Vintage Black Life: Actress & Activist, Fredi Washington

"Very few actresses of the Depression era were as striking as Washington. She became committed to the state of the Black actor in America." -Donald Bogle

One of my favorite 1930s Harlem Renaissance glamour girls, black actress Fredi Washington, is perhaps most well-known as playing self-loathing Peola in Universal Pictures' racy 1934 film, Imitation of Life. In her life, however, Fredi was far from an Imitation.

Fredericka Carolyn Washington was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1903. Her mother, a former dancer, died when Fredi was eleven. She was sent to attend St. Elizabeth's Convent School for colored girls in Philadelphia, and soon after, her father and siblings migrated to New York for job opportunities. Fredi left boarding school and joined them in Harlem. As the oldest girl in her family, she helped raise her younger siblings, Isabel, Rosebud, and Robert, under the watchful eye of their grandmother.

In 1921, when she was seventeen, Fredi found her first performing job as a chorus girl in the hit broadway musical, Shuffle Along. She toured with the all-black troupe for four years, meeting dancer Josephine Baker along the way. Josephine hired her into the "Happy Honeysuckles," a cabaret group, and became Fredi's mentor and friend. In 1926, Fredi made her debut as an actress opposite Paul Robeson in Black Boy. Her beauty and talent made her a popular featured dancer, but with a lack of opportunities for black actresses in America, she toured internationally as part of a ballroom troupe with her dancing partner Al Moiret. They were popular in England, France, and Germany, where Fredi mingled with European royalty and wealthy suitors. Otto Kahn, the millionare, was so struck by her that he offered to pay for her acting education if she agreed to pass for a white Frenchwoman. She refused.



Fredi returned to the States in '28, where she secured her first movie roles in Black and Tan (1929) and The Emperor Jones (1933). In 1934, she was cast in her most well-known role in the Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Fannie Hurst's novel, Imitation of Life. She played the role of Peola, a young, fair-skinned biracial woman who attempts to escape society's discrimination by passing for white. Bizarrely, she was so convincing in the film that some accused her of denying her heritage in her everyday life - which she was quick to deny. "In Imitation of Life, I was showing how a girl might feel under the circumstances, but I am not showing how I felt," she told the Chicago Defender in 1935.

Despite receiving critical acclaim, Fredi was unable to find much work in Hollywood, as was the case for many light-skinned African-American actresses. She wore heavy make-up to darken her skin for the few roles she did get. Throughout her career, she turned down chances to pass for a white actress in movie roles. In 1937, she starred in her last film, One Mile From Heaven, opposite Claire Trevor. In an effort to help other black actors and actresses find more opportunities, Fredi founded the Negro Actors Guild that same year, but, frustrated by her experiences in Hollywood, she quit the film industry altogether.

Fredi turned her attention to working as a campaigner for equal rights in films and theatre. She was the Entertainment Editor for People's Voice, an African-American newspaper. She worked closely with Walter White, then president of the NAACP, and was outspoken about issues of racism. Fredi later tried to find work in radio, and was cast in an important role in a World War II radio tribute to black women called Heroines in Bronze. In 1945, she said, "You see, I'm a mighty proud gal and I can't for the life of me, find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons. If I do, I would be agreeing that being a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens."

Fredi (left) and her sister Isabel in the '40s

Fredi briefly returned to the broadway stage, earning roles in Lysistrata (1946) and A Long Way From Home (1948). In the '50s, she worked as a film casting consultant for films and broadway shows such as Carmen Jones, Cry, The Beloved Country, and Porgy & Bess. During this time, she married Dr. Anthony Bell, a dentist, and retired to Connecticut. 

In 1975, forty years after making an impression on America in Imitation of Life, Fredi's contribution to cinema was finally recognized when she was inducted into America's Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. She died in 1994.

Vintage Black Life: The '30s & '40s in the Steel City

Because of where I live, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has always been a great city to travel to and visit when I'm yearning for a change of scenery. They have great museums and architecture, The Milkshake Factory (the best), and a colorful history. 

I have always been interested in looking at and collecting old photographs, but lately I've found myself fascinated with photos of African-American life in eras I love, such as the 1940s. Sadly, these photos are usually difficult to find. So I was absolutely thrilled when I stumbled across the work of Pittsburgh photographer Charles "Teenie" Harris.

