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I can't afford the luxury of just being an actress: the politicized work of African American actresses on television

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I can't afford the luxury of just being an actress: the politicized work of African American actresses on television

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Content I CAN’T AFFORD THE LUXURY OF JUST BEING AN ACTRESS:
THE POLITICIZED WORK OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ACTRESSES ON
TELEVISION
by
Ashley S. Young
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
CINEMATIC ARTS (CRITICAL STUDIES)
August 2021
Copyright 2021 Ashley S. Young
ii
DEDICATION

For Esther Rolle

iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Although I concluded my third chapter of this dissertation with my personal shout outs to
several Black actresses, there is one in particular that has inspired me since I was ten years old. I
dedicate this dissertation to Esther Rolle; this project would not exist without her. Growing up in
the nineties, I loved watching older shows like The Jeffersons (1975-1985), Diff’rent Strokes
(1978-1986), and Facts of Life (1979-1988), and one day my father asked me if I had ever seen
his favorite show as a kid, Good Times (1974-1979)? At the time, reruns of the show were only
airing late at night. So, he woke me up one night to watch Good Times. I cannot remember the
specific episode, but I can remember seeing her for the first time and thinking to myself, “who is
this woman?” Good Times quickly became one of my favorite shows. As an undergraduate, I
watched the Marlon Riggs documentary Color Adjustment (1991) in an introductory TV studies
course and became even more enthralled by Esther Rolle after learning how she fought, battled
and challenged Hollywood so that Black women could be represented in a more diverse and
multifaceted way. Following the completion of my first chapter, it finally donned on me why
Rolle matters so much to me. She reminds me of my maternal grandmother, a woman who is
also unapologetically Black. Thank you, Esther Rolle, for being a constant professional and
personal inspiration.
I have to give an extra special shout out to my dissertation committee, especially
Christine Acham, my chair and advisor. You have truly changed my life. Throughout this
journey, you have been a mentor, an advocate, a teacher, an editor, a friend, and quite literally a
lifesaver (dragging me to safety—twice). I cannot thank you enough for lifting as you climbed.
Also, shout out to Lanita Jacobs for your endless love and support. Taking your AMST 560
course was one of the best decisions I ever made at USC. I expressly thank you for your attention
iv
to detail, willingness to provide feedback, mentorship, and friendship. Lastly, shout out to Tara
McPherson for always encouraging me to amplify my own voice. Thank you for your advice and
dedication to seeing me through this process.
I also want to extend a very sincere shout out to Dr. Todd Boyd. Thank you for always
being willing to see me in office hours and discuss my work. Many of our conversations became
foundational to the completion of this dissertation. I also owe a huge thank you to Kara Keeling
for expanding my theoretical lens, working with me on an independent study, and agreeing to be
on my Ph.D. exams committee. Additionally, shout out to Francille Rusan Wilson for being on
my exams committee and for continuing to check in with me. I appreciate and thank you. I
would also like to thank the Cinema and Media Studies faculty who have supported me during
my time at USC: Aniko Imre and J.D. Connor.
Thank you to Sara Bakerman for your feedback, advice, and excellent taste in television.
I find myself needing to quote of my favorite TV theme songs to say, “thank you for being a
friend.” Shout out to my USC cohort and crew: Philana Payton, Jake Bohrod, Darshana Sreedhar
Mini, Eszter Zimanyi, and Michael Turcios. Special thanks to Alicia White and Anna Ogunkunle
for the friendship and memorable moments of laughter.
To Monica Young, my mother, the myth and the legend. Thank you for all those meals
you cooked for me because I was too busy and preoccupied with this project. I told you I would
give you a shout out in my acknowledgements, but you deserve so much more. Thank you for
being there for me when I needed you! To my father, Anthony Young Sr., thank you for waking
me up in the middle of the night to watch Good Times. I know I get my love of television from
you. To my big sister, Dr. Tiffany Young, thank you for constantly being a role model and for
reading my work. To my brother, Anthony Young Jr. (a.k.a. Garçon), thank you for all the times
v
you arbitrarily quizzed me on memorable TV lines and catchphrases, and for all the phone calls
that were often a much-needed distraction. Shout out to my other brother Tobias Aiden Young
for always being my voice of reason and for listening to my random stories and rants. And
special thanks to the women who have always cheered me on, my grandmothers Lula Duncan
and Mayola Marshall, and my great aunt Susie Chapman.
I am eternally grateful to my true ride or die, my best friend Annie Le. Thank you for all
the study parties, for supporting me and forcing me to celebrate my accomplishments. The
Adventures of Ashley & Annie continue!
I also want to acknowledge the mentorship that I received from Shelley Stamp as an
undergraduate in Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz. Thank you for being an excellent
mentor. Special thanks to the UCLA Young Research Library Special Collections for digitizing
several hours of audio cassettes; those tapes were an invaluable resource. Thank you to the
Visual Studies Research Institute at USC, Vanessa Schwartz, and Jennifer Miller for supporting
my research. I am very grateful to have received the VSGC Summer Research Grant. I would
also like to thank the USC Graduate School, Office of the Provost for the USC Graduate School
Final Year Fellowship.
Finally, shout out to the unapologetically Black actresses who frame this study: Cicely
Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis. Thank you for
creating your own legacies and lifting as you climbed.

vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii
ABSTRACT vii
INTRODUCTION: “I AM VERY AWARE THAT I’M A DIFFERENT SORT OF WOMAN FOR TV”: THE
POLITICIZED BLACK ACTRESS 1
CHAPTER 1: “I NEVER STROVE FOR STARDOM”: BLACK FAMOUS, TELEVISION STARDOM AND CULTURAL
LEGACY 40
CHAPTER 2: “I’M A WOMAN, AND I’M BLACK”: INTERSECTIONALITY, SELF-REPRESENTATION AND
BLACK WOMEN’S CULTURAL IDENTITY 86
CHAPTER 3: “I STAND ON YOUR SHOULDERS DIAHANN”: SHOUT OUT CULTURE, TV HERITAGE, AND THE
DISCOURSE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD 134
CONCLUSION: “I WANT THE FREEDOM TO DO WHAT I WANT TO DO”: CULTURAL ARCHIVING, RACIAL
REARTICULATION, AND LIFTING AS THEY CLIMB 189
BIBLIOGRAPHY 225

vii
ABSTRACT

This dissertation centers on the interconnectedness of five politicized African American
actresses: Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis. In
archiving these actresses’ engagement with cultural politics and their efforts at self-
representation, I argue that these women each represent different but interconnected moments in
television history, and that the generational divide between them reveals a historical continuum
of Black female representation that advocates, celebrates, and responds to evolving television
images of African American women. For nearly six decades, these memorable actresses have
used television as a forum for African American social and political expression, challenging and
rearticulating hegemonic meanings of Black womanhood. In their performances of Blackness
and Black femininity onscreen, Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Viola Davis and
Kerry Washington engaged in artistic practices connected to histories of struggle, Black political
culture, and the industrial production of African American images; thus, their work is in constant
dialogue. By charting a through-line in the careers of five canonical African American actresses,
I illustrate how a nuanced analysis of stardom, representational politics, and feminist discourses
of Black womanhood, advance an understanding of how African American actresses historically
participated in their own political representations, professional trajectories, and the star-making
fates of future African American actresses. Additionally, I explore how African American
actresses have created their own archive, placing themselves within larger cultural discourses
surrounding African American representation, social activism and the sociopolitical position of
Black women in America. As such, this dissertation is a recuperative archival project that
critically excavates Black actresses’ numerous efforts to define, create and preserve their own
cultural legacies, and the legacies of other Black women.
1
“I AM VERY AWARE THAT I’M A DIFFERENT SORT OF WOMAN FOR TV”: THE
POLITICIZED BLACK ACTRESS

I want people to think of me as a concerned activist.
1

-Esther Rolle

This year African American actress Cicely Tyson released her long-awaited
autobiography Just as I Am shortly before her passing. The book’s foreword was written by
fellow actress Viola Davis. The two first met on the set of The Help (2011) and later appeared
together onscreen in the Viola Davis led series How to Get Away with Murder (2014-2020). On
March 1, 2018, ABC premiered a two-hour crossover episode of How to Get Away with Murder
and the Kerry Washington vehicle Scandal (2012-2018), featuring two of Thursday night’s
biggest heroines, Annalise Keating and Olivia Pope. Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, and Kerry
Washington together share the screen for the first time. Tyson’s guest appearance on the “How to
Get Away with Scandal” crossover episode also marks the first time she ever performed a scene
with Kerry Washington. In 2013, the two had discussed wanting to work together in the New
York Times column “Table for Three.”
2

2013 was also the year Kerry Washington and Diahann Carroll walked the stage together
at the 65
th
Annual Primetime Emmy Awards to present the award for “Outstanding Supporting
Actor in a Drama Series,” a moment some labeled as a symbolic and generational passing of the
torch between two African American actresses. Diahann Carroll starred as Julia Baker on Julia
(1968-1971), the first sitcom to star an African American actress in a non-domestic role. During
its airing, Julia was criticized for its failure to acknowledge the social problems many Black
Americans experienced at the time. Similar to Julia, Scandal was initially critiqued for its

1
Stewart, Leisha, “Good Times Continue For ‘Good Times’ Star,” Ebony, June 1991, 66.
2
Philip Galanes, “For Cicely Tyson and Kerry Washington, Roles of a Lifetime,” New York Times,
September 26, 2013.
2
disavowal of race. On the season four premiere of Scandal, Washington’s character Olivia Pope
moves to an island and changes her name to Julia Baker, a clear reference to Carroll’s character
on Julia. Another reference to Diahann Carroll’s character can be found on an episode of Good
Times (1974-1979) “The Gang: Part 1,” where the family discusses the possibility of going to see
the film Claudine (1974). Claudine starred Diahann Carroll as a single mother of six, whose
circumstances require her to deal with an oppressive welfare system. Esther Rolle’s character
Florida Evans references Carroll’s previous television persona by stating, “Julia on welfare?
Well this I got to see!”
3
Both Esther Rolle and Diahann Carroll appeared in the television movie
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979), and later both are featured in Marlon Rigg’s
documentary Color Adjustment (1991) to discuss the representation of African Americans on
television and their historic roles. In 2019, ABC aired the television special Live in Front of a
Studio Audience: All in the Family and Good Times, where Viola Davis played Esther Rolle’s
historic character Florida Evans in a recreation of a Good Times episode. Additionally, Kerry
Washington served as an executive producer for the special.
I begin with these examples to reveal the interconnectedness of five politicized African
American actresses, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington, and Viola
Davis. While these may seem like scripted moments of coincidence or happenstance, I argue that
these instances are where Black actresses insert spontaneity and improvisation that are a part of
television history worth noting. As Hollywood still struggles to accept and incorporate Blackness
as a whole, many Black actresses, who imbue their performance of Black femininity with a
strong sense of progressive racial politics, have been omitted from mainstream histories of the
industry. These five actresses who created opportunities and deliberately positioned themselves

3
Good Times, 22, “The Gang: Part 1,” directed by Herbert Kenwith, aired November 12, 1974, on CBS.
3
to work together are consequential, and their cultural work helped to redefine and rearticulate
hegemonic meanings of Black womanhood. These actresses represent the capability of
performers to use their cultural capital and influence to not only shape their onscreen images, but
also to help mold the overall narrative about Blackness in the United States. In their ability to
convey Blackness and Black femininity onscreen, these women are political agents engaged in
artistic practices connected to histories of struggle, Black political culture, and the cultural
production of African American images; thus, their work is in constant dialogue. They place
themselves within larger cultural discourses surrounding African American television
representation, social activism and the sociopolitical position of Black women in America. This
dissertation will interrogate the various meanings, agendas, and outcomes of being a politicized
Black actress, specifically within the context of African American cultural politics. To be
considered politicized, these actresses demonstrate a fervent awareness of representational
politics and the relationship between their political and professional endeavors.
In a comprehensive case study, which advances theoretical paradigms for studying
representations of Black women, I argue that these five actresses each represent different but
interconnected moments in television history, and that the generational divide between them
reveals a historical trajectory of Black female representation that remembers, responds to and
celebrates evolving television representations of African American women. Each of these
performers had a career-defining role on television that has either made or helped to revitalize
their careers and contributed to their mainstream success. I provide critical insights into the
careers of these actresses to demonstrate that their work on and off-screen forms a common
through-line rooted in Black women’s activist tradition and African American cultural politics. I
explore the engaged relationship Black actresses have to previous depictions of Black women
4
onscreen, and the history of Black televisual representation. Using a three-tiered analysis, I
interrogate stardom, representational politics, and discourses of Black womanhood to articulate a
more nuanced understanding of how African American women historically shaped their own
representation, helping to pave the way for future Black actresses to work in Hollywood. As
such, this dissertation is both a celebratory and a recuperative archival project that critically
acknowledges the way Black actresses define, create and preserve their own cultural legacies,
and the legacies of other Black women. Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry
Washington, and Viola Davis are interconnected to each other and many other Black actresses
who used their careers to advance the social status of Black women in America.
Biographical Overview: Context and Interconnections
Esther Rolle, best known for playing Florida Evans on Maude (1972-1978) and Good
Times was actually born in Florida in 1920. Rolle was a film, television and theatre actress. Prior
to acting, she was a dancer in a West African dance troupe in the 1940s and 1950s, until she
decided to focus her attention on becoming an actress. Before coming to television, she appeared
in several off-Broadway plays including Jean Genet’s The Blacks in the early 1960s. In 1967, she
became an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC), a New York-based
production company created to showcase African American dramatic talent. Esther Rolle
performed in seven NEC productions between 1968 and 1972, including Ride a Black Horse
(1971) and Ballet behind the Bridge (1972). Her starring role on Broadway in the Melvin Van
Peebles musical comedy Don’t Play Us Cheap in 1972 caught the attention of television
executive producer Norman Lear. Lear wanted Rolle for his new show Maude, about a white
liberal woman living in New York. Rolle initially decline the role; however, after being
persuaded by Lear, she agreed to play Florida Evans, a character she would be associated with
5
for the remainder of her career. During her brief and self-imposed hiatus from Good Times, she
appeared in two made-for-television movies, Summer of My German Soldier (1978), for which
she earned her first and only Emmy, and the Maya Angelou inspired I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings (1979). After Good Times, Rolle quickly faded from mainstream view; she continued to
take minor or supporting roles in films and on television, but never regained the mainstream
popularity she once had. According to Esther Rolle, “I’m not so in love with material things that
I’ll do anything for money. That allows me the luxury of doing things of value.”
4
She also
starred in two one-women plays about Sojourner Truth and civil rights activist Mary McLeod
Bethune. In 1987, she was inducted into the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) Hall of Fame. Known for an unwavering commitment to promoting
dignified images of African Americans, Esther Rolle was the first woman to be honored with the
NAACP Chairman’s Civil Rights Leadership Award in 1990 for her work onscreen uplifting the
image of African Americans. While many of her roles were as servants or maids, Rolle dedicated
her career to portraying non-stereotypical depictions of Black women.
Similarly, often stating that she “could not afford the luxury of just being an actress,”
5

Cicely Tyson remained steadfast in her position as an African American dramatic performer
dedicated to depicting strong, dignified, and proud Black characters. Born in 1924, Cicely Tyson
began her career as a fashion model before transitioning into theatre acting, making a name for
herself as an original cast member of the off-Broadway play The Blacks in 1961. This would lead
to her first major television role as Jane Foster on the short-lived CBS drama East Side/West Side

4
Allis, Tim and Lois Armstrong, “Esther Rolle’s Maid-with Sass Trades Good Times for Hard Times in
Driving Miss Daisy,” People, February 12, 1990, https://people.com/archive/esther-rolles-maid-with-
sass-trades-good-times-for-hard-times-in-driving-miss-daisy-vol-33-no-6/
5
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, ed. Barbara
Summers, (New York: Stewart, Tabari & Chang), 27.
6
(1963). In what became a lengthy career, she established herself as a prominent dramatic actress
with noteworthy roles that included: Rebecca in Sounder (1972), Jane Pittman in The
Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), and Binta in Roots (1977). She also starred in the
miniseries King (1978) and several made-for-television movies such as A Woman Called Moses
(1978), The Marva Collins Story (1981), and Benny’s Place (1982). Later, Tyson co-starred in
the NBC drama Sweet Justice (1993-1994) as a civil rights lawyer. Tyson wrote in her
autobiography, “as an artist with the privilege of the spotlight, I felt an enormous responsibility
to use that forum as a force for good, as a place from which to display the full spectrum of our
humanity. My art had to both mirror the times and propel them forward. I was determined to do
all I could to alter the narrative about Black people — to change the way Black women in
particular were perceived, by reflecting our dignity.”
6
Cicely Tyson continued to make
appearances in film and television until her nineties with her final onscreen appearance on How
to Get Away with Murder as Ophelia Harkness, Annalise Keating’s mother. In a career that
spanned over six decades, her legacy onscreen earned her numerous awards including: Kennedy
Center honoree in 2015; the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016; an honorary Academy
Award in 2018;
7
Television Hall of Fame inductee in 2020.
In perhaps a visually and thematically oppositional career to Tyson and Rolle, Diahann
Carroll, widely known for her beauty, elegance, and glamour, was a multi-hyphenated talent
garnering accolades as a singer and actress of the stage and screen. Born Carol Diann Johnson in
1935, Diahann Carroll became a model for Ebony magazine in her teens. She began her career as
a singer making television appearances on contest and variety shows in the 1950s. Her singing

6
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, Just as I Am: A Memoir, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2021), 8.
7
She was the first African American actress to receive an Honorary Oscar and remains the only Black
woman to ever receive one.
7
career developed into standing night club appearances and later into minor film roles and
featured Broadway performances. In 1954, she had a small supporting role in Otto Preminger’s
Carmen Jones starring Dorothy Dandridge and made her Broadway debut in House of Flowers.
She later became the first African American actress to earn a Tony Award in 1962 for the
musical No Strings. In 1962, she also testified at a congressional hearing about racial bias in the
entertainment industry. However, 1968 is the year she received one of the most significant roles
of her career as Julia Baker. When discussing the importance of her role on Julia in 1968, Carroll
stated, “So many things have been done with black people on television that have lacked any real
commitment. It is time to present the black character primarily as a human being. I want to do
something that deals with a black person in the everyday situations of ups and downs, good and
bad.”
8
After leaving Julia for its blatant disregard of the complexity of racial tensions in America
at the time, she starred in Claudine (1974) and earned an Academy Award nomination. Shortly
after, Diahann Carroll had a short-lived musical variety show on CBS called The Diahann
Carroll Show (1976). Her other television credits include Roots: The Next Generation (1979) and
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979). Subsequently, her television comeback role was on
the 1980s nighttime soap Dynasty (1981-89) as Dominique Deveraux in 1984; a role Carroll
promoted as “television’s first Black bitch.” She remained on the series until 1987, while
simultaneously making appearances on the Dynasty spin-off The Colbys (1985-1987). Similar to
Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll continued to make television appearances with recurring roles on
A Different World (1987-1993), Grey’s Anatomy (2005-Present), and White Collar (2009-2014)
in a lengthy career that lasted over fifty years.

