunches at home so they wouldn’t have to face the possibility of being turned down for service in a restaurant. Friends and relatives were contacted along the route to provide overnight lodging for travelers. And it didn’t make a difference if the traveler happened to be one of the most well-known and talented entertainers of the time or that she had raised thousands of dollars for the war effort.

  By the fall of 1945, when Hazel Scott entered a café in central Missouri and was told she’d have to eat in the kitchen, she had won acclaim as a Broadway performer and Hollywood film star. Trained as a classical pianist by a Juilliard teacher, she had made a name for herself by “swinging the classics”—uniquely blending classical music with jazz in her performances: Beethoven with Basie, Tchaikovsky with jive, Chopin with boogie-woogie. She said she just couldn’t resist the temptation to jazz up her classics. And she did it with such success that audiences couldn’t resist her. She reportedly made $5,000 a week and dined at New York hot spots such as Sardi’s and El Morocco.

  Hazel’s star status granted her access to some of the best restaurants in the country. But for those out-of-the-way roadside diners where the workers didn’t recognize her, Hazel was just another “colored” trying to eat with whites.

  It was while she was on her way to a performance in St. Louis, Missouri, in October 1945 that Hazel and her companions entered a small café along the way. When she approached the counter and asked for service, the waitress said, “You’ll have to eat in the kitchen.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t eat in kitchens,” Hazel replied.

  When Hazel asked if she could get some sandwiches to take out, she was told she could but that she couldn’t stand at the counter to wait for them. Hazel Scott, a star of stage and screen, remained at the counter as she waited for her food.

  Later someone asked Hazel why she didn’t identify herself to the café workers—surely she would have been served if they had known who she was. Hazel explained, “I don’t want any special privileges. There are 13 million Hazel Scotts in America. They just don’t play the piano.”

  Star Power

  Throughout the war years, Hazel Scott made valuable contributions to the war effort. It wasn’t unusual for her to make as many as five benefit performances for wounded servicemen in a week. And she visited hospitals that others chose to forget. “I have played in many tropical disease wards where the fellows are so badly mangled that screens are kept in front of them,” Hazel said. “I know I’m using what talent I have to do something for America and my people too.”

  In January 1942, Hazel performed in a show titled “Salute to Colored Troops” where she helped raise funds for a recreation center for servicemen and -women in New York. Although she could command a lucrative sum for her appearances, Hazel refused to take any money for her work. Later in the same year Hazel performed at a “monster bond rally”—called “Win the War”—in Carnegie Hall in New York. Early in 1943, Hazel volunteered again in a Carnegie Hall concert—this time to raise funds to help an ally of the United States. Five hundred seats were reserved for anyone who brought a watch in good working condition. The donated watches were sent to the Soviet Union for army officers, soldiers, doctors, and nurses at the front. In February 1944, Hazel performed in the “Million Dollar War Bond Show” at the Roxy Theater in New York. And on July 4, 1944, at Lewisohn Stadium in New York, Hazel took part in a four-hour-long bond rally that required anyone who wanted to attend to purchase a war bond.

  Hazel Scott was one of thousands of entertainers who used their star power to help win the war. Musicians, singers, dancers, actors, and comedians were eager to do their part to support the war. Many famous Hollywood stars helped raise money for the war by participating in war bond rallies. Providing soldiers with wholesome entertainment was a major part of the war effort. The nation’s
leaders knew it was important to provide US soldiers with uniforms, food, weapons, and ammunition, but they also recognized it was important to keep morale high. One way to do that was to give soldiers opportunities to rest, relax, and forget the war for a short time. President Franklin Roosevelt understood the importance of entertainers to the war effort when he said, “Entertainment is always a national asset; invaluable in time of peace, it is indispensable in wartime.”

  Chairwoman of the Hollywood Victory Committee’s Negro Division Hattie McDaniel (center) takes time off from rehearsals to lead a caravan of entertainers and USO hostesses for a performance and dance for soldiers stationed at Minter Field in Southern California. National Archives, AFRO/AM in WW II List #216

  In April 1942 some Hollywood stars formed the Hollywood Victory Committee. Members of the committee pledged to provide support for the war through appearances at bond rallies and through performances at military training camps and hospitals. Big-name stars joined the group—Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Dale Evans. Some entertainers volunteered their time—others were paid. But the Hollywood Victory Committee segregated the black entertainers in the organization.

  A black actress named Hattie McDaniel was selected to head up the “Negro talent” for the black Hollywood Victory Committee. Hattie encouraged other black entertainers to join the committee, and together they coordinated the work of black performers who did their part for the war effort through radio broadcasts and live appearances. Hattie not only organized, she also performed at camps at least once a week. Hattie’s work helped contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to the war bond drives, and her personal appearances helped boost the morale of thousands of American servicemen and -women.

  But Hattie’s contributions to the war effort meant nothing to a group of homeowners who lived near her in a Los Angeles neighborhood. They didn’t see Hattie as a person who had worked to help America win the war; they saw a black woman living in a white neighborhood. And that was not acceptable to them.

  A Maid, but Not a Servant

  Black Americans who wanted to work in Hollywood in the 1940s had few choices when it came to movie roles. Black actors seldom appeared in movies. And when they did, men were cast as buffoons and women as maids. On the occasions when black actors and actresses were portrayed in roles outside the stereotypes, Hollywood sent special versions of the films to movie theaters in the southern states—versions with the scenes racist white moviegoers would deem “offending” cut out. When it wasn’t possible to cut scenes, the movie producers assured the southern theater managers that black theaters and white theaters would get the movies at the same time so white moviegoers wouldn’t have to worry about black moviegoers trying to see the movie in the white theaters.