Teenie spent his life taking photos to chronicle everyday Pittsburgh life in African-American neighborhoods (mainly from 1936-1979), and they couldn't be any more gorgeous. People of color had few opportunities during this time in America, and it dazzles me to see photographs of these people who fought through oppression and made beautiful lives for themselves.

I find that the modern-day "vintage" community lacks diversity. This makes sense to me, though, because classic ladies of color such as Fredi Washington and Nina Mae McKinney were overlooked in the 1930s as the Bette Davises and Carole Lombards skyrocketed to fame. Throughout the gorgeous decades that I love and am constantly inspired by - this collection of photos reminds me that we were there, too.

Here are a few of my favorite breathtaking shots.

Winter 1937.

Late 1930s.

Cab Calloway surrounded by nine women, April 1938. (Seriously, what a ladies' man!)

Spring 1938.

1939.

1940. (Can I just have all of their outfits, please?)

Early 1940s.

Early 1940s.

Early 1940s.

Are you swooning over their outfits as much as I am?

Diane Nash

Hello, loves. It's the first of February and I am so excited to announce the beginning of Black History Month. I want to share one of my favorite inspirational individuals with you, the beautiful and brave Diane Nash.

Diane was born in 1938 in Chicago to Dorothy and Leon Nash, a World War II veteran. She grew up in a sheltered Catholic home, where her grandmother placed an emphasis on etiquette and manners. She competed in beauty pageants and, when she was fifteen, had the opportunity to attend a Chicago modeling school, but was turned away when she told them she was colored. She attended college for a year at Howard University before transferring to Fisk University in Nashville in 1959. It was in Tennessee that she became aware of how the Jim Crow laws affected the lives of African-Americans. Disgusted with segregation, Diane expressed a longing for leadership and soon began attending workshops with the Nashville Student Movement.

In February 1960, Diane became the leader of the Nashville sit-ins, when she and other students would sit at "whites only" lunch counters downtown, where African-Americans were permitted to shop but had to take their lunches to go. The groups of students dressed to the nines, prepared to go to jail for disturbing segregation. Violent white mobs attacked them, but they stood their ground with dignity and determination. Diane became somewhat of a spokesperson for the sit-ins, due to her well-spoken, composed manner when speaking to the press and the authorities. Unfortunately, the spotlight sometimes led to Diane being singled out by angry mobs as "the one to get."

Matthew Walker, Peggy Alexander, Diane Nash, and Stanley Hemphill at the Post House Restaurant in 1960

As the city of Nashville began to lose tourism dollars as a result of the sit-ins, mayor Ben West stepped in to negotiate a compromise. On camera, Diane asked the mayor if he believed that it was wrong to discriminate against a person solely because of their skin color. Mayor West answered that it was not morally right to sell African-American shoppers merchandise but refuse them service at the lunch counters. A few weeks later, Nashville became the first Southern city where blacks and whites sat together for lunch.

Diane helped to establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and left college to work for the organization full-time. She worked to organize Freedom Rides from Birmingham to Jackson, tirelessly working to challenge the Jim Crow system. The Freedom Riders were savagely attacked in Alabama during which the Ku Klux Klan set a bus on fire.

After the shocking Klan bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church which killed four young girls in Birmingham, Nash was recruited by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) which was led by Dr. Martin Luther King. Since the Reconstruction Era, it had been very difficult for African-Americans to vote in the south, although they had the legal right to. Jim Crow laws allowed southern states to amend their constitutions and pass legislation to impose absurd voting restrictions, including literacy tests, poll taxes, property-ownership requirements, moral charatcer tests, and grandfather clauses which allowed otherwise ineligible people to vote if their grandfathers voted (which excluded most African-Americans due to many of their grandfathers having been slaves).

The SCLC, joined by organizers from SNCC, planned a march of hundreds of protesters from Selma to Montgomery. Diane and other marchers attempted to cross the Pettus bridge before being attacked by Alabama State Troopers with clubs and tear gas. The gruesome images were broadcast worldwide, shocking the nation. Soon afterward, President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which guaranteed the ability to vote to all citizens regardless of race. 

Diane is an absolute inspiration and heroine to me. She has beauty, brilliance, and bravery... she helped to change the nation by fighting for her rights, my rights - all of our rights. What a beautiful person, inside and out.