8
Lewis, Richard Warren, “The Importance of Being Julia,” TV Guide, December 14, 1968, 26.
8
Viola Davis was inspired to become an actress while watching Cicely Tyson, Diahann
Carroll and Esther Rolle on television as a child. Born in 1965, Davis uses her experience
growing up in extreme poverty in Central Falls, Rhode Island, as motivation and inspiration for
how she views her craft. Her voice and willingness to speak out about what she believes is as
much a part of Viola Davis’s star persona as her messy crying and dramatic acting abilities. An
unwavering advocate for more onscreen representations that depict Black women’s full
complexity and humanity, she reasons, “When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do
something about it. I see the kind of work that needs to be put out there in order to make
change…a 25-year-old white actress who is training at Yale or Juilliard…can look at a dozen
white actresses who are working over age 40 in terrific roles. You can’t say that for a lot of
young black girls. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
9
After graduating from Juilliard in
1993, Davis began working off-Broadway, and made her first appearance on Broadway in 1996.
It was also during this period that Davis paid her dues with minor film and television roles as
nurses, lawyers, and doctors. In 2001, she earned her first Tony Award for her role in playwright
August Wilson’s King Hedley II. Her brief but memorable appearance in the film Doubt (2008)
opposite Meryl Streep led to her first Academy Award nomination, but the nomination did not
lead to more substantial roles commensurate of her talent. Her next significant film role came a
couple years later as Aibileen Clark in The Help (2011), earning Davis another Academy Award
nomination. However, her starring role on the Shonda Rhimes produced television drama How to
Get Away with Murder (HTGAWM) gave Viola Davis the opportunity to deviate from the
downtrodden, mammy-ish, best friend characters she was used to getting in most of her film
work. Prior to HTGAWM, Davis was a cast member on several failed or short-lived series: the

9
Wallace, Amy, “Viola Davis as You’ve Never Seen Her Before: Leading Lady!” The New York Times
Magazine, September 12, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/magazine/viola-davis.html.
9
CBS medical drama City of Angels (2000); sci-fi legal drama Century City (2004); the ABC
action-thriller Traveler (2007). How to Get Away with Murder was a chance for Davis to utilize
her skills as a dramatic actress and to play a more fully developed, complicated, sexualized
character. In 2015, she became the first Black actress to win an Emmy for lead actress in a drama
for this role. She also earned her first Academy Award in 2017 for Fences (2016).
10
With over
thirty years of experience, Viola Davis has also earned the “triple crown” of acting with an
Emmy, Oscar, and two Tony awards.
Also coming to prominence from the world of Shonda Rhimes, Kerry Washington is best
known for her role as political fixer Olivia Pope on Scandal, becoming only the second African
American actress to star in a network television drama. Born in 1977, Kerry Washington’s acting
career started with a guest spot on a 1994 episode of ABC Afterschool Specials (1972-1997). Her
early work consisted of minor film roles with limited success. In 2001, she starred in the
independent film Lift (2001), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She made
appearances in films such as Save the Last Dance (2001) and The Human Stain (2003). Kerry
Washington also co-starred in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me (2004) opposite Anthony Mackie. Her
supporting roles in films include credits in Bad Company (2002), Ray (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith
(2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), and I Think I Love My Wife (2007). At this time, Kerry
Washington was by no means a household name, but she did have a recognizable face, as she
appeared in commercials for L’Oréal make-up in 2007. 2012 however, was a significant year for
Washington with the premiere of Scandal in April, and the December release of Quentin
Tarantino’s film Django Unchained (2012). In 2013, she became an ambassador and creative
consultant for Neutrogena, even developing her own cosmetics line.
11
That same year, she was

10
She also earned another Tony in 2010 for the same role, which is another August Wilson play.
11
Mock, Janet, “Kerry Washington’s Next Act,” Marie Claire, October 8, 2019,
10
also awarded the NAACP President’s Award in recognition of her public service and
achievements. Washington is also celebrated for her political activism off-screen, she was
appointed to the President’s Committee of the Arts and Humanities by President Barack Obama
in 2009 and later spoke at the Democratic National Convention (2012).
12
According to
Washington, “I’ve never been able to divorce political ideology from the choices I make as an
actor, because black women in particular have been so marginalized. Even if I’m just doing my
job as an actor, by bringing full, three-dimensional, human realization to a character, when you
do that as a black woman, it’s a political act.”
13
While on Scandal, Kerry Washington made her
directorial debut during the show’s final season. She also started her own production company in
2016, which produced her HBO movie Confirmation (2016). Washington also executive-
produced her Netflix film American Son (2019) and Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere (2020).
In 2020, she won her first Emmy as a producer for Live in Front of a Studio Audience.
Why These Five Actresses: The How and the Why of Black Women’s Political Efforts
My interdisciplinary scholarship incorporates African American film and television
studies, Black cultural criticism, cultural studies, Black feminist theory, and star studies. By
charting a through-line in the careers of five canonical African American actresses, I illustrate
how a nuanced analysis of stardom, representational politics, and feminist discourses of Black
womanhood, advance an understanding of how African American actresses historically
participated in their own political representations, professional trajectories, and star-making fates
of future African American actresses. Collectively Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll,

https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a23596751/kerry-washington-november-2018-cover/.
12
In 2020, Kerry Washington also hosted the third night of the Democratic National Convention.
13
Jones, Ellen, “Scandal’s Kerry Washington: ‘My mother’s nightmare was for me to be a starving
actress,” The Guardian, November 30, 2020,
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/30/scandals-kerry-washington-my-mothers-
nightmare-was-for-me-to-be-a-starving-actress.
11
Viola Davis and Kerry Washington represent differing body-types, skin tones and worldviews
that have framed their experiences, their viability for certain roles in Hollywood, and thus their
degree of success. Additionally, they each represent different but interconnected moments in
television history, and their careers intersect in varied ways. The generational divide between
these women reveals the historical trajectory of representational intervention that both advocates
for and celebrates the shared identities of Black women. Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther
Rolle, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis were purposefully and thoughtfully selected due to
their relationship to each other, and how throughout their careers they addressed issues relevant
to Black women in America. My choice is practical and affords a richer analysis, through my
intertextual approach to the study of African American actresses on television.
Being aware of Black women’s social, cultural and political history, and using that
knowledge to reframe and redefine how Black women are depicted onscreen is what makes these
women politicized. In Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, Robin
Kelley argues, “Too often politics is defined by how people participate rather than why…Politics
is not separate from lived experience or the imaginary world of what is possible; to the contrary,
politics is about these things.”
14
In varying ways, these actresses insert their own lived
experiences, beliefs, and cultural knowledge into their work onscreen as a means of empowering
African Americans, especially African American women. As Black women, these actresses used
their cultural capital to demand that Hollywood see Black women as human beings with the
same rights and talents as their white counterparts. This dissertation explores the “how” and the
“why” by examining the political efforts of these five Black women. I articulate a theoretical

14
Kelley, Robin, Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class, (New York:
The Free Press, 1994), 9.
12
framework for studying Black women on television and offer a more nuanced understanding of
their performances of Blackness and Black femininity.
Guiding this study is the foregrounding of the actresses’ political speech and
intergenerational dialogue, as I critically analyze the way their cultural work rearticulates
hegemonic meanings of Black womanhood. Herman Gray’s foundational book Watching Race:
Television and the Struggle for Blackness uses a cultural studies approach to elucidate how
Blackness operates within commercial popular culture, specifically within television discourses
and how representations of Blackness have the power to construct and circulate commonsense
understandings about race in America. As such, it is crucial when discussing the political efforts
of Black actresses. According to Gray, “one cannot begin the task of understanding the complex
cultural meanings of black television representations and television’s representations of blacks
without situating them in terms of the cultural discourses in which these representations are
produced and the social locations across which these images and representations circulate.”
15
My
research follows Gray’s framework while additionally examining the intergenerational linkages
between Black actresses, and how their work is in constant conversation. Thus, I argue, these
women are participating in a shared reimagining of Black female representation premised on
Black women’s social history and cultural politics. In their referential performative modes,
African American actresses have the ability to insert historically weighted meanings into the
cultural discourses of their respective television work, thereby allowing for a new and
multidimensional method for studying African American women on television. I place the
actresses at the center of this study within a larger oeuvre of other African American actresses.
Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Viola Davis, and Kerry Washington all recognize

15
Gray, Herman, Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness, (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1995), 45.
13
the use of imagery as a means of remaking, reworking, and reconstituting racial meaning and
identity.
Previous research on African Americans and television is often not specific to Black
women. While Donald Bogle’s book Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television
provides a necessary historical overview of African American televisual representation, it is
limited in its critical scope of Black actresses. Beretta Smith-Shomade’s Shaded Lives: African
American Women and Television does focus specifically on the visual representation of Black
women in situation comedies, music videos, television news and talk shows from the 1980s until
the early 2000s. She looks at how Black women’s voices are represented, what forces might be at
work in influencing their images, and alternative ways of viewing these images. Smith-Shomade
argues that subjectivity allows Black women to define their own reality, establish their own
identities, and name their own history.
16
She relates subjectivity with agency in terms of Black
women’s objectification, defining agency as a “mode of visual and content awareness of
women’s authority, voice, and vision.”
17
Smith-Shomade argues that moments of agency and
subjectivity can resist or reposition objectification. My definition of agency also includes an
actress’s ability to actively shape and contribute to her characters or narrative world. Kerry
Washington, for instance, discusses her role as a producer as,
There’s something about the agency—like, I get to control my body, myself, my story—
that is so necessary to us feeling like the women we’re meant to be…particularly in this
country, our history is so much about our bodies belonging to other people. So, to be able
to really have agency to call the shots, to be able to be the storytellers, I think is very
empowering. And it just feels right. It feels like full personhood on set.
18

16
Smith-Shomade, Beretta, Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television (New Brunswick:
Rutgers UP, 2002), 23
17
Smith-Shomade, Beretta, Shaded Lives, 23.
18
Jackson, Angelique, “Kerry Washington and Lavern Cox on Making Their Own Opportunities and
Achieving Inclusivity on Set,” Variety, https://variety.com/2021/film/features/kerry-washington-laverne-
cox-producing-inclusivity-1234910669/?jwsource=cl.
14
Similar to Kerry Washington, I view agency as the inclusion of an actress’s ability to insert her
voice as a Black woman into the stories she tells and having the ability to greenlight projects.
African American actresses have a dedicated history of using their agency to privilege Black
women’s collective voices and narratives.
In examining moments of agency in the careers of Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Diahann
Carroll, Kerry Washington and Viola Davis, I demonstrate how Black actresses use television for
the purposes of cultivating images of African American women. Additionally, I theorize the
relationship between agency and Black women’s stardom. Christine Acham’s Revolution
Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power, Herman Gray’s Watching Race, and
Beretta Smith-Shomade’s Shaded Lives all demonstrate the importance of placing television
texts within their specific cultural, historical and political discourse; my dissertation is invariably
in conversation with these notable works. I also advocate for the importance of examining
intergenerational linkages, which construct a historical continuum and framework of Black
women on television that incorporates Black feminist theory as well as Black women’s political
and cultural legacy. In doing so, I am able to provide an encompassing perspective and argument
around televisual representations of African American women, allowing me the ability to
foreground their historical relevance and construct an overlooked history.
Studying Stardom: Fame, Celebrity, and Cultural Archiving
Television is a star-producing medium for African American women who are able to use
their agency to develop multidimensional imagery of African Americans. In its early
development, television’s different historical configuration from cinema, the transition from
radio, the need for content, and the technological curiosity created a demand that permitted Black
15
women to star in shows such as The Ethel Waters Show (1939), The Laytons (1948),
19
The Hazel
Scott Show (1950), and Beulah (1951-1953). From Esther Rolle to Kerry Washington, television
has offered these women visibility and mainstream popularity on a national scale. For instance,
when discussing the media attention she received starring in Julia, Diahann Carroll wrote,
“There is no way in the world you can prepare yourself for all the unnatural attention national
television exposure brings in its wake.”
20
Television offers Black actresses prominence,
international recognition, a platform for racially meaningful representations, and opportunity for
creating lasting cultural memory. Additionally, television is an arena of Black popular culture,
where the intertextual circulation of African American images is vital to television’s function as
an apparatus of Black women’s stardom, enduring the careers of Black actresses. For nearly six
decades, these memorable African American actresses have used television as a forum for Black
social and political expression, challenging and reconstructing fixed notions of how African
American women can be represented.
In this way, Black women’s stardom is tied to histories of social and professional
struggles, representational politics, and Black popular culture; therefore, it must include Black
women’s agency, generational influence, audience engagement, and cultural legacy. Stardom for
African American women is also the ability to pave the way for future Black actresses to work,
creating a foundational path that makes it incrementally easier for the next Black actress. These
five actresses are not merely connected to each other; they are also linked to past, present and
future Black actresses on television. Additionally, it is important to examine stardom in terms of
Black actresses’ power to mediate meanings of race, the ability to convey ideas on Black
femininity, and shifting the narrative of Black womanhood in this country. Thus, I argue that the

19
Short-lived series that starred actress Amanda Randolph.
20
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone. Diahann! (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986), 142.
16
star status of the actresses in this study encompasses their efforts at redefining and evoking
cultural images of African American women on television.
This dissertation argues that television is more than a steppingstone to film stardom, as
often asserted in mainstream white views of stardom, but instead offers these women visibility, a
platform, an opportunity to be seen on a consistent basis, and the ability to contribute to their
own image production. For each of these actresses, television not only kept them working, but
contributed to their most culturally meaningful representations. Without television, they would
not have the same cultural legacy. In archiving these actresses’ engagement with Black cultural
politics and their efforts at self-representation, I explore African American actresses’
complicated relationship to Hollywood and notions of stardom. According to scholar Ed
Guerrero, “Because the cinematic representation of blackness is the site of perpetual
contestation, struggle, and consequently change, Hollywood’s unceasing efforts to frame
blackness are constantly challenged by the cultural and political self-definitions of African
Americans, who as a people have been determined since the inception of commercial cinema to
militate against this limiting system of representation.”
21
Viola Davis once described Hollywood
as, “If there is a place that is a metaphor for just fitting in and squelching your own authentic
voice, Hollywood would be the place.”
22
The actresses selected for this study refused to just fit
in; instead, they used their careers to challenge Hollywood’s systemic racism and assert Black
women’s voices and perspectives into representations of African American women on television.
In Hollywood, stardom is defined principally by financial terms, and an actor’s earning
ability. As such, Black women have a different relationship to Hollywood and conventional

21
Guerrero, Ed, Framing Blackness: The African American Image in Film, (Philadelphia: Temple UP,
1993), 2-3.
22
Saraiya, Sonia, “Viola Davis: ‘My Entire Life Has Been a Protest,”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/cover-story-viola-davis.
17
definitions of stardom than white actors and African American men. For African American
actresses who have a voice, want nuanced and multifaceted representations of Black
womanhood, traditional Hollywood stardom is much more difficult to achieve. As Cicely Tyson
argued, “Young African American women do not get paid commensurate to their talent. I
challenge you to tell me one person who’s on par with Denzel Washington, a female African
American…I don’t care what anybody says, we are basically at the last rung of the ladder,
struggling and we’ll always be there to struggle. The point is you got to hold on and not let it go,
no matter how much they trample on your fingers.”
23
Tyson juxtaposes African American
actresses to Denzel Washington to demonstrate that, in terms of earning potential, there is no
comparison. Black actresses are not valued in the same way by Hollywood as Black men or
white women, and therefore not paid similar salaries. In his book Hollywood Stardom, Paul
McDonald argues, “Historically, Hollywood stardom has worked through a system in which
commercial value is produced almost exclusively through a small cohort of white male actors
roughly aged from their mid 20s to their mid 50s…To understand stars as a feature of
Hollywood’s commercial aesthetic it is vital to recognize how economic value defines star
status.”
24
While a few Black male actors have been able to break through cinema’s racially-
biased talent hierarchy, Black women remain outside the probabilities of stardom for multiple
reasons, wages being just one.
The possibility for traditional stardom exists but is highly unlikely for African American
actresses. With the limited roles available to them, a successful career in Hollywood may involve
just being able to make a living as a professional actress. Esther Rolle conceived of success as

