Eleven Black women belong to the elite sorority of Oscar winners, including Halle Berry, Whoopi Goldberg, Mo’Nique, Jennifer Hudson, and Regina King. This group of extraordinary actresses owes a debt to Fredi Washington, who paved the way for Black women in Hollywood. In 1921, amidst the burgeoning Harlem Renaissance, Fredi, a recent arrival from Savannah, joined the “Happy Honeysuckles” of Shuffle Along, Broadway’s first Black-led show. To become a “Honeysuckle,” one had to pass the discriminatory “Brown paper bag test.” Josephine Baker barely passed and endured teasing for her ebony complexion. Fredi stood up for her, and they became lifelong friends.
When that show closed, Fredi toured Europe headlining a ballroom dance team of Fredi et Moiret. After a couple of years she settled in Southern California and began looking for work. She found a casting call for Imitation of Life that was perfect for her mulatto complexion. The call for the movie said: “Director requires in the leading role a young girl who must be of Negro blood but must be absolutely White.” The movie was a runaway hit. The plot was one of the first films to suggest that America had a “Race Problem.” The role garnered two Oscar nominations.
Fredi was vexed by ultra-White complexion, she was proud to be Black and refused any roles that asked her to be White. A reporter asked her why she refused work that required to Pass as White. “No matter how White I look, on the inside I feel Black. There are many Whites who are mixed blood, but still go by white, why such a big deal if I go as Negro, because people can’t believe that I am proud to be a Negro and not White.”
Her political activism began in the 1930s, when she participated in demonstrations organized by her brother-in-law, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., who had married her sister Isabel. She cofounded the Negro Actors Guild.
Amistead Research archived her stance on Black movie roles, “ I most definitely am against any picturization of it by MGM or any other studio…..White America has not accepted the emancipation of the Negro. And for White America to see parade across the silver screen Negroes as they would like to see them—in their so called places…” Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, said, “… that she never hid behind the lightness of her complexion. Washington’s commitment to American Civil Rights was as strong as her professionalism in the theater and cinema arts.”
Black Press: Preserving Our Past, One Chapter at a Time.