# Hazel Scott, pioneering Black star, used her fame to fight Jim Crow: Photos, Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2022/05/01/hazel-scott-pioneering-black-star-used-her-fame-to-fight-jim-crow-photos-video/
- Published: 2022-05-01T04:13:27+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**By the time Hazel Scott debuted at Carnegie Hall at age 20, she had been playing
piano for 17 years. It was 1941, and the virtuosic musician had mastered both classical
music and jazz. “The shining star of the evening was … Hazel Scott, who can play
the piano, straight and swing; who can sing, and who can decorate any stage you 
like,” raved the New York Times.**

Scott began the evening by playing Franz Liszt’s “Second Hungarian Rhapsody,” Johann
Sebastian Bach’s “Two-Part Inventions” and Frédéric Chopin’s “Minute Waltz.” Midway
through a number, almost imperceptibly her left hand would change, swinging the 
rhythm and shifting a classical song into a jazz number. “She gave performances 
that had immense gusto and wit,” the Times reviewer wrote. “It’s a good guess that
the composers would not have minded.”

Scott would go on to become the first Black American (man or woman) to host her 
own nationally syndicated television show, “The Hazel Scott Show.” Despite the prejudices
of the time — the peak of her career took place during the Jim Crow era — Scott 
racked up accomplishment after accomplishment in the entertainment world, fighting
for equality at every step. She would perform in Hollywood, on Broadway and with
symphony orchestras worldwide, [earning $75,000](https://books.google.fr/books?id=1UkEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false)
annually (upward of $1 million today).

“Her accomplishments are so broad: This is a woman who studied at Juilliard at 8
years old when the entrance age was 16, who had her own radio show at 14, who was
on Broadway by 18 and was a star at 19. It really is the legacy of a prodigy, of
a Black female prodigy,” her biographer, [Karen Chilton](https://www.karenchilton.com/bio),
told me.

Ice cream and cake were passed around as New York junior high school students listened
to singer Hazel Scott in 1942. (Robert Kradin/AP)

In 1924, when Scott was just 4 years old, she and her mother moved from Trinidad
to New York City. It was the peak of the Harlem Renaissance, fertile ground for 
Black musicians, writers and artists. Scott’s mother was a saxophonist and pianist
herself, and the young Hazel began playing piano before she was in primary school
and was performing by her adolescent years.

Scott quickly became a star. As a teenager, she spent her days in high school and
her evenings performing at famous jazz clubs of the era, including Cafe Society,
a Greenwich Village haunt that launched Billie Holiday’s career. Her early recordings
broke sales records. After a successful Broadway debut, Scott set her sights on 
Hollywood.

When she arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1940s, she did something unthinkable
for most young actresses: She [turned down four roles](https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/hazel-scott)
in a row. All four required her to play a singing maid, and as a Black woman — and
an educated, classically trained musician — she resented the racist overtones of
such parts. She even demanded equal pay to her White counterparts.

“She was Colin Kaepernick before Colin Kaepernick,” said [Dwayne Mack](https://www.berea.edu/his/faculty-and-staff/dr-dwayne-mack/),
a professor of history at Berea College who has written about Scott. “She took a
knee by refusing to wear an apron in a movie. She said: ‘I’d rather keep my dignity
and my pride and my self-awareness and my Blackness than to sell out.’ ” He added,“
She understood how Blacks are depicted and portrayed: as criminals, as savages, 
mentally incompetent. She wanted broader roles for Black actors, more realistic 
roles for Black people.”

The NAACP protests the refusal by the Daughters of the American Revolution to allow
Hazel Scott to perform at its hall in 1945. (AP)

Given the lack of realistic roles available to Black women in particular, Scott 
ended up playing one role in Hollywood: herself. Scott would appear in five studio
films, always playing an elegant stage performer and always insisting on the credit“
Miss Hazel Scott as Herself.” She was so conscious of protecting her well-earned
image that she often wore her own gowns and jewelry in films.

Scott’s rapid ascent to stardom was just as quickly curtailed by the McCarthy-era
witch hunts. Both Scott and her husband, congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., were
outspoken liberal activists.

Scott had successfully sued a restaurant that wouldn’t serve her because of the 
color of her skin. She refused to play segregated concert halls and generally settled
for nothing less than equal treatment. “Why would anyone come to hear me, a Negro,
and refuse to sit beside someone just like me?” she once said. The power couple’s
outspoken demands for racial justice made them both targets.

Her efforts to clear her name were futile. Appearing on the blacklist made someone
guilty by default in that era, and no amount of effort to reason with the committee
could prove otherwise. By the end of the year, her show would be canceled. Bookings
for live performances dried up.

Scott sought refuge in Paris, a city that had gained a reputation for welcoming 
Black Americans in the 20th century. The resilient pianist built a second act for
herself in the City of Light, performing in Europe’s nightclubs and concert halls.
She was featured in the French film “Le Désordre de la Nuit,” alongside French movie
star Jean Gabin.

The Duke Ellington band came to dinner. Billie Holiday flew in for Thanksgiving.
Powell recalls Quincy Jones playing checkers with him on the floor. For vacation,
they went to the beach in Cannes with Lena Horne and Count Basie.

“In those years, what appealed to her — and one of her good friends, James Baldwin—
and so many others is that the French view of Black people was very different from
that of the United States,” Powell told me.

Hazel Scott, with her husband, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, and their son, Adam Clayton
Powell III, after arriving at Paddington Station in London in 1951. (AP)

“La vedette Américaine” — the American star — was one of the first phrases Powell
learned in French as a child, because everyone in the neighborhood seemed to recognize
Scott, perhaps from her spreads in Time or Life magazines. Powell described his 
mother as an outspoken and courageous woman who lived life on her own terms. “She
was very committed to what she believed to be correct,” he said. Alongside Baldwin,
she marched to the U.S. Embassy in 1963 in support of the March on Washington for
civil rights.

Whether because of the blacklisting or the shift in music tastes by the 1960s, Scott’s
career never rebounded to its mid-century peak. These days, despite her pioneering
life and enormous success in her time, she’s not a household name like her husband
is. But Powell noted that video-sharing sites such as YouTube have created a renaissance
for his mother’s work, and he receives emails weekly inquiring about his mother’s
life and legacy.

Besides, Scott never seemed to regret the choices she made, even the ill-fated decision
to appear in front of Congress. She was never one to sacrifice her self-respect 
for success. “I’ve been brash all my life, and it’s [gotten me into a lot of trouble,”](https://history.house.gov/Blog/2021/January/1-21-Hazel-Scott/)
she once said. “But at the same time, speaking out has sustained me and given meaning
to my life.”

![Hazel Scott](https://i0.wp.com/th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/W13FMOtlx_kHqPYskVTJkwfUNP0%
3D/1000x750/filters%3Ano_upscale%28%29/https%3A//tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.
amazonaws.com/filer/Hazel-Scott-musician-631.jpg?resize=640%2C304&ssl=1)

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