23
Tyson, Cicely, “Black Women in Hollywood Panel (ABFF 2006),” YouTube, September 7, 2010,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox6RDFcYXC4.
24
McDonald, Paul, Hollywood Stardom (West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 31.
18
“being the best you can possibly be at something you like. When you have done that, don’t
worry about it, you’ll have a living. You may not reach ‘superstardom’ in your field, but that’s
not your idea of success anyway.”
25
For the actresses in this study, success is not defined merely
in terms of economic worth or even professional accolades, but in the cultural legacy they leave
behind onscreen and the path they created for future Black actresses.
There is a big difference between being a working actress and being a conventional
Hollywood star. For politicized Black actresses, stardom is not the ultimate goal as there are
added barriers of entry. Viola Davis illustrates this, claiming, “Here’s the issue with our
business. It’s a business of deprivation. And when people are deprived, they get desperate. We
are in a profession that has a 95 percent unemployment rate. And only .04 percent of actors are
famous. That’s it… And in our profession, the race is just to work.”
26
Davis is correct in
maintaining the limited number of actors and actresses who achieve any level of mainstream
recognition. Of that percentage, an even smaller number are African American. Both quality and
quantity of roles are problems Black actresses are constantly navigating when working in
Hollywood. In 1968, Diahann Carroll argued, “In the past, bones were thrown in our direction.
Now there’s a lot more meat on the bone. I won’t say its sirloin. It’s just a better cut of meat.”
27

More than half a century later, Viola Davis makes a similar comment, “I want, and I expect to
get the same filet mignon that white actresses get. Cooked at the exact temperature. You cannot
throw me a bone with a really nice little piece of meat still on it and expect that’s good enough
for me.”
28
Both Diahann Carroll and Viola Davis speak to Black actresses’ various struggles to

25
Holsey, Steve, “Esther Rolle: An Actress with a Cause,” Michigan Chronicle, September 20, 1995, 1-
B.
26
Brown, Laura, “V is for Victory,” In Style, December 2020, 99.
27
Lewis, Richard Warren, “The Importance of Being Julia,” TV Guide, December 14, 1968, 28.
28
Brown, Laura, “V is for Victory,” 99.
19
become self-determined, fully participating members of the entertainment industry with access to
Hollywood’s representational power and economic resources. They contest the lack of job
opportunities available to Black actresses, and Viola Davis further demands the same privileges
given to her white counterparts.
Hollywood, an institution birthed out of racist ideologies, practices and images, is slow to
change;
29
however, these actresses are confronting social inequalities in America and the
entertainment industry on a consistent basis. When discussing traditional Hollywood stardom, it
is necessary to differentiate stardom from classifications such as fame and celebrity. Fame,
celebrity and star are all terms used to assess an actor or actresses’ level of success. These terms
are hierarchical and are constantly shifting based on a myriad of factors such as technological
changes, access and opportunity, and race. Thus, I argue that categories such as fame, celebrity
and star fail to fully comprehend the star status of African American actresses, as their stardom is
independent of Hollywood definitions.
Fame is ubiquitous and capitalizes on the popular, hence the colloquialism “famous for
being famous.”
30
Fame is defined by a moment or series of short-term moments, where one is in
the public view garnering a degree of recognizability amongst limited audiences or communities.
At its core, fame is the most transient classification within the stardom and celebrity studies
hierarchy. In a sense, fame is everywhere, a “dominant cultural phenomenon,” where simply

29
D.W. Griffith considered the father of American cinema for his film Birth of a Nation (1915), the “most
controversial Civil War Drama ever released in America,” for its stereotypical depictions of African
Americans, many of which can still be seen in film and television today. Bogle, Donald, Toms, Coons,
Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films (4
th
ed.), (London:
Bloomsbury, 2013), 11.
30
Holmes, Su and Sean Redmond, “Introduction: Understanding Celebrity Culture,” in Framing
Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture, ed. Su Holmes and Sean Redmond (London: Routledge,
2006), 5.
20
being within the realm of public spaces and platforms constitutes fame.
31
Historically, fame
refers to public visibility based on personal achievement and “the informal attribution of
distinction on an individual within a given social network.”
32
Chris Rojek refers to this as
renown, arguing, “These individuals have a sort of localized fame within the particular social
assemblage of which they are a part.”
33
Fame is also a “deeply hierarchical phenomenon,” even
within the same medium, where famous is used freely to designate anyone on screen from news
anchors to daytime soap opera actors to reality TV participants.
34
The taxonomy of fame works
to construct alternatives to mainstream recognition, such that reality TV fame can be seen as a
higher tier than Internet fame. To be famous is to be recognized outside of one’s core social
sphere by maintaining a level of recognition within a single medium, industry or field.
Fame often requires a recognizable skill or talent in a person’s arena or industry, whereas
anyone can be a celebrity. Public visibility and media recognition are the basic determining
conditions for celebrity. Celebrity as a general phenomenon has various uses in terms of
recognition and status, and can be loosely defined as “those who become the most popular in
their field in terms of media attention, adulation, and sometimes acrimony.”
35
As Alice Marwick
argues, “fame has existed for centuries, [whereas] celebrity is inextricably linked to media.”
36

Although celebrity is used less prestigiously than the term star, it is conceived as a category of

31
Redmond, Sean, “Intimate Fame Everywhere,” in Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity
Culture. ed. Su Holmes and Sean Redmond (London: Routledge, 2006), 27.
32
Rojek, Chris, Celebrity (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 12.
33
Rojek, Chris, Celebrity, 12.
34
Holmes and Redmond, “Introduction,” 11.
35
Kellner, Douglas, “Barack Obama, Media Spectacle and Celebrity Politics,” in A Companion to
Celebrity, ed. P. David Marshall and Sean Redmond (West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 130.
36
Marwick, Alice, “You May Know Me from YouTube: (Micro-)Celebrity in Social Media,” in A
Companion to Celebrity, ed. P. David Marshall and Sean Redmond (West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell,
2016), 353.
21
fame that “exists on a continuum spectrum ”
37
and changes as media changes, as such the past
two decades have seen vast changes in the definition of celebrity, “from one related solely to
mass and broadcast media to one that reflects a more diverse media landscape.”
38
In the modern
conception of celebrity, reality television and social media platforms have shifted who gets
labeled a celebrity, while simultaneously transforming ordinary people into momentary
celebrities. Unlike fame, celebrity is not so much about the characteristic of the specific
individual, as it is reliant on representations of lifestyle and is an extension of one’s actual sphere
of work. Thus, celebrity is commonly constructed through press publications in magazines,
newspapers, and other related media. According to Christine Geraghty, celebrity is well suited
for actresses since they “function effectively as spectacle in the press and on television as well as
in the cinema.”
39
For Black female celebrities specifically, “critiques of their celebrity image are
frequently enmeshed with those of their racial identity. This is illustrated in the way judgements
of famous Black women may relate to, and deviate from, those of famous white women.”
40

Using the contemporary notions of fame and celebrity, I examine the career of Kerry
Washington in terms of her ability to move across these varying levels of recognition. I assess
her television success to consider both the similarities and differences between fame, celebrity,
and stardom. Thus far, Washington’s career can be separated into three periods: pre-Scandal
(2001-2011), the Scandal era (2012-2018), and post-Scandal (2019-Present). Dividing her career
into these three phases allows for a useful interpretation of fame, celebrity and stardom. These

37
Ferris, Kerry, “Recognition, Gratification, and Vulnerability,” in A Companion to Celebrity, ed. P.
David Marshall and Sean Redmond (West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 237.
38
Marwick, Alice, “You May Know Me from YouTube,” 353.
39
Geraghty, Christine, “Re-Examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies and Performance,” in
Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, ed. Su Holmes and Sean Redmond (London: SAGE, 2007), 106.
40
Sobande, Francesca, “How to Get Away with Authenticity: Viola Davis and the intersections of
Blackness, naturalness, femininity and relatability,” Celebrity Studies, (2019): 2.
22
phases of Washington’s career will help demonstrate the way in which star studies and celebrity
studies continues to inadequately account for the stardom of African American television
actresses.
For an actress, fame can come from making brief but memorable appearances in film and
television. Kerry Washington first earned a modicum of fame as Chenille Reynolds in Save the
Last Dance (2001). Her pre-Scandal period (2001-2011) is defined by supporting film roles,
including her credits in Bad Company (2002), Ray (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Little Man
(2006), or I Think I Love My Wife (2007). In 2002, she was featured in Ebony magazine’s
“Actresses on the Rise” segment and three years later she was featured again in a segment “On
the Star Track.”
41
Washington was the female lead in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me (2004), a limited
release that failed to earn its initial budget back in box office revenues, and was heavily
criticized for its representation of lesbian women. Although, she was the female lead opposite
Anthony Mackie, the film did not do much for her career or shift her status within the fame
hierarchy. Despite her co-starring roles, she was never number one on the call sheet. Throughout
this period, she also made guest appearances on television shows such as Law & Order (1990-
2010), NYPD Blue (1993-2005), Boston Legal (2004-2008), and Psych (2006-2014). In 2007
towards the end of her pre-Scandal period, Washington became a more recognizable face
appearing in commercials for L’Oréal cosmetics. She also co-starred with Samuel L. Jackson in
Lake View Terrace (2008) but was not featured on the theatrical release poster. During this
period, she was also on the cover of African American themed Essence magazine twice and Jet
magazine once but, had yet to achieve mainstream recognition outside of African American
audiences. Despite her face appearing in a national make-up campaign, mainstream audiences

41
Ebony, September 2002, 175; Ebony, March 2005, 52.
23
were not as familiar with Washington, while Black audiences and publications instantly
recognized Washington’s rising popularity and commercial viability.
Given the rapidly changing nature of stardom and the increased industry legitimacy given
to television, streaming services, and the visibility of the Internet and social media, stardom as
only determined by film roles is limiting and does not fit the realities of the contemporary
entertainment industry. For example, during her time on Scandal (2012-2018), Kerry
Washington was featured on the cover of over thirty magazines, including Adweek, Allure,
Ebony, Elle, Glamour, InStyle, Marie Claire, and TV Guide. She also appeared on international
covers, such as Maxim (Australia), Marie Claire (UK), Glamour (Mexico), and Good
Housekeeping (South Africa). Kerry Washington’s lifestyle was promoted by magazines
targeting different demographics. Scandal opened up a multitude of opportunities for
Washington both nationally and globally. The magazine covers included sub-headings like,
“Scandal’s Kerry Washington,” “Scandal Star,” “Notes on a Scandal.” Soon after Scandal
premiered, she had a supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012). Her first
significant lead role in a film was also during this period, the HBO television movie
Confirmation (2016), where she played Anita Hill. Additionally, she received three Emmy and
two Golden Globe nominations for Scandal and Confirmation. Forbes named her the seventh
highest paid television actress in 2017.
42
Kerry Washington describes the increased visibility as,
It’s impossible to say that Olivia Pope hasn’t been one of the most transformative roles
for me. I’ve never played a character for this long. Olivia Pope also took my anonymity
away. Before, I was a character actor: Nobody really knew that the girl from Save the
Last Dance was the same girl from The Last King of Scotland. So, I could show up and

42
Berg, Madeline, “The World’s Highest-Paid TV Actresses 2017: Sofia Vergara Leads With $41.5
Million,” Forbes, September 26, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2017/09/26/the-worlds-
highest-paid-tv-actresses-2017-sofia-vergara-leads-with-41-5-million-total-2/#4ec3d6f65b0e.
24
be a person in the public eye when it was useful, then dip out and have my life. Olivia
Pope has really changed that.
43

Between 2012 and 2018, Kerry Washington received the most publicity and mainstream
Hollywood attention of her career, yet for all her accomplishments and accolades during this
period, by conventional Hollywood standards she is simply considered a celebrity, someone who
is popular and not a star, based on the platform—television. Star studies is premised on the film
star and tends to relegate performances independent of film as outside the realm of stardom.
While Kerry Washington has never been nominated for an Academy Award, her nearly two-
decade long career, multiple accolades, financial success, publicity and mainstream recognition
during her Scandal years should place her within the realm of stardom. But based on the
conventional definition, Kerry Washington is not yet a star.
After the airing of the final episode of Scandal in 2018, Washington’s career in terms of
her role selection have been much more racially specific. She appeared as Helen Willis from the
classic television show The Jeffersons (1975-1985) on ABC’s Live in Front of a Studio
Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons (2019). As previously mentioned,
she also executive produced and starred in Netflix’s American Son (2019) and Hulu’s Little Fires
Everywhere (2020). Washington also made an appearance in the Netflix film Prom (2020).
Admittedly, it is too soon to accurately categorize her post-Scandal career. Nonetheless, what is
evident is that she is still enjoying a similar level of recognition; though she does not appear on
as many magazine covers as she previously did. Within star studies and celebrity studies,
Washington’s career thus far, including her tenure on Scandal would categorize her as a
celebrity. Hence, I argue the categories fame, celebrity, and stardom are insufficient in

43
Mendoza, Paola, “Kerry Washington on Art as Activism and the Importance of ‘Staying Awake’”
Glamour, April 4, 2017, https://www.glamour.com/story/kerry-washington-may-glamour-cover.
25
comprehending the star status and potential for stardom of Black actresses, as their stardom
requires an interpretation of Black women’s archival interventions and an understanding of
African American women’s media, cultural and political accomplishments.
African American actresses have created their own archive, where they preserve their
own cultural legacies and the legacies of other Black women. I theorize and advance the term
cultural archivist to demonstrate how Black actresses conserve their own history for future
generations to remember, contribute to and amplify. Additionally, the term cultural archivist also
incorporates how politicized Black actresses have established numerous approaches to contest
the erasure of their historical experience of being made invisible and seen as less than in society.
Throughout this dissertation, I use the term cultural archivists to describe the political work of
the actresses’ cultural production. The systematic devaluation of Black womanhood,
44
where the
humanity of African American women is constantly questioned, has created an impetus for Black
actresses to act as their own cultural archivists. Black women have started organizations like the
National Association of Colored Women, published poems such as Maya Angelou’s “Our
Grandmothers,” and written books like Anna Julia Cooper’s A Voice from the South to defend
their humanity and remember their histories.
My usage of cultural archivist is an extension of Jacqueline Bobo’s work Black Women
as Cultural Readers. According to Bobo, “It is an activist tradition that opposes the forces that
negatively affect black women. Black female creative artists bring a different understanding of
black women’s lives and culture, seeking to eradicate the harmful and pervasive images haunting
their history.”
45
She argues that this activist tradition is part of a larger movement that includes

44
hooks, bell, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, (London: Pluto Press, 1982).
45
Bobo, Jacqueline, Black Women as Cultural Readers, (New York: Columbia UP, 1995), 5.
26
“black female cultural producers, critics and scholars, and cultural consumers.”
46
Bobo uses the
term cultural producers primarily in reference to directors, novelists and writers; her work adds
“black women readers to the tradition of black female cultural and social activism.”
47
My
research expands Bobo’s work to incorporate politicized Black actresses into Black women’s
tradition of social activism. Politicized African American actresses contribute to the activist
tradition by resisting their stereotypical representations and treatment as less than human through
their role as cultural archivists, foregrounding the way these actresses recollect and embody the
history of Black women in America in their work onscreen.
Black actresses are both cultural producers and cultural readers, and this dual role is what
motivates them to navigate their way through an industry that has continually pigeonholed them,
limited their job opportunities, and devalued their work. As cultural readers, they interpret
images of other Black women on television, and as cultural producers, they respond to these
images. In situating these actresses as cultural archivists, I am also able to study how they
identify, name, and assert the legacies of Black actresses who came before them, linking Black
women’s legacies intergenerationally. When Kerry Washington stated, “there would be no Kerry
Washington without Diahann Carroll,”
48
it is a moment of cultural archiving. She draws a line of
influence between her career and Diahann Carroll’s, establishing Carroll as a trailblazer for
herself and other Black actresses. Inherently, cultural archiving is a process of remembrance and
preservation, where Black actresses have created their own archive of significant Black women
and their accomplishments.

