{"id":55536,"date":"2018-01-04T04:21:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T04:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55536"},"modified":"2018-01-04T04:22:48","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T04:22:48","slug":"the-black-celebrity-from-hollywoods-golden-age-who-revealed-the-complexities-of-passing-for-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55536","title":{"rendered":"The black celebrity from Hollywood\u2019s Golden Age who revealed the complexities of passing for white"},"content":{"rendered":"

The black celebrity from Hollywood\u2019s Golden Age who revealed the complexities of passing for white<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Timeline<\/a>
\n2018-01-02<\/p>\n

Nina Renata Aron<\/strong><\/a>, Senior Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nFredi Washington<\/a> in a dressing room in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania<\/a>, circa 1940. (Charles \u2018Teenie\u2019 Harris\/Carnegie Museum of Art\/Getty Images)<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Fredi Washington<\/a> negotiated bigotry and made her way in the movies<\/em><\/p>\n

When African American actress Fredi Washington<\/a> played a black girl passing for white<\/a> in the 1934 film Imitation of Life<\/em><\/a>, she was accused by critics of denying her own heritage. In fact, Washington never hid her roots, and went on to become an activist for African Americans in the performing arts. As she later told Hue<\/em> magazine, \u201cI\u2019m honest and\u2026you don\u2019t have to be white to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young, black starlet posed a challenge for a Hollywood used to seeing in black and white. Washington was so light-skinned that she reportedly<\/a> had to wear makeup to play black characters. According to Washington\u2019s friend Jean-Claude Baker<\/a>, a restaurateur and author, many who saw her thought she was white and she was able to frequent whites-only establishments all her life without problems. \u201cShe did pass for white when she was traveling in the South<\/a> with Duke Ellington<\/a>,\u201d Baker is quoted as saying in Washington\u2019s New York Times<\/em> 1994 obituary<\/a>. \u201cThey could not go into ice-cream parlors, so she would go in and buy the ice cream, then go outside and give it to Ellington and the band. Whites screamed at her, \u2018Nigger lover!\u2019\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fredi Washington negotiated bigotry and made her way in the movies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1245,8,6462,20],"tags":[27925,9754,27924,26328],"class_list":["post-55536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-biography","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-fredericka-carolyn-washington","tag-fredi-washington","tag-nina-renata-aron","tag-timeline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55538,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55536\/revisions\/55538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}