Episode 50: Hattie McDaniel


The fabulous, multi-talented HattieMcDaniel.

The fabulous, multi-talented Hattie McDaniel.

You know that old story of the “overnight success?” A band you’ve never heard of bursts onto the scene and takes the world by storm. Often you find that they have twenty years of hard work and paying their dues before finally achieving their goal. The same is true of Hattie McDaniel.

Born to former slaves, and growing up in the abject poverty that followed America’s black population in the Jim Crow years, Hattie McDaniel was determined that a life of servitude and struggle was not to be her fate.

A young Hattie during the Denver days.

A young Hattie during the Denver days.

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