46
Bobo, Jacqueline, Black Women as Cultural Readers, 22.
47
Bobo, 204.
48
Kerry Washington, Essence Black Women in Hollywood (2020), Essence, February 14, 2020,
https://www.essence.com/awards-events/red-carpet/black-women-hollywood/watch-the-entire-essence-
black-women-in-hollywood-awards/.
27
Jacqueline Bobo also reveals “how black women’s history of resistance to social
domination forms the essence of their resistance to cultural domination.”
49
Hence, Esther Rolle’s
statement to Ebony magazine in 1974, “My goal is to give Black women dignity.”
50
Rolle
understood that part of changing Hollywood meant that she had to change the narratives being
told. Her awareness of the relationship between Black women’s social marginalization and
cultural relegation is what motivated her to continually fight for uplifting and respectable
depictions of Black womanhood onscreen. In doing so, she limited her own potential for success
in Hollywood. So too did Cicely Tyson when she reasoned, “I made a choice to use my career as
a platform to address the issues of race I was born into.”
51
Both Rolle and Tyson purposefully
used their star status as actresses to challenge, reclaim, and celebrate “narratives authenticating
black women’s histories” and voices.
52
These are not individual acts of resistance, but instead
part of a collective movement that aims to contest systemic inequalities Black women face on a
daily basis. Politicized Black actresses are “knowledgeable observers of the social, political, and
cultural forces that influence their lives” and the lives of other Black women.
53
In using their
careers to address social justice issues relevant to African American women, these cultural
archivists have worked to excavate Black women’s onscreen legacy.
Racial Rearticulation: Black Women’s Lived Experience Onscreen
At the center of their political efforts is a need for racial rearticulation. In celebrating the
collective identities of African American women, politicized Black actresses center Black
women in their cultural productions in an effort to shift commonsense understandings of Black

49
Bobo, Jacqueline, Black Women as Cultural Readers, 27.
50
Bob Lucas, “A ‘Salt Pork and Collard Greens’ TV Show,” Ebony, June 1974, 53.
51
Philip Galanes, “For Cicely Tyson and Kerry Washington, Roles of a Lifetime.”
52
Bobo, Jacqueline, Black Women as Cultural Readers, 203.
53
Bobo, 204.
28
womanhood. In altering the narrative onscreen, these actresses hope to shift how Black women
are perceived off-screen. Michael Omi and Howard Winant define rearticulation as “a practice of
discursive reorganization or reinterpretation of ideological themes and interests already present
in subjects’ consciousness, such that these elements obtain new meanings or coherence.”
54
They
argue that by “rearticulating political and cultural ‘common sense’ in such a way that the
excluded, oppressed, and exploited sectors of society can achieve their own legitimacy, their own
inclusion, the opposition develops counter-hegemony.”
55
In their roles as cultural archivists,
Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis aim for a
cultural and creative agency that empowers Black women. By working in Hollywood, these
actresses used the very institution that has historically demonstrated no actual interest in shifting
its racial hierarchy to push for inclusivity and challenge clichéd and stereotypical depictions of
Black women onscreen. When Esther Rolle stated in 1991, “I want people to think of me as a
concerned activist,”
56
she reflectively participated in a Black women’s cultural movement that
worked to improve the lives of African Americans, especially Black women, through her work as
an actress. Once referred to as “an actress with a cause,”
57
her career is defined by her resistance
to the exact stereotypical depiction of the subservient maid that Hollywood attempted to confine
her to. She leveraged her position as an actress to counter and rearticulate this dominant image of
African American women.
Patricia Hill Collins advances rearticulation in her theory Black feminist thought, which
“encompasses bodies of knowledge and sets of institutional practices that actively grapple with

54
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States (New York: Routledge,
2015), 165. Ebook.
55
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States, 142.
56
Stewart, Leisha, “Good Times Continue For ‘Good Times’ Star,” Ebony, June 1991, 66.
57
Holsey, Steve, “Esther Rolle: An Actress with a Cause,” 1-B.
29
the central questions facing U.S. Black women as a group.”
58
Black feminist thought
incorporates both “general knowledge that helps U.S. Black women survive in, cope with, and
resist our differential treatment” in addition to “more specialized knowledge that investigates the
specific themes and challenges of any given period of time.”
59
For Black actresses this general
knowledge includes addressing issues relevant to Black women such as hair politics and
colorism, as well as more specialized knowledge relevant to other Black women working in
Hollywood. According to Hill Collins, the practice of rearticulation gives Black feminist thought
the potential to “offer African-American women a different view of ourselves and our worlds”
and “stimulate a new consciousness that utilizes Black women’s everyday, taken-for-granted
knowledge.”
60
As Jacqueline Bobo and Hill Collins demonstrate, African American women are
participating in a social movement, where they are actively rearticulating racial meaning specific
to Black women. Politicized Black actresses contribute to the history of African American
women’s cultural and political activity by using their lived experience as Black women to alter
and redefine how they are represented onscreen.
Esther Rolle used her lived experience as a Black woman in America to rearticulate the
historically inaccurate and prevailing imagery of Black women as mammies. For an actress like
Rolle, her darker skin complexion and size boxed her into a familiar trope, what she referred to
as “the Hollywood maid.” By this, she means the enduring image in film and television of the
Black woman, who is usually “an obese African American woman, of dark complexion, with
extremely large breasts and buttocks and shining white teeth visibly displayed in a grin.”
61
In

58
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics
of Empowerment, 2ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 31.
59
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought, 31.
60
Hill Collins, 32.
61
Jewell, K. Sue. From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of US
Social Policy, (London: Routledge, 1993), 39. Ebook.
30
From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond, K. Sue Jewell argues, “The image of mammy as a
symbol of African American womanhood is inextricably integrated into the folklore of American
culture. As a symbol of African American womanhood, the image of mammy has been the most
pervasive of all images constructed by the privileged and perpetuated by the mass media.”
62

Esther Rolle could look at the careers of Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, or Ethel Waters to
gauge her potential for stardom, in addition to seeing the kind of pigeonholing Hollywood would
attempt to subject her to.
63
However, Esther Rolle was not against playing a maid, she was
instead against playing a mammy. She argued, “I’m glad to take on the role of a domestic
because many of your black leaders, your educators, your professionals came from domestic
parents who made sacrifices to see that their children didn’t go through what they did. I don’t
play Hollywood maids, the hee-hee kind of people who are so in love with their madam’s
children they have no time for their own.”
64
Black women’s lived experience working in white
homes is what motivated Rolle to alter the imagery of the Black domestic that Hollywood
continually caricaturized and stereotyped. She did not insult or criticize the countless Black
women whose circumstances required them to take jobs as domestics, servants, maids or
housekeepers; instead, she wanted to represent them in a more accurate and fully realized
manner.
Scholar and political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry adds, “Mammy is symptomatic
of consistent and repeated misrecognition. Rather than seeing black female domestic workers
accurately as laborers, the Mammy myth portrays them as unwavering in their commitment to

62
Jewell, K. Sue. From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond, 37.
63
All three actresses at one point starred as television’s first Hollywood maid, Beulah (1950-1953).
64
Allis, Tim and Lois Armstrong, “Esther Rolle’s Maid-with Sass Trades Good Times for Hard Times in
Driving Miss Daisy,” https://people.com/archive/esther-rolles-maid-with-sass-trades-good-times-for-
hard-times-in-driving-miss-daisy-vol-33-no-6/.
31
the white domestic sphere. In this role, Mammy serves to stabilize the racial and gender order,
and therefore the order of the state.”
65
The image of the mammy is so deeply rooted in American
culture that it is an image “of acceptable black womanhood.”
66
According to Rolle, “I have never
been given the chance I deserve in the mainstream industry. They never get beyond me as a
maid.”
67
Despite wanting to rework and revise the “Hollywood maid,” institutional restrictions
prevented Rolle from fully realizing her goal. She continued, “It has always been a dream of
mine to play a maid in a way that is dignified and strong. I’ll play the maid, but I’ll do it my
way.”
68
Her way included using her popularity and public visibility to challenge common
misrepresentations and falsehoods about Black women who were maids.
On an episode of Maude, Florida’s husband Henry comes into the Findlay home to
persuade her to quit. Florida’s employer Maude Findlay is a “bleeding heart liberal,” who feeds
on guilt and feels the need to personally correct America’s racial injustices. Florida and Henry’s
argument ensues as follows:
Henry: Oh women—I tell you; I don’t understand them. But especially you white
women. You set up here in your nice world and instead of enjoying the things you got.
You worrying yourself sick about some women’s rights. Well, let me tell you baby. I’m
ebony and the world I grew up in, the Black man couldn’t even get a job. So the woman
went out and worked and supported the family. And quiet as it’s kept, none of us never
wanted it that way, and some of us don’t have to have it that way. Like me! Now I got a
J-O-B and a good one. And if I have to work two jobs, and I will, ‘cause I am no longer
going to be the husband of a Black maid. (the audience starts to applause when Florida
interjects)
Florida: Hey, hey, hey. You people ain’t gonna be sucked in by that jive.
Maude: Florida, he knows what he’s talking about. He’s Black.
Florida: And what do you think I am—suntanned? You ain’t listening to a Black
problem woman. You listening to a male ego.
Henry: Ah now, wait a minute Florida.

65
Harris-Perry, Melissa, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America, (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2011), 77.
66
Harris-Perry, Melissa, Sister Citizen, 77.
67
Stewart, Leisha, “Good Times Continue For ‘Good Times’ Star,” Ebony, June 1991, 66.
68
Stewart, Leisha, “Good Times Continue For ‘Good Times’ Star,” 66.
32
Florida: No Henry, you wait a minute. Now you hurt because of your pride and I love
you for that. But I also resent you for not being just as proud of me as I am of you.
Henry: I am proud of you Florida; it’s just that I don’t want you to be a maid no more.
Florida: Them two don’t go together Henry. (camera starts to slowly zoom in on her
face) Your mother was a maid. That’s how your brother’s got through school and you got
to be a fireman. My grandmother was a maid. That’s how my daddy got a little schooling.
There are a lot of women Henry on both sides of my family who worked all their lives in
white kitchens so their kids could get some of the things they should have. You want to
be proud of something Henry, you be proud of them. Because they was all Black women
and I tell you there ain’t never been a better woman than that.
69

Florida’s first line in this scene is to both the Findlays as well as the studio audience. As the
audience starts to clap, Florida interjects to prevent audience sympathy and make it clear that
Henry’s comments are mostly driven by ego. The scene is about Black women and some of the
circumstances that led to them working in white homes but uses Florida’s husband Henry as a
proxy in many respects to tell Black women’s history. Florida refers to her boss as “woman,”
which itself is a deviation from the traditional maid role. The way Florida addresses Maude in
this scene is indicative of the way Esther Rolle tried to change the image of the “Hollywood
maid.” Yet, the scene does not directly challenge or question Maude’s privilege or racial
assumptions. The camera zooms in on Rolle’s face as she begins the monologue to underscore
her delivery, and let the audience know that it is her oration that they are meant to take seriously.
Florida’s speech is meant to give Black women who worked as maids pride by revealing the way
they were responsible for taking care of other people’s children as well as their own. In her role
as a cultural archivist, Esther Rolle’s portrayal of a maid included rearticulating Black women’s
history working as domestics in white homes.
Forty-seven years later, on the Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere, Kerry Washington
further explores the relationship between Black women working in white homes and their

69
Maude, 18, “Florida’s Problem,” directed by Hal Cooper, aired February 13, 1973, on CBS.
33
employers. The series is set in the late 1990s and this encounter is the boiling point of the
relationship between Kerry Washington’s character Mia Warren and Reese Witherspoon’s
character Elena Richardson. Mia is a single mother who recently moved to town and is
subleasing an apartment owned by Elena. Their lives become much more intertwined when
Mia’s daughter befriends Elena’s children and starts spending time at Elena’s house. When Elena
first offers Mia a job working in her home, Mia rejects; she later decides to take the job to keep
an eye on her daughter. After a series of bad decisions and revealed secrets, the following
conversation occurs:
Mia: (yelling) You didn’t make good choices! You had good choices. Options that being
rich and white and entitled gave you.
Elena: Again, that’s the difference between you and me. I would never make this about
race.
Mia: Elena, you made this about race when you stood out there in the street and begged
me to be your maid.
Elena: This is not working out. I think this is going to be your last day.
Mia: (scoffs) You think?
Elena: …Why did you even take this job?
Mia: I took this job to protect my kid.
Elena: From what?
Mia: From you.
Elena: I thought we were friends.
Mia: White women always want to be friends with their maid. I was not your maid,
Elena. And I was never your friend.
70
(turns and walks out the house)

Similar to the Maude scene but much more directly, this encounter pinpoints issues of race, class,
and privilege. Little Fires is able to explore a different dynamic in a more modern and dramatic
fashion. The relationship between Mia and Elena is premised on race and class; however, when
Mia points this out, Elena is so unaware of her own privilege. Mia’s presence in Elena’s house as
a part-time housekeeper was never about taking care of Elena or Elena’s children but watching
over her own daughter, which is why Mia tells Elena that she was not, –in fact, her maid. Nearly

70
Little Fires Everywhere, 4, “The Spider Web,” directed by Lynn Shelton, aired Mar. 25, 2020, on Hulu.
34
fifty years after Esther Rolle presented an alternative, more reflective representation of Black
women in white homes with her speech on Maude, Kerry Washington has a comparable
conversation on Little Fires Everywhere. The key difference between this scene and the one on
Maude is that Kerry Washington directly challenges her white employer. The scene does not use
a proxy, or the presence of a Black man, to insert Black women’s voices. As an executive
producer, Kerry Washington used her star status and agency to tell a story that allowed for a
more complicated reading of the relationship between Black housekeepers and their white
employers, while shifting the narrative to emphasize a Black woman’s voice and perspective.
Esther Rolle is not the only actress in this study with a complicated relationship to the
“Hollywood maid.” Early in her career, Diahann Carroll resisted moving to Hollywood because
she did not want to play minor film roles that she felt demeaned her talent. She argued that she
had to “fight to hold onto my sanity wanting to be in this profession. I respect my fight entirely,
because my exposure was that I was supposed to play the maid all the time. That’s the only thing
that I saw; that was the only imagery I was given.”
71
Unlike Esther Rolle, Diahann Carroll did
not want to play maids. She instead wanted the artistic freedom to portray other facets of African
American women’s experiences. Although the film The Help earned her an Oscar nomination, as
previously mentioned, Viola Davis would later admit that she regretted making it. Reflecting on
the film’s impact and its representation of Black maids, she stated, “Not a lot of narratives are
also invested in our humanity. They’re invested in the idea of what it means to be Black,
but…it’s catering to the white audience. The white audience at the most can sit and get an
academic lesson into how we are. Then they leave the movie theater and they talk about what it

71
Carroll, Diahann, box 089_031a_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260),
UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los
Angeles.
35
meant. They’re not moved by who we were.”
72
She saw the film as disseminating white
perceptions of Blackness, while not dealing directly with Black women’s humanity. The film
was not about the Black maids, as much as it used them to accentuate the main white character’s
narrative. After the Oscar nomination, Viola Davis was still being offered the same kind of roles
with the key difference being a slight salary increase. As Viola Davis detailed, “I’m a 55-year-
old dark-skinned woman in Hollywood. I’m still in [the] maid, urban mother crying over her
dead son’s body in the middle of the road category. Even the most basic fundamentals of what
makes a woman sometimes does not trickle down to me. And so, in order for me to get those
roles and be seen in that way, I had to create and develop them myself.”
73
Viola Davis realized
that Hollywood’s refusal to see her as anything other than mammy-ish or subservient meant she
had to create opportunities for herself in order to be represented in the manner she deemed
appropriate.
Although Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Viola Davis, and Kerry
Washington each have had different relationships to Hollywood, they all share similar
experiences and circumstances as Black actresses, but also as Black women. These actresses use
their own lived experience as Black women to rearticulate racial meaning around the
representation of African American women onscreen. In rearticulating Black womanhood, these
actresses are constructing what Patricia Hill Collins calls “knowledge of self [that] emerges from
the struggle to replace controlling images with self-defined knowledge deemed personally

72
Saraiya, Sonia, “Viola Davis: ‘My Entire Life Has Been a Protest’,”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/cover-story-viola-davis.
73
Jackson, Angelique and Jazz Tangcay, “Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Laverne Cox on the First
Time They Were Seen in Hollywood for Their Work,” Variety, https://variety.com/video/rashida-jones-
kerry-washington-laverne-cox-andra-day-black-women-in-
hollywood/?cx_testId=51&cx_testVariant=cx_2&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s&jwsource=cl.
36
important, usually knowledge essential to Black women’s survival.”
74
Esther Rolle, for example,
argued in 1978, “If I do a part that is harmful to Blacks, I can only blame myself, because I am
the one who did it. Look, I can make a living. I can go back to work as a file clerk if
necessary.”
75
Similarly, Kerry Washington reasoned in 2020, “From the beginning of my career,
I have said to my agents and manager: ‘I’d rather work three more shifts at a restaurant than take
on a role that I think is gonna [sic] be bad for women or bad for black people.’”
76
Hollywood
stardom is premised on monetary value; however, for these actresses redefining images of Black
women, developed from their knowledge of self and their willingness to alter culturally
demeaning imagery of African Americans, in many instances is prioritized over making money.
For nearly sixty years, they fought to change the narrative and the destructive stereotypical
depictions of Black women with varying levels of success.
Project Overview: Stardom, Intersectionality, and Black Women’s Cultural
Legacies

In tracing the subtle and explicit ways that Black actresses name and reference each
other, my dissertation examines the interconnections between Black actresses in Hollywood,
revealing what they say to and about each other and the larger meanings inherent in these
conversations. Namely, this project complicates a reading of television history by proposing this
additional intergenerational framework for understanding how Black women are represented on
television, the role actresses take in influencing their televisual selves and the significance of this
model for studying African American women on television. While the premise of this study
focuses on five specific actresses, throughout this dissertation I use relevant examples from other

74
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought, 100.
75
“Media Images Hit Hard At Urban League Confab,” JET, August 24, 1978, 6-7.
76
Jones, Ellen, “Scandal’s Kerry Washington: ‘My mother’s nightmare was for me to be a starving
actress,” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/nov/30/scandals-kerry-washington-my-mothers-
nightmare-was-for-me-to-be-a-starving-actress.
37
African American actresses to demonstrate that many Black actresses fit within this framework
and can be considered politicized. This project examines the ways in which actresses embody
similar performance strategies both on and off-screen, reference each other in their work, and the
way in which generational differences are consistently coalesced in onscreen performances.
This project centers these women’s voices; therefore, each chapter’s title is based on a
quote from each actress and draws on a comprehensive range of sources including archival
newspaper and magazine clippings, filmed interviews, television series, oral histories, and social
media posts, scrutinizing the most salient examples of the actresses’ cultural and political
production. Chapter One, “‘I Never Strove for Stardom’: Black Famous, Television Stardom and
Cultural Legacy” evolves the colloquial term “Black famous” into an analytical tool that
demonstrates how certain African American actors retain a parallel stardom among Black
audiences distinct from the Hollywood star system, due to the cultural significance of
performance, audience identification and staying power. In outlining traditional star studies, this
chapter interprets the relationship Black actresses have to Hollywood stardom. For African
American actresses, stardom means the ability to participate in their own image construction,
taking an active role in shaping ideological understandings of Black womanhood. I examine
stardom in relation to Black audiences, Black popular culture, television, and cultural memory.
The second chapter, “‘I’m a Woman, and I’m Black’: Intersectionality, Self-
Representation and Black Women’s Cultural Identity,” traces the development of
intersectionality as a theoretical nexus deeply rooted in Black women’s cultural and political
history. In doing so, I reveal how shifts in intersectional thinking correlate with generational
shifts in how Black actresses foreground African American cultural politics in their work. By
conceiving of television as a Black representational space, I am able to explore how Black
38
actresses’ efforts at self-representation through role selection, script consulting, producing and
directing relate to Black women’s political ideals from the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. Additionally, this chapter underscores the importance of examining the
intergenerational linkages within televisual representations of Black women as a means of
exploring African American cultural, artistic and intellectual endeavors.
Chapter Three, “‘I Stand on Your Shoulders Diahann’: Shout Out Culture, TV Heritage,
and the Discourse of Black Womanhood” theorizes the existence of the shout out, a public
expression of appreciation or gratitude, as an African American cultural tradition to explore how
Black actresses use shout outs in award show speeches as an acknowledgment of each other’s
work and to collectively rearticulate ideological understandings of Black womanhood and the
struggles of working Black actresses in Hollywood. I discuss how Black women in Hollywood
established separate counter-public spaces for themselves in an effort to cultivate a sisterhood
among African American actresses. In comparing the difference between cultural recognition
and professional obligation, I theorize and investigate how Black actresses act as their own
cultural archivists by naming and remembering their own history of Black female trailblazers. In
this chapter, I additionally argue that Black actresses have created kinships of support and
communal bonds premised on their need to archive Black women’s histories, and in recognition
of their shared battles working in Hollywood.
My concluding chapter, “‘I Want the Freedom to Do What I Want to Do’: Cultural
Archiving, Racial Rearticulation, and Lifting as They Climb” considers all five actresses in
relationship to Black feminist thought and a reimagining of the archive of Black female
representation. I discuss the legacy of these prominent images of African American women on
television, and how these images are all interconnected and fit within a referential pattern of
39
Black popular culture and Black women’s social activism. I argue that Cicely Tyson, Diahann
Carroll, Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis are part a larger oeuvre of African
American actresses that include actresses such as Angela Bassett, Ruby Dee, Taraji P. Henson,
Issa Rae, Gabrielle Union, and Zendaya. In reimagining the archive of Black female
representation on television, this dissertation fundamentally formulates a more nuanced
understanding of the social, cultural and political work of African American actresses, resituating
Black women into dominant discourses of media history beyond the focus of existing scholarship
that ignores, minimizes or erases their stardom and contributions to U.S. image production.

