Long before Black stories were welcomed on main stages and screens, visionary playwrights, actors, singers, and producers were creating spaces where Black voices could be seen, heard, and celebrated. Their creativity, courage, and determination transformed the stage and screen into a platform for truth, identity, and change.
James Hewlett
unknown-1839
Actor
James Hewlett was the first professional Black American actor in the United States. He and William A. Brown co-founded America’s first Black theater company, the African Grove Theatre in 1821 in New York City. Hewlett was the first Black American actor to play Shakespeare; most notably “Othello.” One of Hewlett’s acting students, Ira Aldridge, became famous for being the first Black American actor to play “Othello” in Europe. Read more.
Ira Aldridge
1807 – 1867
Actor
Ira Aldridge was the first Black American-born actor to triumph internationally. He was the first Black actor to play “Othello” on the English stage. Aldridge was the first of many Black American artists to escape American racism by moving to Europe. He toured “Othello,” “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” and “The Merchant of Venice” throughout Europe. He toured Russia twice.
Aldridge persisted in speaking out against racism and slavery during the years leading up to and including the Civil War. Although he planned an American tour once the war was over, he never did come back. Read more.
Bert Williams
1874 – 1922
Comedian/singer/songwriter
Bert Williams was the first Black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage. His 30-year career ranged from blackface minstrelsy to headlining the Ziegfeld Follies; from recording his songs for Columbia Records to touring Europe. Williams and George Walker wrote and produced a string of Broadway hits. “In Dahomey,” in 1902, was the first full-length musical written, directed and performed by an all-Black cast. Read more.
Aida Overton Walker
1880 – 1914
Dancer/choreographer/singer
Aida Overton Walker, was one of the first Black choreographers on the American stage. Among the first international Black stars, she toured Europe with Bert Williams and her husband, George Walker, in the hit musicals they wrote and produced. Following George Walker’s illness and death, in 1911, she kept working, frequently in drag, performing her husband’s numbers in tribute. Carl Van Vechten wrote rapturously about Walker’s cakewalk dancing. Reviewers were equally impressed with her “Salome.” A breathtaking beauty, she died young, age 34, from kidney failure. Read more.
Oscar Micheaux
1884 – 1951
Writer/filmmaker
Oscar Micheaux was America’s first Black filmmaker wrote 39 films, directed 42 and produced 38. Two – “Within Our Gates” 1920 and “Body and Soul” 1924 – were selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. “Body and Soul” introduced Paul Robeson. Micheaux has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The post office issued a commemorative stamp in 2010. Some of his movies can still be seen on YouTube. Read more.
Hattie McDaniel
1893 – 1952
Actor/singer/songwriter/comedian
Hattie McDaniel is the first Black American actor to win an Oscar. McDaniel is famous for her role as Mammy in “Gone with the Wind.” Special arrangements had to be made so she wouldn’t have to be receiving her award in a segregated hotel. Still, all of the film’s Black actors, including McDaniel, were barred from attending the film’s premiere in 1939, at the Loew’s Grand Theatre on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia.
McDaniel was also the first Black actor to star in her own radio show with the comedy series “Beulah.”
Nina Mae McKinney
1912 – 1967
Actor/singer
Nina Mae McKinney was one of the early glamorous Black movie stars. One of the first Black Americans to appear on the BBC.
She played the character Chick in “Hallelujah!” the first all-Black cast, all-sound musical in 1929. McKinney appeared in 24 movies throughout her career including “Sanders of the River” with Paul Robeson and “Pie Pie Blackbird” with the Nicholas Brothers and Eubie Blake. Read more.
Roxie Roker
1929 – 1995
Actor
Roxie Roker played Helen Willis on the CBS sitcom “The Jeffersons” (1975–1985), half of the first interracial couple to be shown on prime-time television. From the 1970s through the 1990s, she guest-starred in television shows including “Punky Brewster,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island.” She also had parts in “Roots” and the film “Claudine.” Roker’s legacy includes her son, the rocker Lenny Kravitz, and her granddaughter, the actor Zoe Kravitz. Read more.
Gail Fisher
1935 – 2000
Actor
Gail Fisher was the first Black American actor with a speaking part in a national advertising campaign for All laundry detergent in 1961.
Nine years later, playing Peggy Fair on the television show “Mannix,” she became the first Black American to win an Emmy for outstanding performance by an actress in a dramatic supporting role. In 1971, Fisher became the first Black American actress to win a Golden Globe. She won her second in 1973. Read more.
Gloria Hendry
1949 – present
Actor
In her 1973 role as Bond Girl Rosie Carver in “Live and Let Die,” Hendry became the first Black American woman romantically involved with Agent 007. When “Live and Let Die” was released in South Africa, her love scenes with Roger Moore were censored out by the apartheid government. Hendry went on to play in several 1970s blaxploitation films including “Black Caesar” and “Hell Up in Harlem” and action pics such as “Black Belt Jones,” “Savage Sisters” and “Bare Knuckles.”
All together, Hendry has 28 screen-acting credits that span the years from 1968 to the present.
