Fat, Black Women ARE Black History
or, Three fat BLACK women who deserve just as much praise for the work they've done for Black people
Fat, Black women deserve to be praised for their contributions to Black History
I’ve thought long and hard about Black History Month. About what I should say or do to commemorate the 28 days dedicated to the immensely complicated history of Black people in this country.
As I reflected on the legacies of oft-spoken names like Rosa Parks and Angela Davis, I recently came to the realization that too often, the names of fat, Black women aren’t shouted as loudly, their legacies not spread nearly as far, and their contributions seen as simply a footnote in the centuries-long battle for freedom and equality.
This isn’t just a problem with fat, Black women, of course. Recorded history is as patriarchal as any other field of study; so women leaders and trailblazers are rarely ever given the same prestige and interest as their male counterparts.
Above and beyond the regular issues with herstory, I worry that fatphobia and racism are stamping out the stories of courageous women like Mary McLeod Bethune and Fannie Lou Hammer. Their names don’t ring the same bell as male leaders like MLK or Huey P. Newton, despite the fact that they, too, put their lives on the line for the pursuit of freedom and had a lasting impact on the world we live in today.
So, here are three FAT, Black women you should know about for Black History Month.
Hattie McDaniel: More than an Oscar and Nobody’s Mammie
Is there any historical figure more misunderstood than Hattie McDaniel? The Oscar-winning actress has a complicated legacy that, I feel, is often conflated with the negative stereotype associated with the name of her most famous role. The criticisms of her career are not completely without merit; during her time in Hollywood, McDaniel would play the domestic role over 74 times. But in the early half of the 20th century, what other roles were there for a fat, Black woman working as an actress in Hollywood?
McDaniel deserves her flowers, and she always has.
Hattie McDaniel was born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1895, the youngest of 13 children born to Henry and Susan McDaniel, two formerly enslaved people. Her father was a disabled Civil War veteran who was denied his pension for decades (as was the case with many Black Civil War veterans). Her maternal family was made up of performers and entertainers. Several years after the family relocated to Denver, Colorado, Hattie wrote and performed songs for her brother’s minstrel show and later, with her sisters, formed a successful all-female minstrel show called “the McDaniel Sisters Company.”
From Minstrel Shows to Hollywood
Her big break didn’t come until 1920 when the talented entertainer secured a spot in the ensemble cast of “Professor George Morrison's Melody Hounds” (Morrison was a talented composer and musician, and worth looking into as well). Along with the Melody Hounds, McDaniel recorded songs at a local Denver station, making her the first Black woman to be broadcast singing on a radio station in the United States.
Like many performers, the Great Depression severely impacted McDaniel’s career, and she took a job as a bathroom attendant to make ends before moving to Los Angeles, with nothing but her suitcase and $20 in her pocket. It wasn’t long before McDaniel made her film debut in a 1932 pre-code western film called “The Golden West,” as a maid. She continued to work steadily, often in uncredited domestic roles, until her first major part in 1934’s “Judge Priest.”
Unfortunately, during a time when roles for Black actors were few and far between, McDaniel was quickly pigeonholed into servile roles, drawing the ire of some of her contemporaries. When the veteran actor was chosen to play Mammy in 1939’s “Gone with the Wind,” influential Black community leaders maligned her for accepting the role.
Gone With the Wind was a Success, But at What Cost?
Despite playing an integral part in the film, McDaniel wasn’t allowed to attend the Atlanta premiere. When she accepted her Oscar a year later, she was relegated to a small table in the back, segregated from her co-stars. Upon accepting the plaque, McDaniel eschewed the speech the film’s producer had prepared for her, instead reading one written with the help of friend and author, Ruby Berkley Goodwin:
“It has made me feel very, very humble, and I shall always hold it as a beacon for anything I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.”
Walter Francis White, head of the NAACP at the time, went on the attack against McDaniel and other Black actors in similar roles. White visited Los Angeles to persuade white studios to stop casting Black actors in servile roles. He simultaneously helped negotiate Actress Lena Horne’s 1942 seven-picture deal with MGM Studios. White, who was multiracial and had blue eyes, pale skin and nearly blond hair, considered the similarly thin, fairer-skinned Horne to be a more suitable representation of Black America. That didn’t stop Horne from being typecast as a singer or entertainer; yet another Black stereotype.