40
CHAPTER 1
“I NEVER STROVE FOR STARDOM”: BLACK FAMOUS, TELEVISION STARDOM AND
CULTURAL LEGACY

People say, “You’re a Black Meryl Streep.”
77

“Who’s Meryl Streep?” According to Pops, the grandfather on Black-ish (2014-Present),
Meryl Streep is “the white Cicely Tyson.”
78
Meryl Streep is one of the most critically acclaimed
and accomplished working actresses in Hollywood; therefore, a comparison to her denotes
certain stature or prestige stardom.
79
After winning her first Academy Award for her role in
Fences (2016), Viola Davis was described as “a Black Meryl Streep” in some arbitrary Twitter
posts with the #Oscars hashtag. As Ebony magazine tweeted in response, Viola Davis “is one of
the most talented actors of our time, not the second coming of her White peer.”
80
When asked
about the label over a year later, Davis responded that if it were true, “then pay me what I’m
worth.”
81
According to Viola Davis, despite being “number one on the call sheet,” white
actresses with similar training or longevity, such as Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and
Sigourney Weaver, are in a different stratosphere in terms of pay and job opportunities.
82
The
signifier “Black” in “Black Meryl Streep” equates Davis with Streep, while it simultaneously
differentiates and classifies her outside of conventional Hollywood stardom. In celebrating Viola

77
Davis, Viola, “Viola Davis’ full interview with Tina Brown at the Women in the World Los Angeles
Salon,” YouTube, February 15, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXI5eXBZoZs.
78
Black-ish, 103, “Christmas in Theater Eight,” directed by Jude Weng, aired December 11, 2018, on
ABC.
79
In his book Hollywood Stardom, Paul McDonald labels Meryl Streep the “quintessential prestige star,”
someone’s whose stardom is based on artistic distinction, performance, and award accumulation. Her
stardom, according to McDonald, is not based on economic capital but “symbolic capital,” resulting from
her numerous Academy Award nominations. McDonald, Paul, Hollywood Stardom (West Sussex: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2013), 33.
80
Ebony Magazine, Twitter, March 1, 2017 (8:35 a.m.), accessed June 19, 2019.
81
Davis, Viola, “Viola Davis’ full interview with Tina Brown,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXI5eXBZoZs.
82
Davis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXI5eXBZoZs.
41
Davis’s achievements as an actress, the comparison to Meryl Streep also attempts to diminish her
racial difference to make her image more “palatable [for] the predominantly white mainstream”
audience.
83

Comparing African American actresses to white superstars is not an unusual inclination,
as the 1930s film actress Nina Mae McKinney was referred to as “the Black Garbo.”
84
Black-ish
inverts this tendency to compare African American actresses to white stars, prioritizing the
career and star status of Cicely Tyson over Meryl Streep. The show is very intentional in its
designation of stardom; Cicely Tyson, from the perspective of Pops and the Johnson family, is
the star actress to which all others are compared. These aforementioned examples illustrate the
relationship African American actresses have to Hollywood stardom and how they are perceived
by varying audiences. The comparison to mainstream white stars limits Black actresses so that
their work is seen as similar to, but never greater than. Black-ish reveals how Black audiences
can interpret and define stardom from a perspective other than the dominant Hollywood
viewpoint. This relationship between Black performers and audiences redefine the star status of
actresses like Viola Davis by exceeding the pigeonholing that the comparison to white actresses
produces. Hollywood, as a star-producing institution, privileges film stardom and struggles to
interpret the place of African American actresses, and Black television actresses specifically
remain outside Hollywood definitions of stardom. For African American actresses, television
represents an important aspect of their career trajectories; to be a working Black actress in
Hollywood is to at some point perform on television. This chapter outlines the importance of

83
Beltrán, Mary, “The Hollywood Latina Body as Site of Social Struggle: Media Constructions of
Stardom and Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Cross-over Butt’,” Quarterly Review of Film & Video, 19 (2002): 80.
84
Bogle, Donald, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in
American Films (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 33. In the case of McKinney, the moniker was a reference
to white actress Greta Garbo, given to her after she left Hollywood due to a lack of significant roles, and
took her talents to Europe where she performed in nightclubs and appeared on British television.
42
stardom and television for African American actresses, as it affords them the ability to construct
and participate in their own image construction and gives them a platform for creating racially
meaningful representations of Black womanhood.
Traditional star studies is premised on a definition of stardom that has remained relatively
unchanged since the late 1920s and classical Hollywood era of American filmmaking. The
foundational texts of star studies do not address racialized bodies or television performance, and
thus, a new framework that is constructed with an understanding of African American history
and culture is essential to developing a more nuanced concept of Black women’s stardom.
Within stardom and celebrity studies, classifications such as fame, celebrity and star are used to
measure the relative success of an actor or actress. Not only are fame, celebrity, and stardom
hierarchical and malleable in nature, but they also evolve and shift based on cultural and social
values, technological developments, access, opportunity, and race. Therefore, what constitutes
being a star or a celebrity changes over time and makes it difficult to comparatively discuss
actresses from different historical and racial contexts without misinterpreting their actual
significance. This contributes to the failure of these terms to fully encompass the star status of
African American actresses, as they do retain parallel stardom independent of their historical
moment and the racialized Hollywood star system.
Conventional stardom is the “highest category of cinematic celebrity,”

narrowly defined
and understood to mean film stardom since the publication of Richard Dyer’s foundational book
Stars in 1979, where the film actor is both ordinary and extraordinary and their star image is
constructed from an intertextual array of media appearances.
85
For Dyer, the star image

85
Studlar, Gaylyn, “The Changing Face of Celebrity and the Emergence of Motion Picture Stardom,” in A
Companion to Celebrity, ed. P. David Marshall and Sean Redmond (West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell,
2016), 91.
43
encompasses on and off-screen images, and is defined as “a complex configuration of visual,
verbal, and aural signs. This configuration may constitute the general image of stardom or of a
particular star.”
86
Stars are objects of public fascination, and actors’ transition into stardom when
their off-screen lifestyles and personalities equal to or become more important than acting
ability.
87
Within star studies, another determining factor of one’s stardom is cultural value;
someone famous has significantly less cultural value than a star. Stars are associated with a high
level of economic worth, but also cultural capital, international success, and audience
recognition. The biggest differential between stardom, celebrity, and fame is monetary.
Therefore, what distinguishes a film actor from a star is bankability, “the organizing principle
behind the talent hierarchy in Hollywood.”
88
Monica White Ndounou’s book Shaping the Future
of African American Film discusses the Ulmer Scale, a system developed in 1997 that tracks and
scores stars’ bankability. Ndounou argues that bankability determines power to influence
representation and production outcome, which is intricately tied to economics. While bankability
is not based on race or gender according to the Ulmer Scale, the fact that African Americans and
women generally score significantly lower on the scale than white males is telling of a “racially
circumscribed system,” where “star status is socially and culturally demarcated,”

valorizing only
certain forms of identity, and limiting the opportunities for both women and people of color.
89

Ndounou sees this as an example of how “institutionalized racism facilitates the everyday racism
people of color face” while trying to work within the traditional Hollywood star system.
90
As a

86
Dyer, Richard, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 34.
87
Gledhill, Christine, “Introduction,” in Stardom: Industry of Desire. ed. Christine Gledhill
(London: Routledge, 1991), xii.
88
McDonald, Paul, Hollywood Stardom, 31.
89
McDonald, Hollywood Stardom, 28, 31.
90
Ndounou, Monica, Shaping the Future of African American Film: Color-Coded
Economics and the Story Behind the Numbers (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2014), Kindle location
4295.
44
result, Black actresses are less able to achieve certain echelons of stardom due to the larger
racialized structure and colorist hierarchies of the entertainment industry.
How can an African American actress ever be perceived as a star by Hollywood
standards when the system is rigged? The star system is not set up to elevate a Black actress to
the level of stardom, and when one does break the glass ceiling imposed on African American
women (e.g., Whoopi Goldberg), it is a rarity, an exception to the rule, a once-in-a-lifetime
occurrence. When a Black actor or actress does achieve star status, based on Hollywood’s
institutional standards, they are considered a crossover star. Crossing over is defined as “the
process of becoming popular with a new audience, with respect to film stars it often is used,
particularly by the entertainment news media, to refer to non-white performers who succeed in
becoming popular with white audiences.”
91
Crossover stardom is a level of success often
associated with deserting and disregarding one’s initial audience. African American actors who
are labeled crossover stars are assumed to have ascended the talent hierarchy in Hollywood,
leaving behind smaller niche Black audiences; as such, many are often criticized by Black
viewers for a perceived neglect. Crossover stardom benefits the industry more so than the
performer, as they become ingrained in the Hollywood star-making system that highlights
difference while simultaneously minimizing it. The opportunities afforded Viola Davis to be paid
her worth are only allowed to African American actresses who are considered crossover stars.
Previous African American actresses considered to have crossover appeal include Dorothy
Dandridge, Lena Horne, and, more recently, Halle Berry. These actresses are also examples of
Hollywood’s colorist hierarchy, as their crossover appeal was “palatable to white mainstream

91
Beltran, “The Hollywood Latina,” 74.
45
audiences in large part due to their closeness to European beauty ideals.”
92
However, as the
career trajectory of these three actresses demonstrates, crossover appeal does not guarantee
sustainable or long-term Hollywood stardom.
As actress Esther Rolle argued in 1995, “You’ve got to go along with the system to make
the money. But if your interests lie elsewhere, such as in the betterment of Black people, that’s
not good for the system. They don’t like that so much. I never strove for stardom.”
93
Rolle
understood that the Hollywood star system is financially motivated above all other facets, and
that her Blackness as well as her drive for social change was seen as a detriment. Throughout her
career, Esther Rolle never aspired for stardom; instead, she used Hollywood as an avenue to
challenge stereotypical depictions of Black women and to reach a broader African American
audience. Conversely, Viola Davis’s insistence on being paid what she is worth is unlikely to
happen, given that Hollywood sees her Blackness as lacking the full potential to earn revenue
similar to her white counterparts. In arguing why achieving stardom matters for African
American actors, James Bell lists the importance of stardom to bring “power and influence—the
power to say no, to get films made against odds, to build a sustained career and to challenge
racial and societal prejudice while reaching a wide audience.”
94
For African American actresses
specifically, stardom means the ability to participate in their own screen representations, taking
an active role in shaping ideological understandings of Black womanhood. Even within Bell’s
conception of African American stardom, film stardom is seen as the gold standard. However,
there is no theoretical grounding in star studies that would posit the television actress as a star,

92
Okiti, Tega, “Dark and Lovely: Black Star Beauty.” in Black Star: a BFI Compendium. ed. James Bell
(London: BFI, 2016), 114.
93
Holsey, Steve, “Esther Rolle: An Actress with a Cause,” Michigan Chronicle, September 20, 1995, 1-
B.
94
Bell, James, “Introduction,” in Black Star: a BFI Compendium, ed. James Bell, (London: BFI, 2016), 4.
46
which is a striking loss considering the majority of working Black actresses are on television.
Under what circumstances would an actress like Esther Rolle, who “never strove for stardom,”
but whose primary body of work on television “contributed directly to the social status of black
people in relation to the white power structure,”
95
be considered a star?
This is where my conception of “Black famous” intercedes. I introduce Black famous as
an analytical tool to demonstrate how certain African American actors retain a parallel stardom
among Black audiences separate from the Hollywood star system due to factors such as: cultural
significance of performance, audience identification and staying power. Staying power is the
ability of a performer to retain a sense of public familiarity, even after they age out of
mainstream conversations of stardom in popular culture. Black famous is not in opposition to
Hollywood stardom; rather Black famous is a distinct parallel system for interpreting stardom
that has always existed but never named or formally theorized. In its sustained temporality,
Black famous exceeds conventional stardom. Whereas mainstream stardom often fades quickly
and is dependent on monetary worth, Black famous endures for these Black stars because it has
different stakes—cultural significance. Therefore, artists, performers, actresses who are truly
Black famous remain as such regardless of mainstream stardom. I argue that Black famous is a
more encompassing alternative framework for understanding the relationship between African
American actors and stardom, especially Black women’s stardom. While Hollywood stardom is
premised on bankability, Black famous incorporates cultural legacy, staying power, and
generational influence. Black famous is a conception worthy of scholarly attention, as it is a
more nuanced way to theorize the circumstances of Black stardom in the context of the
entertainment industry, history, and the legacies of African American cultural experience.

95
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement, (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2012), 219.
47
If we continue to assess the worth of African American actresses within the dominant
Hollywood system, they will continue to be relegated, downgraded, or erased from their place
within American cultural history. To refer to an African American actress as Black famous is not
to say that only Black audiences recognize her cultural worth, but instead intends to appreciate
her difference and to reclaim and celebrate her work. When discussing her transition from the
stage to becoming a television actress in Hollywood, Esther Rolle stated, “I’ve never run around
Hollywood looking for work because…it has for me, it brings back the auction block. My goal
was not stardom, my goal was not Hollywood. My goal was a good actress.”
96
In comparing
Hollywood to slave auctions, Rolle acknowledges Hollywood’s economic framework as selling
Black bodies to white audiences. Despite working in Hollywood, Esther Rolle was pragmatic
about her career aspirations and, alternatively, prioritized her craft and her ability to represent
Black women on screen over mainstream Hollywood stardom. Black famous does not suggest
that these actresses should work outside of the traditional Hollywood image-producing system;
however, what is at stake is how their social, cultural, and political contributions will be
remembered and acknowledged by the same system to which they dedicate their careers. Black
famous acknowledges the unsung nature of Black actresses’ work in Hollywood, and it
intervenes by reasserting African American actresses, their work and cultural significance back
into the cultural memory and fabric of American media history. I advance Black famous as an
exploration of stardom for African American actors; I specifically use the concept to explicate
Black women’s stardom via television, a space that has often afforded Black actresses’
opportunities to carve out African American cultural discourses in their work. For example,
Lucille Ball will always be remembered as a television star; Black famous asserts that African

96
“Esther Rolle on Detroit Black Journal,” YouTube, January 22, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lG8ZHtTOQQ&list=WL&index=134.
48
American actresses such as Esther Rolle and Cicely Tyson hold the same kind of cultural legacy
for African American audiences. I argue that being Black famous for African American actresses
is closely linked to a relationship to Black audiences, and Black female audiences specifically.
Theorizing African American Stardom
Grappling with questions of audience, stardom, and race, Richard Dyer’s Heavenly
Bodies examines the early stardom of singer/actor/performer Paul Robeson in film, theatre, and
music from 1924-1945. Dyer labels Robeson a crossover star, a performer who has the ability to
move across different mediums and arenas of performance. According to Dyer, Robeson’s star
status and success as a crossover star is premised on the way his image is interpreted differently
by separate audiences. He notes, “What I want to show is that there are discourses developed by
whites in white culture and by blacks in black culture which made a different sense of the same
phenomenon, Paul Robeson.”
97
For Dyer, Robeson’s stardom was constructed around his ability
to navigate between both white and Black audiences. Dyer continues, “Robeson was taken to
embody a set of specifically black qualities—naturalness, primitiveness, simplicity and others—
that were equally valued and similarly evoked, but for different reasons, by whites and blacks. It
is because he could appeal on these different fronts that he could achieve star status.”
98
Dyer’s
understanding of stardom as it relates to an African American performer is useful in discussing
the importance of audience; however, his conception of stardom relies on acceptance and
recognition from white audiences. His understanding of Robeson’s stardom is similar to how the
industry defines crossover stardom, as the ability to reach broader white audiences. What Dyer’s
approach ignores is how African American audiences interpret images of stars from different

