By Jordan Meadows
Staff Writer
On last Thursday evening, the Wake County Public Library hosted a thought-provoking presentation that honored the complex journeys of early African American actresses in Hollywood.
The presentation was delivered by Dr. Charlene Regester, a renowned scholar and associate professor in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With decades of research devoted to Black visibility in early film, Dr. Regester illuminated the ways in which Black women on screen struggled against—and sometimes strategically subverted—the racialized roles they were given.
Dr. Regester, who also serves as interim director of UNC's Institute for African American Research, has long been a fixture in the world of Black film scholarship. She was among the first students to use the Walter Royal Davis Library at UNC Chapel Hill when it opened in 1984, where she reviewed over 30,000 articles from Black newspapers on microfilm.
This work formed the backbone of several of her publications, including African American Actresses: The Struggle for Visibility, 1900–1960, a critically acclaimed book that was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
Dr. Regester traced what she described as the transition of Black women in film "from aprons and pinafores to jeweled crowns and rhinestone gowns."
Among the earliest actresses discussed was Bertha Regustus, a largely forgotten but important figure who appeared in silent films as early as 1903, including What Happened in the Tunnel. In these early roles, Black characters were often used for comic relief and were portrayed through grotesque stereotypes—sometimes even by white actors in blackface.
Madame Sul-Te-Wan, born Nellie Crawford, became the first Black woman to sign a film contract, appearing in the controversial film The Birth of a Nation (1915). Despite the groundbreaking nature of her contract, the film’s portrayal of African Americans—villainous, caricatured, and servile—exemplified the toxic narratives that early Black performers were forced to navigate.
Dr. Regester critically examined how such portrayals were crafted for white audiences’ amusement and how fear and ridicule were often central to the cinematic depiction of Black people. In the 1920 silent short Neighbors, for instance, a white criminal hides under a sheet in a Black woman’s laundry, terrifying the family—an unsettling nod to the Ku Klux Klan that used Black terror as the punchline.
“Not only did these pictures challenge Black stereotypes, they also depicted white characters who performed the Black stereotype, in reverse roles with Blacks, for the purpose of providing comic relief,” Dr. Regester said.
The presentation also focused on more widely recognized actresses, like Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African American to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). While some civil rights leaders, including NAACP’s Walter White, criticized the role for reinforcing subservient stereotypes, Dr. Regester highlighted how McDaniel brought depth and subtle resistance to the character.
Through commanding voice, posture, and presence, McDaniel transformed Mammy into a figure of moral authority—becoming the emotional and ethical “center” of the film. McDaniel’s own pragmatism was reflected in her famous quote: “I’d rather play a maid making $7000 a week than $7 a week being one.”
“She took the role and turned it into something more. I think we need to acknowledge her talent and ability to do that,” Regester said. “Mammy attempts to locate a space for herself while articulating her voice and physical positioning.”
Also under consideration for the Mammy role was Elizabeth McDuffie, the White House cook, who was recommended by none other than First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Ultimately, McDaniel secured the part, though Louise Beavers—another prominent Black actress—was also in the running. Meanwhile, Butterfly McQueen, best known for her portrayal of Prissy in the same film, embodied a different kind of emotional labor than McDaniel.
In a critical birth scene, McQueen’s character breaks down in panic, shifting the emotional burden from Scarlett O’Hara, the white female lead, to the Black supporting character.
“The Black characters bear the emotional burden of the film. So, it is Prissy, when she acts out and expresses her real fear in helping to deliver a child, this is really probably the fear they’d like for Scarlett to have, but they don’t want to tarnish this image of a Southern belle,” Regester said. “They displace it onto the Black character. So, though the Black character is a stereotype, she serves other purposes.”
Dr. Regester also highlighted trailblazers who operated outside the typical Hollywood framework, such as Hazel Scott, a Trinidadian-American musical prodigy, who became the first Black woman to host her own U.S. television show in 1950.
Known for her refusal to play segregated venues, Scott was a fearless advocate for civil rights and artistic integrity. Scott placed anti-discrimination clauses in her contracts and dazzled audiences by playing two pianos simultaneously—a feat later honored by Alicia Keys at the Grammy Awards in 2019. Scott’s political outspokenness ultimately led to her being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, cutting short her television career.
Her marriage to Adam Clayton Powell Jr., an American Baptist pastor and the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, was believed to have “elevated Scott’s political involvement” while helping to “narrow the divide that existed in New York with Black immigrants who had migrated there and African Americans”, Regester said.
Another icon, Lena Horne, made history by signing a seven-year contract with MGM in 1942—the first Black woman to do so in over 25 years. During World War II, Horne famously refused to perform for the segregated U.S. Army audiences, choosing instead to sing directly to Black soldiers relegated to the back—while white German POWs sat in front. Her signature performance of Stormy Weather (1943) became a civil rights anthem.
The presentation also spotlighted Alice Burton Russell, a North Carolina native born in Maxton, whose father was a newspaper editor.
Russell worked alongside her husband, pioneering filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, acting in many of his race films—movies made by and for Black audiences. Their last film was made in Charlotte in 1959. Through her performances, Russell represented the Black bourgeois class—dignified, educated, and central to the narrative, unlike the stereotypical roles available in mainstream Hollywood.
Throughout the evening, Dr. Regester made a compelling case that these women were not mere victims of stereotyping but agents of cultural transformation. They used their limited roles to assert humanity, dignity, and resistance in an industry—and society—designed to erase them.