Despite the lack of support from within her own community, McDaniel continued to work. When asked about her feelings on constantly playing a maid, McDaniel famously quipped, “Well, you know, I would rather play a maid for 700 dollars a week than be a maid for seven dollars a week.”
After her film career petered out, McDaniel found success as the lead voice actor on the radio show “Beulah,” making her the first Black American woman to star in a radio show. She died on October 26, 1952, of breast cancer. She was 57 years old.
We Owe Hattie McDaniel an Apology
McDaniel was nobody’s “mammie,” she endured untold prejudice and racism to help open doors for other Black actors. Even after Black leaders like Walter Francis White continued to malign her, McDaniel didn’t turn her back on her community, donating money to further Black causes. Are there issues with the portrayal of Black people as servants and enslaved people? Of course. But none of these powerful leaders attacked the individuals, who were subject to the same prejudicial treatment every Black person has encountered in America.
As an actress, McDaniel was a master craftsman, but very careful about how she portrayed her assigned roles; notably refusing to say the N-word while filming “Gone With the Wind.” The word is used repeatedly in the Margaret Mitchell novel that the film is based on, but it isn't spoken a single time on screen.
The four-time divorcee even played an integral role in desegregating housing in Los Angeles, when, in 1945, she organized workshops and volunteers to fight against restrictive housing covenants.
Even in death, McDaniel was treated unfairly; her will stated that she be buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and her history-making Oscar be gifted to HBCU Howard University. The segregated cemetery refused her burial; and her Oscar? It’s been missing since the 1970s. Does that seem like a fitting end for a history-making star? It isn’t. And let’s be very clear: McDaniel WAS a star, and deserved to be treated as such.
Fannie Lou Hammer: One Ballot that Rocked the Democratic Process
If you haven’t heard of Fannie Lou Hammer, I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed because her sheer tenacity and courage should be required teaching for anyone who cares about democracy and voting rights.
Born Fannie Lou Townsend on October 6, 1917, in Montgomery Country, Mississippi, Hamer was the last of 20 children born to sharecroppers Lou Ella and James Townsend. Like many Black people in Jim Crow-era deep south, the Townsends were poor, and by the age of 12, Fannie Lou had left school to work on the plantations alongside her family.
After marrying Perry “Pap” Hamer in 1944, they both worked on a plantation owned by B.D. Marlowe. Since Hamer was the only literate worker there, she served as the timekeeper. Hamer’s career as a voting rights activist started innocently enough in August 1962 when she tried to register to vote after attending a meeting held by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Hamer and 17 others traveled by bus a few miles over to Indianola, encountering opposition and intimidation from both local and state law enforcement along the way. In the end, only Fannie Lou and one other person got to fill out the application.
From Sharecropper to Activist Overnight
That application upended Hamer’s life and changed the course of history. After she refused to withdraw her application to vote, she was driven away from the plantation where she had resided for decades, and the real work began.
“They kicked me off the plantation, they set me free. It's the best thing that could happen. Now I can work for my people." Fannie Lou Hamer, New York Times
At 45 years old, Hamer joined the mostly youth-filled ranks of voting and civil rights activists in the deep south. During her time as a community organizer, Hamer was subject to repeated intimidation & violence, once beaten so badly in Winona, Mississippi, that she suffered permanent kidney damage and a blood clot in her right eye. “They beat me till my body was hard, till I couldn’t bend my fingers or get up when they told me to,” Hamer later recalled.
In 1964, she helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), drawing the attention of the rest of the country. That same year, she appeared at the Democratic National Convention to recount her experience with violence and intimidation in her home state.
Hamer’s words, along with the efforts of other activists, led to actual change. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Voting Rights Act (VRA). This landmark legislation introduced federal laws that banned barriers to voting, like literacy tests and poll taxes, which specifically targeted Black Americans.
After the passage of the VRA, the number of Black Americans registered to vote in Mississippi increased from 28,000 to 280,000, and the number of Black elected officials from southern states more than doubled following the 1966 election cycle.
Hamer ran for public office three times (1965, 1967 and 1971); though she was unsuccessful, Hamer explained, “I’m showing people that a Negro can run for office.” She also wanted to call attention to how, despite the passage of the VRA, white southerners were still trying to intimidate Black people from registering to vote by threatening to fire them or worse.