97
Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, (New York: Routledge, 2004), 66.
98
Dyer, Heavenly Bodies, 67.
49
perspectives and parameters than mainstream white audiences, resulting in a system of stardom
and stars separate from Hollywood designations.
Directly challenging Dyer’s understanding of stardom, and conceptualizing African
American stardom to include how Black audiences beheld stars, Arthur Knight’s essay “Star
Dances: African-American Constructions of Stardom, 1925-1960” argues that at the core of
questions regarding African Americans and stardom, “the problems and possibilities of stars for
African Americans and the problems and possibilities of the Black star,” are more questions
concerning audiences and institutions.
99
Audiences and institutions are at the core of what Dyer
is attempting to understand in his binary positioning of Black and white audiences; his work is
more interested in the star image than audience reception. Knight challenges Dyer’s
understanding of Hollywood stardom as it relates to race, and considers the possibility for
cinematic stardom, when groups of performers, specifically African Americans, are essentially
banned from full participation in the star system. Knight’s solution is to broaden and specialize
the meaning of stardom to apply to specific audiences. He argues that while mainstream, white
Hollywood had their version of stars from the late 1920s until the early 1960s, African
Americans also had people whom they considered stars. While these stars sometimes aligned,
African Americans often used different apparatuses to gauge stardom. He notes, “Blacks’
relationships with stars were voluntarily and necessarily more multivalent than and differently
conceived from those of whites…while for Hollywood and its white audience there were no
Black equivalents to Garbo or Gable or Garland, African Americans never lacked stars—defined
from within a different set of values and constraints.”
100
Here Knight reveals that during this

99
Knight, Arthur, “Star Dances: African-American Constructions of Stardom, 1925-1960.” in Classic
Hollywood, Classic Whiteness. ed. Daniel Bernardi, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001),
387.
100
Knight, Arthur, “Star Dances,” 390.
50
period, in response to the lack of mainstream stars with whom they could identify, African
American audiences had a broader set of definitions for who might be considered a star.
Audiences identified with these stars in different ways and took different forms of meaning from
them. Knight differs from previous scholarship on African Americans and their relationship to
stardom, in that he allows room for movement from celebrity to star and back to celebrity,
outlined explicitly by one’s relationship to African American audiences.
In formulating his concept of African American stardom, Knight uses the metaphor of the
“star dance,” a dance form derived from West African tradition. Knight’s framework employs
the symbolism of a circle and the idea of movement within, around and outside the circle to
demonstrate how African American performers moved “from the margins of celebrity, in which
stars are primarily appreciated by Black audiences, to the center of broader fame and stardom, in
which they win recognition by mainstream audiences.”
101
Knight describes the star dance as:
In African-American culture(s), as the star dance suggests, a star can emerge (from)
within a community, perform a turn, and then return, at which time a new star, called by
and responding to the previous star, takes a turn…As a consequence, the individual turn
is both profoundly different from and potentially cognate with the mainstream model of
stardom. The star dance is an African-American form that asserts a Black community
identity and, at the same time, opens an important space for Black assimilation and white
acceptance.
102

I quote Knight at length here to expound the star dance model, which is one of the most
comprehensive frameworks for understanding the relationship between African American stars
and their audiences. Star dance is a configuration of Black stardom used to define African
American actors working within the traditional Hollywood system, and African American
celebrities with a famed presence among Black audiences. This model allows Knight to interpret

101
Petty, Miriam J., Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood,
(Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 105.
102
Knight, Arthur, “Star Dances,” 398.
51
patterns of Black stardom, where stars take turns performing inside the center of the circle, then
rejoin the circle with the hope that they will once again get a turn in the center. The most
significant tension of the Black star or Black stardom, according to Knight, is the meaning
elicited from the African American audience. This tension is grounded in notions of leaving the
circle for mainstream stardom and never returning, i.e. crossing over. For Knight, there existed
the possibility of stars inhabiting a Black universe, where “to be a star there, one must be
connected, known, named” by the Black community.
103
He argues for a conception of Black
stardom, during this particular moment in classical Hollywood, premised on how African
American audiences respond to filmed representations of Black actors. While star dance is a
formation of Black stardom that privileges Black audiences, it embraces white acceptance and
relies on film performance as the only confirmation of Hollywood stardom—a star system
structured by whiteness. Although Knight’s use of the star dance metaphor is constructed to
study stardom between 1925-1960, it remains useful as an alternative model of stardom, one that
explicitly confronts the poignant concerns of African American actors and audiences.
Black famous builds on and distinguishes itself from Arthur Knight’s star dance
framework by asserting a theoretical formulation of stardom that is grounded specifically in the
study of African American actors as stars that does not rely on white recognition or limit stardom
to film roles. Television “has become the vital space for black opportunity and stardom.”
104

Take, for example, that in nearly one hundred years of the Academy Awards, Halle Berry
remains the only African American woman to ever win for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and
only eight Black actresses have ever won an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting

103
Knight, Arthur, “Star Dances,” 404.
104
McFadden, Syreeta, “Over That Line: Black Stars of US Television,” in Black Star: a BFI
Compendium. ed. James Bell (London: BFI, 2016), 85.
52
Role.
105
Whereas, in the seventy years of the Primetime Emmy Awards, over twenty African
American actresses have received Emmy awards. Comparatively, there are more acting
categories at the Emmys; yet, this also points towards television as a more welcoming space for
the accomplishments of Black actresses. As Viola Davis stated in her 2015 Primetime Emmy
Awards acceptance speech for Lead Actress in a Drama Series, “The only thing that separates
women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are
simply not there.” For African American actresses especially, television offers more opportunity
to work.
From Cicely Tyson to Diahann Carroll to Viola Davis, television has offered Black
actresses increased visibility, more diversity in roles, and broader audiences. When asked about
the success of her character Cookie Lyon on Empire (2015-2020), Taraji P. Henson responded,
“I knew domestically it would do well. But I wasn’t expecting it/her, to blow up all over the
world, which I like. I thought one of my movies would take me overseas, but a television show
did. I’ll take it!”
106
Henson credits television and her role on Empire for bringing her
international recognition. Although she had previously been nominated for an Academy Award,
it was not until she played Cookie Lyon that Henson received her due as an actress and actual
opportunities for more worked opened up. In her 2016 memoir, Around the Way Girl, Henson
writes, “I made a point of reminding myself that an Oscar or Emmy or any other fancy award I
might earn for my performances, while nice, could never be my end game. They could open a
few doors, but they’d guarantee neither success nor financial surplus, nor the meaty roles that

105
These women include: Hattie McDaniel, Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Hudson, Mo’Nique, Octavia
Spencer, Lupita Nyong’o, Viola Davis and Regina King. Nyong’o is the only non-American Black actress
to win an Oscar.
106
Henson, Taraji P, “Taraji P. Henson Joins the Crew with Charles Barkley & Kenny Smith,” YouTube,
December 20, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vbIfguhE-U&list=WL&index=24&t=0s.
53
stretch and honor the talent, particularly if you’re a black woman.”
107
For some actors an Oscar
win “is a metaphor for success,” but for Black actresses that success is either short-lived or non-
existent.
108
Viola Davis started her own production company, JuVee Productions, because she
realized that an Academy Award nomination does not guarantee future work or financial
earnings. Davis reasoned, “I knew that that was the only way I could get the material that really
could make me shine. I had to be in control of it. I couldn’t just sit and wait for Hollywood to
bring it to me….It’s still always a fight.”
109
Black actresses want to work and be paid their worth,
and film performance alone does not help them achieve the autonomy and power stardom
provides. According to Paul McDonald, author of Hollywood Stardom, television’s role in the
Hollywood star system occupies two primary roles “as a platform for building pre-sold fame and
as a screen apprenticeship.”
110
For McDonald, television is a mere “breeding ground for film
stardom.”
111
Although, Empire opened the door for more film roles, Henson’s film career still
does not classify her as a film star. I argue that television is more than a steppingstone to film
stardom. Televisual stardom offers African American women prominence, international
recognition, a platform for racially meaningful representations, and an opportunity for creating
lasting cultural memory.
112
Unlike traditional Hollywood stardom, Black famous collapses the

107
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl: A Memoir (New York: Atria, 2016), 198,
Kindle Edition.
108
Mapp, Edward, African Americans and the Oscar, ix. Viola Davis made these remarks before she won
an Academy Award, but her continued foray into producing and developing projects suggests her
statement remains accurate.
109
Syme, Rachel, “Viola Davis, on Finding Creative Space in TV With No Limitations” New York Times,
August 25, 2015.
110
McDonald, Paul, Hollywood Stardom, 117.
111
McDonald, Paul, 118.
112
I add televisual to the word stardom to differentiate TV as a different star-producing medium. Stardom
within star studies is grounded in film performance, and while there have been recent attempts to add
television to the conversation, the word stardom alone connotes film stardom.
54
film versus television hierarchy by incorporating and embracing television into its conception
and definition of stardom.
In his book Visible Fictions, John Ellis argues that television misuses the word star to
refer to anyone who has appeared on its screens; unlike cinema, television does not create the
simultaneous balance between the ordinariness and extraordinariness of its performers, and as a
result cannot present performers as particularly glamorous.
113
For Ellis, television instead creates
personalities due to the repetition of characters or situations seen on a weekly series. Challenging
this concept of the television personality, I argue that television is particularly important in
elevating African American women to star status, as the cyclical nature of television helps to
recirculate their images allowing these actresses to maintain a level of cultural stardom that I
define as being Black famous. The repetitious nature of television, where television shows and
movies can continue to rerun year after year, actually works to the advantage of African
American actresses by keeping their image circulating within popular culture and across
generations.
Black Famous, Black Popular Culture and Audience Engagement
During the 2018 Primetime Emmy Awards, co-host Michael Che (Saturday Night Live)
appeared in a brief segment in which he gave out “Reparation Emmys,” honorary Emmy awards
to some of television’s unsung African American actors. Che hands reparation Emmys to Marla
Gibbs (The Jeffersons), Jimmie Walker (Good Times), Kadeem Hardison (A Different World),
Jaleel White (Family Matters), Tichina Arnold (Martin), and John Witherspoon (The Wayans
Bros.). These reparation Emmys were given to actors who starred as some of the most iconic and
memorable African American characters on television, who were also not awarded Emmys in

113
Ellis, John, Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, (London: Routledge, 1982), 105.
55
their day. For instance, when Jimmie Walker receives his “honorary” Emmy, he shouts “dy-
namic,” which inverts audience expectation of his character J.J.’s signature catchphrase “dyn-o-
mite!” What do these characters, shows, and actors provide to Black audiences? According to
Michael Che, these actors are TV legends, and thus deserving of recognition, even if only
symbolically. Che’s point is to underscore the loss of these actors from mainstream cultural
memory, and the Television Academy historically. Their stardom maybe unsung to
contemporary mainstream white audiences, but I argue that many of these actors are in fact
Black famous, amassed in a cultural wave of recognition premised on nostalgia, significance and
legacy to African American audiences. This “Reparation Emmys” segment provides a particular
example of Black famous as a categorization of African American stardom.
While Michael Che celebrates these television actors as unsung television stars, their
sustained popularity among African American audiences, decades after their shows premiered is
what makes them Black famous. In 2018, for instance, actress Tichina Arnold argued, “For me,
it’s not about me. It’s not about me being a star. I don’t give a damn about being a star. Stars fall.
I wanna [sic] do good work. I wanna leave a legacy of work, where—I wanna do good work for
the rest of my life until I don’t wanna do it anymore.”
114
Tichina Arnold’s comments
demonstrate the importance of cultural legacy to Black famous as a categorization of African
American stardom. In his discussion on subcultural celebrity, Matt Hills argues that
“mechanisms of subcultural and niche mediation play a role in constructing and sustaining
specific individuals as widely known within their subculture.”
115
Hills argues that subcultural
celebrity is generally more “typographic rather than iconic, being primarily carried through

114
Uncensored, 12, “Tichina Arnold,” directed by Rob Ford, aired October 21, 2018, on TV One.
115
Hills, Matt, “Not Just Another Powerless Elite?: When media fans become subcultural celebrities,” in
Framing Celebrity: New Directions in Celebrity Culture, ed. Su Holmes and Sean Redmond, (London:
Routledge, 2006), 104.
56
name-recognition rather than through iconicity.”
116
The mechanisms at play here are audience
engagement in constructing and sustaining these actors as stars. However, in terms of television
representations of African American actors, their cultural stardom is both typographic and iconic,
since Black famous capitalizes on both the image and name recognition. African American stars
remain named, even if mentioned peripherally, and their images reproduced, re-circulated and
most importantly, remembered.
Black famous does not measure stardom using the same economic hierarchy as
mainstream Hollywood; therefore, crossover stardom is not a threat to one’s status as Black
famous. For example, Will Smith can remain one of the most bankable African American stars
working in Hollywood with films like Independence Day (1996), The Pursuit of Happyness
(2006), or Aladdin (2019), but to a percentage of his fanbase he will always be The Fresh Prince
of Bel-Air (1990-1996). Black famous does not hinge on monetary value, but instead something
much harder to classify, cultural significance and audience identification. I use Black famous as
a guiding principle and analytical tool for understanding the relationship between television,
African American performers and cultural memory. Black famous as a concept, idea, and
categorization is used here as a means of entering a critical discussion of television’s role in
celebrating African American actresses.
Within popular culture, African American comedians have used the term Black famous
colloquially to refer to Black audiences as a gauge for one’s level of success. On the fictional
reality-style series Real Husbands of Hollywood (2013-2016) comedian Chris Rock tells fellow
comedian Kevin Hart, “Kev., what you got to understand is—I’m actually famous; you’re

116
Hills, Matt, “Not Just Another Powerless Elite,” 110.
57
more—black famous.”
117
According to Chris Rock, the difference between being actually
famous and being Black famous is audience recognition, which is akin to the difference between
being a celebrity and being recognized by the general (white) public as being a star. While the
basis for Chris Rock’s assertion is that mainstream white audiences recognize his image, it is
also demonstrative of questions African American performers, in this instance male comedians,
potentially grapple with in terms of measuring their own stardom. Comedian and actor Marlon
Wayans made a similar joke on the celebrity rap battle series Drop the Mic (2017-Present), when
he tells Saturday Night Live alum Jay Pharaoh that “maybe instead of being white famous, you
should be Black famous first.”
118
On one hand, Marlon Wayans references Pharaoh’s short-lived
Showtime series White Famous (2017), but alternatively he is also criticizing Jay Pharaoh for his
lack of familiarity among Black audiences. There is a double meaning to this joke, that to truly
become Black famous, which includes cultural significance with African American audiences,
Pharaoh cannot simply bypass the Black community for white recognition.
I provide these two male-centric examples to illustrate the varied meaning and use of
Black famous as a model for classifying African American stardom in popular culture. Black
famous can be used to define performers known primarily by African American audiences, and I
acknowledge that this is the more popular usage of the term; however, my definition moves
beyond this simplistic classification in its refusal to use whiteness as an organizing principle or
as a hierarchical structure for understanding stardom, and by incorporating cultural significance,
nostalgia and staying power. Being Black famous is centrally about cultural legacy and memory,
delineating stars that can be celebrated by the Black community, stars that have socio-cultural

117
Real Husbands of Hollywood, 15, “Rock, Paper, Stealers,” directed by Stan Lathan, aired November 5,
2013, on BET.
118
Drop the Mic, 15, “Marlon Wayans vs Jay Pharaoh/Linsey Vonn vs Gus Kenworthy,” aired May 6,
2018, on TBS.
58
value to African American audiences. The end goal is not simply fame, but a different dynamic
for Black celebrity. The examples are also useful in demonstrating the importance of audience
and audience engagement to any conception of stardom related to African American performers.
African American actors who can demonstrate cultural significance that resonates with African
American audiences, regardless of cultural moment, are enmeshed in a wave of cultural nostalgia
that gets recycled and repeated. These performers thus come to mean something to African
American audiences and represent figures of great cultural importance.
Both Arthur Knight’s “Star Dance” essay and Miriam Petty’s book Stealing the Show
demonstrate the importance of audience engagement in discussing the relationship between
African Americans and stardom.
119
Audience engagement and identification are key components
in establishing actors as Black famous. Audience opinions and feedback can be studied in a
multitude of ways such as fan letters, empirical research studies, ratings, or even social media
posts; however, to frame this historically, I specifically use Ebony magazine and its “Letters to
the Editor” section to glean insights into how audiences responded to an actress to illustrate my
argument about the relationship between Black famous and audience engagement. Studying
audience interpretations of an actress helps to discern how she is both perceived by and engages
with African American audiences. I demonstrate the investment Black audiences, especially
Black female audiences, have in finding identifiable representations. This chapter is not a study
of Black audiences, but instead a study of cultural history and of the way television facilitates
stardom for African American actresses.
Ebony, a monthly lifestyle magazine established in 1945, is the most popular national
periodical that focuses explicitly on African American news and entertainment. One of the first

119
Petty, Miriam, Stealing the Show: African American Performers and Audiences in 1930s Hollywood,
(Oakland: University of California Press, 2016).
59
magazines to feature content created by and for African Americans, Ebony included topical
photo essays, articles on race relations, and featured Black models in its advertisements for
consumer products.
120
Between 2006 and 2013, Ebony had an average circulation of 1.3 million,
surpassing other African American magazines such as Essence and Jet.
121
I also use Ebony as it
is also the longest running national magazine with an African American focus that remains in
circulation. I analyze Ebony fan letters as a guide for how Black audiences conceived,
understood, and interpreted African American actresses, specifically Cicely Tyson who modeled
for the magazine in the early days of her career.
122
Audience reception is inherently polysemic,
and different viewers with varying backgrounds will interpret and read these images with
differing perspectives. My sample size is modest, as I focus on specific actresses during
particular moments in their careers; however, I critically examine reader responses as “traces,
clues, parts of a larger whole” in terms of popularity and significance to Black audiences.
123

Additionally, I argue that Ebony, as a mass circulated periodical that directly targets middle-class
African American readers,
124
should be considered a counterpublic space, existing in “parallel
discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate
counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their