  Hattie McDaniel was a talented actress, singer, songwriter, and comedian and could have performed well in many different roles. But she ended up as a maid more times than not. Hattie looked at it this way: “It’s better to get $7,000 a week for playing a servant than $7 a week for being one.”

  While Hollywood was only interested in seeing Hattie as a maid, black soldiers appreciated her rousing song and dance performances. They forgot—just for a while—that they were soldiers about to ship out when they heard her comedy routines. Hattie took her job as the head of the black Hollywood Victory Committee very seriously.

  In April 1942, Hattie wowed newly arrived soldiers at an army camp near San Bernardino, California, with her singing and dancing. The soldiers brought down the house with applause and crowded around her begging for autographs so they could prove to their families back home that they’d seen the famous star. In June Hattie coordinated a star-studded show for soldiers at Camp Hahn in San Bernardino County in California. In July Hattie organized an event in Hollywood for servicemen on leave. It included a parade and bowling party. Hattie and the other stars she had lined up bowled along with the soldiers. At the end of the day, the soldiers enjoyed Hattie’s hilarious comedy act. In August 1942, Hattie organized a caravan of stars to the southwestern mountains where the soldiers of the segregated black 10th Cavalry Unit of the US army were training. By October Hattie was on the road to Indiana, where the US Treasury Department had asked her to drum up interest in the “Interracial War Bond Rally.” She had special leave from the Hollywood studio where she was in the midst of filming a movie. In April 1943, Hattie organized a group of black entertainers for an event at Camp Young near Indio, California. The 85-mile-per-hour winds from a desert dust storm didn’t stop the singers and dancers from entertaining the 25,000 soldiers who had come to see them. After the stage performance the stars headed to the hospital to visit with the patients. In June 1943, Hattie performed at an event to launch a campaign to raise $175,000 in war bonds to buy a bomber.

  Hattie McDaniel was admired for the work she did with the Hollywood Victory Committee, and she was respected by many Americans for being the first black actor to win an Oscar. Some people criticized her because she accepted movie roles in which she played a stereotype—a black “mammy” with a kerchief on her head in Gone with the Wind. It gave the impression that Hattie McDaniel was a meek, submissive type. But in 1945, Hattie did something that made everyone look at her with renewed respect.

  Sometimes when Hattie and the Hollywood Victory Committee were planning their events they met at Hattie’s house in an area of Los Angeles known as the Sugar Hill neighborhood. A number of black stars and businesspeople had purchased homes there after they had made it in Hollywood.

  In the 1940s some cities or neighborhoods had racially restrictive covenants, which were contracts that prohibited the purchase, lease, or even occupation of property by specific groups of people—often black people. It meant that black people were frequently denied housing based on the color of their skin. And at that time it was legal.

  A typical covenant read like this: “No person or persons of African or Negro blood, lineage, or extraction shall be permitted to occupy a portion of said property.”

  After Hattie paid for her house and moved in, a group of white residents in the neighborhood filed a legal complaint against the black homeowners. The complaint said the original owners of the homes did not have the right to sell to blacks. Therefore, Hattie and the other black homeowners were living in their Sugar Hill houses illegally and had to leave. If they refused, they would be evicted!

  Hattie and some of her black neighbors decided to fight back. They found an attorney who agreed to take their case. In December 1945 the case was heard in a Los Angeles courtroom. Judge Thurmond Clarke presided. For two hours the judge listened to the opposing lawyers. Spectators in the courtroom noticed a portrait of Abraham Lincoln—the president who had freed the slaves—behind Judge Clarke. “I hope that judge has eyes in the back of his head,” one black man commented.

  The next morning the judge had reached his decision: “It is time that members of the Negro race are accorded, without reservations or evasions, the full rights guaranteed them under the 14th Amendment to the federal Constitution. Judges have been avoiding the real issue too long.” And with that, Judge Clarke threw the case out of court!

  Hattie McDaniel had played the part of an obedient servant in movies because Hollywood wouldn’t let her show her true strengths as a singer and performer. When she was confronted with an unjust law in the real world, Hattie showed that she had plenty of strength. She refused to play the part of an obedient servant. She had gone above and beyond to serve her country in its time of need, and she refused to let a few of her neighbors force her out of her home.

  “Whatever I can contribute I am only too anxious to. When I look around me and see how the men and women of Hollywood all are joined in magnificent support of the war effort, I realize how completely this is a struggle which demands the most of all of us,” Hattie explained.

  Lena Quits

  Lena Horne was one of the rare black performers who had starred in Hollywood movies—not with speaking parts, but as a singer. That made it easier t
o cut her scenes from the movies when they played in the South. Still, Lena was gaining acclaim as a performer—from white as well as black audiences. Her tour of the South was part of a USO tour arranged by the Hollywood Victory Committee.

  Lena Horne kisses Montrose Carrol, a worker at the Kaiser Company Shipyard in Richmond, California, May 1943.

  Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; The New York Public Library; Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; US Office of War Information, E. F. Joseph, Photographer

  One night in 1944 when she was scheduled to perform, Lena peeked out at the audience from backstage. She saw only white soldiers. Lena had performed many times at military camps, and she was used to seeing white soldiers in the front seats of the auditoriums while the black soldiers sat in the back or in a balcony. That was typical, and it always made Lena angry. But she wanted to perform for the soldiers, and she knew that the military was segregated so there wasn’t much she could do about it. But on this occasion Lena didn’t see any black soldiers in the auditorium. When she asked where the black soldiers were, she was told that she would be performing for them the next morning—in their mess hall. It meant Lena and her band would have to stay overnight—something she hadn’t planned. But she agreed so that the black soldiers at the camp could see her perform.

  The next morning Lena arrived at the black mess hall. This time when she looked out at the audience she saw more white men in the front rows. The black soldiers were in the back.

  “Now who the hell are they?” Lena asked.