Despite her activist journey not starting until her 40s, Hamer continued fighting for disenfranchised people for years to come. She opened freedom farms to battle poverty and hunger in the Mississippi Delta and was a founding member of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which still promotes women politicians today.
Hamer passed in 1977 at the age of 60 years old from cancer in Mississippi. In less than two decades, the former sharecropper drastically changed the political landscape of the deep south and the entire United States of America.
Mary McLeod Bethune: “A Great Amazon of God”
How many people, past or present, can say they have a university named after them? Mary McLeod Bethune is one of the elite few, and it is for good reason. The voting rights and education activist, and later presidential advisor, was tirelessly dedicated to advancing the lot of Black students and people in her community and beyond.
Born on July 10, 1875 as Mary Jane McLeod in Mayseville, South Carolina, McLeod had a rare opportunity to gain formal education, which she balanced with working in cotton fields along with her parents and siblings. In 1888, she was awarded a scholarship to study at the Scotia Seminary in North Carolina, with the aim to engage in missionary work in Africa. But since most churches only sent white missionaries abroad, McLeod Bethune became a teacher.
She met and married fellow educator Albertus Bethune in 1898 and had a son a year later. The young family relocated to Daytona, Florida, where Bethune was dedicated to educating Black children, despite the fact that Daytona had a large, active Ku Klux Klan chapter.
Educating Black Students Put a Target on Her Back
On October 3, 1904, with just $1.50 (~$45 in today’s money), and six pupils (one being her own son), Bethune founded the Daytona Literary and Industrial Training Institute for Negro Girls, an all-girls boarding school. The school, which grew to 250 students in less than two years, was funded mostly by donations, and Bethune was not above picking up discarded school supplies at landfills until the school attracted the attention of wealthy donors such as New York businessman John D. Rockefeller.
The school truly served the community; expanding to include much-needed vocational programs such as nursing. In 1911, Bethune realized there were no local hospitals that served Black patients, so she opened her own, the McLeod Hospital.
The work she did also, unfortunately, caught the attention of others. The local KKK chapter marched on her school on two separate occasions; once ahead of the 1922 elections because of Bethune’s efforts to register Black women to vote. But their intimidation tactics didn’t work, and the community leader showed up to the polls that same week with 100 other Black voters, determined to make their voice heard.
Her school merged with the older all-male Cookman Institute in 1923, and the school became a fully accredited four-year liberal arts college, Bethune-Cookman college (now University), in 1941.
A Move to the National Stage
It wasn’t long before Bethune gained national recognition for her voting rights and education advocacy. Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover appointed her to the National Child Welfare Commission, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt named her as the Director of his National Youth Administration, making Dr. McLeod Bethune (as she had received several honorary doctorates at this point) the first Black woman to lead a federal agency.
The educator took her various appointments and positions very seriously, directing “New Deal” funding toward educational and vocational training programs for Black youth. All while still serving as the president of Bethune-Cookman College and creating the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) in 1935, an organization that boasts over 2 million members today.
In short, McLeod Bethune was an active and politically involved woman, well into her sixties. She wrote, led a thriving school, invested in several businesses and personally saw to the preservation of historical records pertaining to Black women in America.
A Titan Retires…But Only Partially
McLeod Bethune did not retire from her role as college president until she was 72 years old in 1947. Two years later, she retired as president of the NCNW, deciding to spend her remaining days in a home built on the campus of the college she loved so much, where she passed away peacefully on May 18, 1955. She was 80 years old.
The long-time activist, educator and all-around Renaissance woman has been immortalized in many different ways, but one of my favorite is a sonnet written by notable Chicago poet and novelist Margaret Walker, titled, “For Mary McLeod Bethune,” the beginning of which goes:
Great Amazon of God behold your bread, washed home again from many distant seas. The cup of life you lift contains no less, no bitterness to mock you. In its stead this sparkling chalice many sould has fed, and broken hearted people on their knees lift up their eyes & suddenly they seize on living faith, & they are comforted.
Women like Mary, Hattie and Fannie Lou deserve to be remembered, because they poured from their chalices, because they lifted others up, regardless of the harm that came to them. Because, and not in spite of, the fact that they are fat, Black women, and their legacies deserve to endure.