120
Brogdon, Sharon, “Ebony and Jet Magazines Set the Stage for More Diversity in Publishing: The
Johnson Publishing Company were trailblazers in doing this,” Adweek, February 22, 2019,
https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/how-ebony-and-jet-magazines-set-the-stage-for-more-diversity-in-
publishing/.
121
“African American News Media: Magazine Circulation (2016),” Pew Research Center, June 14, 2016,
https://www.journalism.org/chart/african-american-news-media-magazine-circulation/.
122
As demonstrated by Aniko Bodroghkozy in her examination of audience interpretations of Julia
(1968-71), fan letters “should not be seen as representative of larger audience responses,” as letter writers
“tend to be a particularly motivated group of television viewers (148).”
123
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’ Race, Gender, and Contested
Meanings in NBC’s Julia,” in Private Screenings: Television and the Female Customer, ed. Lynn Spigel
and Denise Mann, (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1992), 148.
124
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’,” 158.
60
identities, interests and needs.”
125
Ebony aims to showcase and foster identity-based
representations, and is a separate and communal space for a manifold of Black political thought,
cultural and artistic expression, and topical discussions of relevant happenings within African
American communities. The magazine exists as a counterpublic space that functions without
diversion, interference or influence from mainstream publications that have historically worked
to exclude or oppress Black voices. Ebony magazine prides itself on being a space that has
continued to exhibit Black popular culture as diverse and multifaceted on a monthly basis.
Black popular culture and Black famous are inextricably linked, as Black popular culture
is fundamental to establishing a performer as Black famous. Often Black popular culture and
stardom for African Americans do not exist within the same realm in a conventional star studies
model; the signifier “Black” is often used to pigeonhole African American actors into certain
genres (i.e., Black film) or as a determining factor for estimating one’s bankability. Hence, Viola
Davis being referred to as “the Black Meryl Streep.” If an actress remains inherently connected
to conceptions of Black popular culture, or even the signifier “Black,” she is automatically
dismissed or relegated to obscurity by mainstream Hollywood institutions. In his essay “What is
This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” Stuart Hall argues that popular culture is “an arena that
is profoundly mythic [emphasis in original]. It is a theater of popular desires, a theater of popular
fantasies. It is where we discover and play with the identifications of ourselves, where we are
imagined, where we are represented.”
126
Being identified with Black popular culture, while not
seen as beneficial financially to the dominant Hollywood entertainment industry, can be seen as
a source of identification among African American audiences. Hall makes it clear that cultural

125
Fraser, Nancy, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing
Democracy.” Social Text 25/26 (1990): 67.
126
Hall, Stuart, “What is This ‘Black’ in Black Popular Culture?” in Black Popular Culture: A Project by
Michele Wallace, ed. Gina Dent, (Seattle: Bay Press, 1992), 32.
61
life is transformed by the voices of those who are marginalized, and specifically happening is a
“struggle over cultural hegemony” within popular culture to shift the balance of cultural relations
and representation.
127
For Hall, the “Black” in Black popular culture is limiting in its existence,
as it represents a contested and contradictory space, and its marked difference is at risk for
incorporation, exclusion, commodification, or appropriation. The signifier “Black” in Black
stardom is inherently marked by difference, pointing to the dissimilarity in the racialized body of
the star and said star’s ability to achieve success. Therefore, the descriptor “Black Meryl Streep”
does nothing to actually boost Viola Davis’s career, especially in terms of her earning potential,
because it only serves to reify Davis’s otherness in relation to her white peers. I use the term
Black famous not to distinguish African American performers from their white counterparts—
Hollywood has already done that—but instead to recognize, reclaim and celebrate their
difference in a dominant image production system that has historically failed to fully represent
the ‘Black’ in Black popular culture or Black stardom.
Black famous thrives on Black popular culture, which is evident in television shows that
demonstrate historical importance, long-term political or cultural significance, and strong
audience identification. Here, I am using Patricia Hill Collins’s definition of Black popular
culture as “the ideas and cultural representations created by Black people in everyday life that
are widely known and accepted… Black popular culture as examined here is indicative of larger
political and economic forces on the macro level that in turn influence the micro level of
everyday behavior among African Americans.”
128
For television specifically, a series or movie
can resurface or reemerge in Black popular culture, revealing its cultural importance and

127
Hall, Stuart, “What is This ‘Black’,” 24.
128
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism, (New
York: Routledge, 2004), 17. Ebook.
62
generational influence among African American audiences and propelling the show’s lead actor
or actress to the status of Black famous. One series that has remained within Black popular
culture since it premiered is Good Times (1974-1979). Originally written as a star vehicle for
Esther Rolle, the set design, characters, and essence of Good Times have appeared on television
well after the show’s initial airing. I argue that nostalgia and the repetitious nature of Black
popular culture has opened a space for Good Times to remain in popular culture and memory due
to audience identification with the show. Moreover, as a result of her prominence on the series
and her role as a consultant, Good Times has solidified Esther Rolle as Black Famous. For the
remainder of her career and her life, Esther Rolle was associated with the series and referred to
as “Good Times Star.” In examining the role of nostalgia and canonical memories of Good Times
and its characters, I argue that cultural memory and nostalgia are fundamental components of my
conception of Black famous.
Good Times showcased a female star in a Black urban domestic space, and Esther Rolle
used her visibility to shift the narrative of the series in as many ways as she could. The series
premiered during the network era, where there were only three major networks on US television.
There was a need and desire for Black representation and stories, which afforded African
American actors a new visibility that became “vital for articulating the diversity of blackness to
the white monoculture.”
129
When the series premiered, replacing the short-lived comedy series
Roll Out!, there was only one other show on television with a primary African American cast,
NBC’s Sanford and Son (1972-1977), another Norman Lear production.
130
Both Sanford and Son

129
McFadden, Syreeta, “Over That Line,” 82.
130
With the exception of Sanford and Son, The Flip Wilson Show, Room 222 all of the programming on
television featured a primarily white cast including: All in the Family, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, Hawaii
Five-O, Maude, Kojak, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Six Million Dollar Man, which were the top
rated programs of the 1973-1974 season.
63
and Good Times addressed poverty, but Good Times was a much more topical series, and did not
shy away from discussions of other societal ills affecting Black communities during this time
period. This made the series a breakout success, especially among African American audiences.
Ebony magazine writer Louie Robinson describes the series as “the tube’s best effort to date at
showing a real slice of ghetto black life.”
131
The pilot episode “Getting Up the Rent,” written by
series co-creator Eric Monte, established Good Times as a show that would deal directly with
Black popular culture and African American themes and subject matter.
“Getting Up the Rent” sets the tone for the show from the start of the theme song to the
end credits. The show is set in the infamous Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago, which can be
seen in the opening credits, creating a direct link to working class African Americans in the
1970s. The theme song begins,
Good times! Anytime you meet a payment (good times). Anytime you meet a friend
(good times). Anytime you’re out from under, not gettin’ hassled, not gettin’ hustled.
Keepin’ you’re head above water, making a wave when you can. Temporary lay-offs
(good times), easy credit rip-offs (good times), scratchin’ and survivin’ (good times),
hangin’ in a chow line
132
(good times), ain’t we lucky we got ‘um—good times.

The words and their meanings are meant to elicit identification from the show’s Black audience,
especially in the way it is performed by African American singers Jim Gilstrap and Blinky
Williams, accompanied by a gospel choir singing the background vocals. Television theme
songs, especially memorable and catchy ones, can become embedded in the cultural legacy of a
series. Iconic theme songs are what audiences remember years after a show has ended. The Good
Times theme song is part of the cultural memory of the series, and an aspect of what makes the
show remain within the realm of Black popular culture. For example, on the Chappelle’s Show

131
Robinson, Louie, “Bad Times on the ‘Good Times’ Set,” Ebony, September 1975, 33.
132
This line remains a contested lyric in the theme song with the husband and wife songwriting team Alan
and Marilyn Bergman claiming the line is “hanging in and jiving.” The line may have been written as
“hanging in and jiving,” but it was definitely not performed this way.
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(2003-2006), Dave Chappelle performed a skit entitled “I Know Black People” in which he tests
contestants on the lyrics from the Good Times theme song.
133

The pilot episode begins with Thelma, the daughter, reading an issue of Ebony and
making oatmeal for the family’s breakfast. Michael, the youngest son, walks in wearing a green
jacket decorated with symbolically Black badges, complaining that while playing “Cops and
Militant” his friend kept making him the cop. He walks over to Thelma and delivers the line,
“Black is beautiful Thelma, but not when its oatmeal.” Within the first few minutes the audience
is introduced to several explicitly Black references. As soon as Esther Rolle enters the screen, the
audience immediately applauds, as they would have been familiar with Rolle and her character
Florida Evans from Maude. The audience applause is also in recognition of Rolle as the star of
the series, as she is the only one to receive such audience adulation in the episode. One of the
first lines she delivers, after successfully stopping an argument between Thelma and her older
brother J.J., “Well, it’s comforting to know there’s still some respect for Black Power around
here.” In the opening five minutes, African American politics of the late 1960s and early 1970s
are referenced with the “Black is Beautiful” and “Black Power” comments. The episode
continues with Florida learning that the family is facing immediate eviction after falling behind
due to medical expenses accrued when Florida needed her appendix removed. As the episode
continues, African American entertainers such as OJ Simpson, Billy Dee Williams, Sidney
Poitier, and Cicely Tyson are mentioned. These references to Black popular culture were taken,
accepted and received by African American audiences. Although these characteristics can appear
to be window dressing, given the fact that the show would push social issues in many of the

133
Chappelle’s Show, 20, directed by Rusty Cundieff and Andre Allen, aired March 10, 2004, on Comedy
Central.
65
episodes elevated it from simply referencing Black popular culture and playing on popular words
of the day.
While a supporting character on Maude, Good Times was created specifically for Esther
Rolle’s Florida Evans, and she used her status as the star of the show to insist that her character
be given a husband, as an attempt to challenge the stereotypical representation of single Black
women on television. The first season, especially the first episode, worked hard to remain
current, but also to maintain the focus of the show on societal ills that plagued working class
African Americans. The attention to detail and the multitude of references are the basis of
identification for the Black audience, in addition to seeing relatable images of Black bodies
onscreen. The previously examples are just some of the instances of the racial, political and
cultural references used in the pilot episode of Good Times. As one Ebony reader wrote in a letter
to the editor, “The characters and issues dealt with project more of what real people are about
than any other unbelievable, plastic creatures on TV. Even though the actors and actresses may
feel a lack of depth in their roles, let me say that they’ve already given their audience more to
relate to than any others on the tube to date.”
134
As the series progressed, the character, J.J.
(Jimmie Walker), Florida’s oldest son, soon became an audience favorite, and the narrative
shifted to underscore his coon-ish antics for quick laughs. However, as the show drifted to focus
more on J.J.’s comedic actions and dialogue, both Esther Rolle and her co-star John Amos began
to criticize the series. Despite this transition, African American viewers still found moments of
identification. Even as Jimmie Walker became a fan favorite, Esther Rolle continued to be
considered and written about as the show’s star. Still, part of the legacy of Good Times is J.J. and
his signature line “Dyn-O-Mite.” Similar to theme songs, memorable lines can be recycled and

134
Wright, Marelyn, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, November 1975, 16.
66
repeated becoming etched into the cultural memory of a series and actor. While Jimmie Walker’s
“Dyn-O-Mite” is the memorable catchphrase associated with Good Times, Esther Rolle too
delivered an expression that will forever be associated with the series, “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
This phrase has been referenced in popular Black sitcoms such as Martin (1992-1997), Living
Single (1993-1998), The Bernie Mac Show (2001-2006), as well as hip hop group Outkast’s song
“SpottieOttieDopalicious,” and it has also been transformed into several GIFs and memes. Rolle
only uttered the phrase once throughout the entire series, but it continues to circulate within
Black popular culture. Memes did not exist in Esther Rolle’s lifetime, and given that her image
has been recycled and appropriated within contemporary Black popular culture speaks to her
cultural resonance.
The cast and references to the show continue to appear in popular culture nearly four
decades after the show ended, working to reinsert Esther Rolle into Black popular culture and the
cultural memory of the series, while simultaneously demonstrating the significance of Good
Times to Black audiences. On an episode of The Wayans Bros. (1995-1999), Esther Rolle and her
Good Times persona are referenced when brothers Marlon and Shawn browse a jewelry store.
When Marlon tries on a woman’s earring and asks Shawn what he thinks, Shawn responds, “I
think you look like Esther Rolle.” Imitating Florida Evans, Marlon dramatically responds, “Oh
James.”
135
The Wayans Bros. also did a Good Times parody on the season four episode
“Unspoken Token,” in which original cast members Bern Nadette Stanis (Thelma), Johnny
Brown (Bookman), and Ja’net DuBois (Willona) made appearances as their former characters.
136

When Janet Jackson hosted Saturday Night Live in 2004, she reprised her role as Penny in a

135
The Wayans Bros., 8, “The Shawn-Shank Redemption,” directed by John Bowab, aired March 1,
1995, on The WB.
136
The Wayans Bros., 62, “Unspoken Token,” directed by John Bowab, aired October 15, 1997, on The
WB.
67
Good Times skit that included the series theme song. On March 19, 2006, the entire original cast
reunited—with the exception of Esther Rolle, who passed away in 1998—on the 4
th
Annual TV
Land Awards and received the impact award for being “a show that offered both entertainment
and enlightenment, always striving for both humor and humanity, with comedy that reflected
reality.”
137
At the BET Awards in 2006, Janet Jackson reunited with fellow Good Times cast
members Jimmie Walker, Bern Nadette Stanis, and Ralph Carter to present an award.
Jet magazine published an article in 2008, “Where Is…The Cast of ‘Good Times’?”
asserting that “What TV’s ‘Brady Bunch’ was to White America is what ‘Good Times’ is and
still remains to Black America—family.”
138
The Black-ish episode “Good-ish Times,” directly
references Good Times, as the main character Dre falls asleep watching a Good Times marathon
and dreams that his family is the Evans family, going back in time to the 1970s and using the
aesthetics from the original show.
139
While playing “Mad Lib Theater” on a segment of The
Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, when asked to name an old television show, Kerry
Washington said Good Times. In 2019, ABC aired Live in Front of a Studio Audience (2019), a
special featuring a live recreation of an episode of Good Times with Viola Davis starring as
Florida Evans. Good Times remains significant to African American television history because
no other show at the time offered audiences insight into the cultural, political, and economic
trends of working-class African Americans in the 1970s.
The show is representative of the ways in which African Americans redefined their image
on mainstream American television. Given the theme song, the characters, the show’s content,
and the way it was written about, it is evident that the show always encompassed a Black

137
Christian, Margena, “Where Is…The Cast of ‘Good Times’?,” Jet, January 28, 2008, 31.
138
Christian, Margena, “Where Is…The Cast of ‘Good Times’?,” 32.
139
Black-ish, 48, “Good-ish Times,” directed by Anton Cropper, aired May 18, 2016, on ABC.
68
audience, providing them with “immediate personal and psychic identification.”
140
Good Times
remains in syndication, introducing new audiences to the characters, themes and sentiments that
Black audiences identified with over forty years ago. The numerous references to Good Times in
popular culture, especially Black popular culture, demonstrates that the show is a part of African
American cultural memory, further establishing the series’ star as Black famous. Good Times is
Esther Rolle’s cultural legacy. She used her Black fame to connect “her acting to the black
community and its empowerment. Her series was a part of that community and needed to be
responsive to it.”
141
Good Times continues to resonate with audiences due to the broader
representational meanings that viewers continue to identify with, and Esther Rolle was key to
this identification.
Diahann Carroll and her role on Julia (1968-71) provides an important oppositional
example of the importance of the Black audience and Black cultural memory to an understanding
of Black famous. Carroll’s early career on television was well defined by her relationship, or an
attempt at a relationship, with Black audiences. No African American television actress was
better-known in the late sixties than Diahann Carroll for her character Julia Baker. The first
sitcom to star an African American actress, who was not a maid, in a middle-class integrated
setting, Julia was criticized during its airing for failing to acknowledge problems occurring
within Black America. In her article, “Is This What You Mean by Color TV?,” using fan letters
saved by Julia creator Hal Kanter, Aniko Bodroghkozy argues, “For the black viewer the
struggle over representation was between the actual program as created by white producers and a
potential, but more authentic, program to be created by the black viewers.”
142
Julia was the

140
O’Connor, John J, “Good Times For the Black Image,” New York Times, February 2, 1975, X1.
141
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, Equal Time, 218.
142
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’,” 158.
69
representation of a Black woman created by white writers, and as such, Black viewers believed
they could have written the character from a more experience-based, realistic perspective.
Bodroghkozy continues, “One of the main areas of concern for many black viewers was whether
the representation of blacks was realistic or whether the program portrayed a white world for
white viewers.”
143
Julia, and by extension, Diahann Carroll, were criticized for depicting a
“white Negro,” a character devoid of any significant sense of Blackness.
144

In 1968, when discussing her role as a consultant for the series and her ability to make
changes appropriate for her character, Diahann Carroll stated, “I don’t delude myself into
thinking that I’m operating in the context of anything else but a white society…The white
community has to assuage its own conscience. Julia, of course, is a product of that. The white
society has put a television show on the air about Black people. Now don’t you know what that’s
going to be all about?”
145
Here, Diahann Carroll attempts to distance herself from Julia’s
narrative by asserting her lack of power and control working in a predominantly white industry.
Throughout Julia’s airing, Diahann Carroll was quite candid about the show and its place within
the primarily white space of television, but also her lack of ability to actually alter the show’s
narrative. Despite her candor, she struggled to connect with Black audiences both on and off-
screen.
Four years after Julia went off the air, JET magazine published an article in 1975
entitled, “Diahann Carroll: ‘I’ve Been Black All The Time’.” JET managing editor and Diahann
Carroll’s future third husband, Robert DeLeon wrote, “Her critics argue that the actress left her
Blackness in Harlem...They point to the fact that her singing never has been ‘soulful’; the fact

143
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’,” 158.
144
Bodroghkozy, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’,” 157.
145
Lewis, Richard Warren, “The Importance of Being Julia,” TV Guide, December 14, 1968, 28.
70
that she has made few strong statements on the race question; that her skin is light, and finally,
the critics bristle as they recount that her husbands and lovers almost always have been white.”
146

DeLeon argued that Carroll’s constant criticism throughout the Black community comes from
“her associations with white men and, perhaps in a real sense, her image as a ‘white folks nigger’
which apparently stems from her great degree of acceptability by white audiences.”
147
It was
Carroll’s personal life as well as her onscreen image that made it difficult for her to connect with
African American audiences. Carroll’s response to DeLeon’s allegations was, “Of course I can’t
help but be aware of the many things that have been said about me. But I am not about to go out
and defend my Blackness to anyone. It wouldn’t make sense to try something like that, in the
first place, and, in the second place, it wouldn’t help.”
148
In refusing to be apologetic about her
Blackness, her personal relationships, or her role selection, Diahann Carroll chose to ignore the
criticism rather than challenge audiences to both see and acknowledge her Blackness. Instead she
chose to “reframe” her role on Julia in terms of African American representation more broadly.
Scholar Miriam Petty defines the process of reframing as, “performers’ attempt to
reimagine and redefine themselves and/or their cinematic performances and characters, usually
to Black audiences, and usually in an extra-cinematic context.”
149
Reflecting back on 1968,
Diahann Carroll argued,
They said then that the show was a copout because there was no Black man in the
household and because I was a middle-class woman and not poor. Well, as I think about
it today, I’m still terribly happy that there was a Julia because, if nothing else, with that
show we proved that a Black person could come into white folks’ homes each week and
be watched on television and accepted. Because Julia was successful at doing that, you
can believe that a lot of doors in television that had been closed to Blacks were opened.
150

146
DeLeon, Robert, “Diahann Carroll: ‘I’ve Been Black All the Time’,” JET, April 3, 1975, 59.
147
DeLeon, Robert, “Diahann Carroll: ‘I’ve Been Black All the Time’,” 59.
148
DeLeon, Robert, 59.
149
Petty, Miriam, Stealing the Show, 57.
150
DeLeon, Robert, “Diahann Carroll: ‘I’ve Been Black All the Time’,” 60.
71
In providing this counternarrative to her criticism among Black audiences, Carroll reframes her
role on Julia in terms of her significance to African American representation onscreen. In
positioning herself in this way, she underscores her Blackness and tethers it to the creation of
more opportunities for African Americans to work on television. The audience sentiment
surrounding her image remained with Diahann Carroll long after Julia ended. For instance, after
Robert DeLeon’s tragic death, Ebony interviewed her, to which one reader responded in a letter
to the editor, “Look, I’m sympathetic to the fact that Mr. DeLeon died…Somehow, all of a
sudden, the ‘Black’ Diahann Carroll is being presented to us. I don’t think too many people are
buying this manipulation—and it really doesn’t matter anyhow. She’s beautiful, talented and
successful.”
151
For this reader, “Black” is code for a kind of racial authenticity that Diahann
Carroll, according to the writer, did not have. Even nearly a decade after Julia ended, Diahann
Carroll could not move past her previous image as a Black woman with a white image. Carroll’s
experience with Julia demonstrates the relationship between a show’s lead and the importance of
audience identification. Later in her career she appeared on the primetime soap Dynasty (1981-
1989) as Dominique Deveraux, continuing her image onscreen as a Black woman in an all-white
world, though Dynasty did not receive the same criticisms from Black audiences.
Although it was a first for television, and for African American representation on
television, Julia does not have the same kind of cultural memory or hold the same significance to
African American audiences as Good Times. Aniko Bodroghkozy points out that “The show’s
theme music was a generic sit-com jingle lacking any nod to the rich traditions of African-
American musical forms.”
152
Even the theme song of Julia was not meant to elicit identification

151
Peterson, Susan McClain, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, February 1980, 18.
152
Bodroghkozy, Aniko, “‘Is This What You Mean by Color TV?’,” 149.
72
from African American audiences. Similar to Good Times, Julia does receive references in
popular culture after the series concluded. For example, on Good Times when the kids encourage
their parents to go see the film Claudine (1974), Esther Rolle’s character Florida laughs as she
states, “Julia on welfare? Well this I got to see!”
153
The joke simultaneously associates Diahann
Carroll with her character on Julia, suggesting some cultural resonance for the series, in addition
to making fun of the character. This moment of intertextuality and the way Esther Rolle delivers
this line, not only links the two series, but also elevates Good Times over Julia in terms of
cultural significance and audience identification. Furthermore, Julia is a very difficult series to
find and watch; the series is not available on DVD and only a limited number of full episodes are
uploaded on YouTube, though, the majority of episodes are available on the subscription-based
cable television network, Aspire, and accessible at the UCLA Film and Television Archive for
research purposes only.
154
Re-runs and syndication are important in allowing a series to remain
active within the sphere of Black popular culture. While Julia is important to television history
and the history of African American representation on television, the series is not revered to the
same extent in Black popular culture. Her starring role in Claudine and as a guest star on A
Different World (1987-1993) resonate more with Black audiences, but her more substantial and
career-defining work on television does not have the same cultural currency for African
American audiences as a show like Good Times or its star actress Esther Rolle. Audience
reception and identification remains an important component in determining an actress as Black
famous and throughout her career, Diahann Carroll struggled to connect with Black audiences.
However, Black female writers, showrunners, and actresses, in their role as cultural archivists
helped to preserve Diahann Carroll’s cultural significance by keeping her name circulating

153
Good Times, 22, “The Gang: Part 1,” directed by Herbert Kenwith, aired November 12, 1974, on CBS.
154
It should be noted that Aspire is also not available on all cable carriers.
73
within the realm of Black popular culture. Her career and legacy in many ways confirm Carroll
as an important Black actress, but not as someone who is Black famous. Inherently, Black
famous is about audiences and the acknowledgement of the Black audience through multiple
structures of identification.
Being Black Famous: Cicely Tyson and Cultural Legacy
In what follows, I use Cicely Tyson as a case study to further explore Black famous and
its conventions as it relates to African American actresses specifically. Cicely Tyson was chosen
as the focal point of my discussion of Black famous because of her popularity during her early
career on television, her longevity as an actress, and her enduring relationship to television and
Black audiences. Although Tyson had been a working actress for over sixty years, her television
performances are undervalued and understudied. As an actress, Cicely Tyson embodied the
concept of being Black famous, and her presence onscreen carried with it a weighted cultural
significance to Black audiences, as evidenced by the Black-ish “white Cicely Tyson” example
that opened this chapter. Tyson, the epitome of Black famous, was very popular among Ebony
readers. With every in-depth article written in the magazine about her, the next issue(s) would
have several letters to the editor from readers commenting on both Tyson and the article.
Cicely Tyson established herself as an African American dramatic actress and television
star between the years 1963 and 1977 and is commonly associated with historical roles. This
time period was central to her career, leading to her stardom and ultimately positioning her as
Black famous; it is also noteworthy as it exemplifies both an absence and an increased visibility
in terms of African American televisual representation and for Tyson, prominence in the made-
for-television movie. She built a reputation as a dramatic actress with a talent for serious
depictions of Black women and as a result garnered respect, critical acclaim, and stardom among
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African American audiences. Or as one Ebony reader wrote in 1974, “Keep your eye on that
genius Cicely Tyson, because she is going to take her rightful place among the greatest stars of
all time. Every masterpiece she creates emanates lasting quality. Cicely Tyson is history in the
making...Cicely Tyson is sacrificing greatly as she contributes to the dignity and pride of
beautiful black people.”
155
Tyson’s cultural legacy as an actress onscreen encompasses her most
significant roles including: Jane Foster in East Side/West Side (1963-64), Rebecca in Sounder
(1972), Jane Pittman in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), and Binta in Roots
(1977). These roles helped establish her brand of characters and gave her success and recognition
with mainstream Hollywood. Unlike Diahann Carroll, Tyson loved to play characters that were
unmistakably Black, and this enhanced her appeal with Black women throughout her career.
Cicely Tyson’s endurance as a working Black actress was premised on the legacy of her work
from this period, and her insistence on only portraying certain kinds of characters.
In the early 1960s, Cicely Tyson was one of only a few African Americans to be seen
regularly on television in the short-lived CBS television drama, East Side/West Side (1963), the
first dramatic series to feature an African American actress in a recurring role. The show
addressed some of the issues plaguing America at the time; episodes centered around social
problems like unemployment, poor housing conditions, racial prejudice, juvenile delinquency,
PTSD, mental illness, and gambling. Cicely Tyson plays a minor role; her character Jane Foster
is an assistant to a social worker named Neil Brock (George C. Scott). In many episodes, viewers
got mere glimpses of Tyson, usually at the welfare office where she worked, and her screen time
often lasted less than a minute. According to Tyson, “The thing that was disturbing—and it was a
big point between George and the producers—was that they weren’t using me, my talents as an

155
Henrie, Zelmer, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, July 1974.
75
actress.”
156
When audiences are able to catch a glimpse of Jane, Tyson makes the most of her
scenes. She keeps with the consistent dramatic tone of the show but inserts small moments of
wit, using facial expressions and gestures. While her character is essentially a secretary, she is
not primarily confined to a desk in an office. For example, in episode five, “I Before E Except
After C,” Tyson is shown in a classroom, teaching educators Spanish so that they can better
communicate with bilingual students. She stands straight, enunciates clearly, and teaches the
basic components of the Spanish alphabet to a room full of teachers. She pronounces the words
slowly so they can understand and has the attention of the room. This is one of the few moments
from the series that gives Tyson the opportunity to exhibit her dramatic acting abilities and the
sequence gives her approximately two minutes of screen time, which is more than usual.
Importantly, audiences in 1963 were able to witness a well-put together African American
woman, who was not a maid, singer/dancer, or on a comedy series, and she was bilingual.
157

Despite the critical acclaim surrounding the show, it only lasted one season and Tyson was
underutilized. However, Tyson’s role on East Side/West Side was an introduction into the
increased visibility television offers.
On East Side/West Side, Cicely Tyson’s presence elicited identification from Black
women for a unique reason—her hair. Tyson was the first to wear her hair in a natural Afro on a
weekly series. According to Tyson, “People complained about the fact that I had an opportunity
to project the image of Black women in a very positive light and I was destroying it by wearing
my hair in its natural state.”
158
Cicely Tyson’s first television appearance with her Afro was

156
Robinson, Louie, “Cicely Tyson: A Very Unlikely Movie Star,” Ebony, May 1974, 38.
157
It should be noted that the camera is pointed away from Tyson when she demonstrates full sentences in
Spanish.
158
Tyson, Cicely, Inside TV Land African Americans in TV Drama, produced by Gay Rosenthal
Productions, Viacom International Inc. 2002. Videocassette.
76
actually in 1959, in an episode entitled “Between Yesterday and Today,” on the television drama
Camera Three (1955-1979), when the attitudes concerning hair politics were even more
conservative with the norm being for Black women to straighten their hair as a form of
assimilation and white acceptance. Even in 1963, in a changing political climate, she still
endured much criticism from African Americans. Cicely Tyson wore her Afro weekly before it
became a political statement to do so. While criticized by some and imitated by others, Tyson’s
visibility on television made her the target of increased racial scrutiny. According to one
reporter, “The initial reaction from other segments of the Black community varied. She went to
Washington, D.C. to accept an award for her role on ‘Eastside, Westside’ and was met with some
hostility. After the awards presentation was over, the press club women, aided by more than a
few drinks, attacked her verbally.”
159
During and after her appearance on East Side/West Side,
Tyson’s continued exposure and visibility wearing her Afro began to grow favorably on the
public, especially the Black community.
160

Being the first African American woman to regularly appear on television with an Afro
became part of Tyson’s cultural legacy as an actress. Black women became infatuated with the
Afro and began to imitate the style. One newspaper reported that, beauticians across the nation
were complaining that Tyson’s hairstyle was losing them business.
161
Black women chose to
follow in Cicely Tyson’s footsteps and throw away their straightening combs, which were seen
by some as symbols of assimilation or even self-hatred. In her essay “Feminine Fascinations:
Forms of Identification in Star-Audience Relations,” Jackie Stacey writes, “Copying the
hairstyles of famous film stars can be seen as a form of cultural production and consumption. It

159
Burnell, Walter, “Afros on TV: Tyson Was The First,” New Journal and Guide, October. 28, 1972, 14.
160
Burnell, Walter, “Afros on TV: Tyson Was The First,” 14.
161
Burnell, Walter, 14.
77
involves the production of a new self-image through the pleasure taken in a star image.”
162
In
terms of cultural production, Tyson’s choice was both performative and political, and as a result,
it created consumption based on identification. At the time, Tyson’s Afro presented a very
conflicting depiction of Black womanhood. On one hand, it represented natural beauty, and on
the other, it was a deviation from cultural norms and representations of African American
women. According to Tyson, “I was convinced that my Black hair and features were Godgiven,
and that the others were manufactured; made up to look like something else, something they
weren’t. I knew it was just a matter of time before the whole situation took on its true colors.”
163

Tyson’s Afro was ahead of its time in terms of dominant cultural acceptance and she
purposefully chose to use her hair as a symbol for presenting an alternate depiction of Black
womanhood. The choice to wear her Afro can be seen as one of acceptance, accepting one’s
given beauty without adhering to white mainstream standards. In this way, the Afro is also a
lifestyle choice, a political decision, and a stake in one’s inherent Blackness. It was her
purposeful stake in representing her own Blackness her way that appealed to African American
women.
Cicely Tyson’s historical claim to being the first to introduce the Afro to the mainstream
public on television has become part of her star narrative. During this period, she was
consistently associated with this fact, and claimed it as a source of pride. According to TV Guide,
“she brags that she was the first to introduce the Afro-natural in public.”
164
Cicely Tyson may
have been the first to mainstream the hairstyle, but she was not the only Black woman around
this time wearing it. She was perhaps the most visible, but other Black women such as “Nina

162
Stacey, Jackie, “Feminine Fascinations: Forms of Identification in star-audience relations,” in
Stardom: Industry of Desire, ed. Christine Gledhill (London: Routledge, 1991), 156.
163
Burnell, Walter, “Afros on TV: Tyson Was The First,” 14.
164
Davidson, Muriel, “What Makes Cicely Tyson Run…” TV Guide, Jan. 26, 1974, 15.
78
Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and the folksinger Odetta”

also wore Afros.
165
Cicely Tyson’s early
career was built on her relationship to endorsing natural Black hair and inspiring other Black
women to do the same.
By the 1970s, the Afro was a Black cultural staple. Cicely Tyson fashioned a national
trend that at the time may have appeared as a stylistic choice but was very much a political
decision. In asserting her intentional wearing of the Afro and the relationship between her Afro
and her characters, Tyson demonstrated her willingness to go against cultural norms as well as
her investment in culturally significant representations. It is this investment that reverberates
with Black audiences and makes Cicely Tyson such a cultural gem among African American
audiences. During this early point in her career, her “style was interpreted as revolutionary,”

illuminating the political resonance of her decision.
166
Cicely Tyson’s use of hair politics can be
seen as a strategy for performing Black womanhood that elicited identification from African
American viewers. Tyson implicitly spoke to many African American women who understood
how the styling of one’s hair embodied a relationship to one’s Blackness. East Side/West Side
gave Cicely Tyson increased visibility to a mainstream audience on a weekly basis, but it was
her hairstyle that spoke to Black female audiences and contributed to her star persona. This
persona along with her acting ability, role distinction, visibility and recognition would later
contribute to her status as Black famous.
During the Norman Lear era, where African Americans were highly visible on sitcoms
like Sanford and Son (1972-1977), Good Times (1974-1979), and The Jeffersons (1975-1985),
Cicely Tyson made her mark on television history using the made-for-TV movie as her primary

165
Byrd, Ayana and Lori Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 54.
166
Feldstein, Ruth, How It Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013), 19.
79
outlet, allowing her to showcase her dramatic talents. Cicely Tyson’s performances were taken
more seriously in longform television, than would have been possible in a comedy. For Tyson,
television offered continued exposure to a mainstream audience and more iconic and memorable
roles that fit her standards. Her selection of roles elevated her to the level of Black famous and
articulated a paradigm of Black identification through a few but important dramatic
performances in the early 1970s. While Dyer argues that Paul Robeson’s star image “insisted on
his blackness,” Cicely Tyson insisted that her star image embrace her Blackness.
167
Tyson’s
Black body and the presentation of her body were critical to her success, due to her performance
and what her performance represented for audiences.
One of Cicely Tyson’s most career defining roles was her performance in the made-for-
television movie The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974). This 150-minutes-long drama
follows the life of a former slave from the end of the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement in
1962. The story is told from Jane’s perspective, as a white reporter is interviewing her, and
“history unfolded from an African American point of view; a first for television.”
168
Tyson
demonstrated her acting range as she plays Jane Pittman from the age of 19 to 110.
169
In the
climactic scene of the film, Jane Pittman, at age 110 decides to take a stand and contribute to the
civil rights movement happening in her town by taking a drink from a white’s only water
fountain. An older gentleman, who has her arm, initially helps her but she gestures for him to let
go by slightly moving her shoulder and arm. Once he releases her arm, Jane Pittman using her
cane, slowly walks toward the fountain. The camera cuts to her feet, which wobble as she walks
a bit off balance, clutching her cane tightly. Slow and steady with everyone, including the

167
Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies, 64.
168
Bogle, Donald, Primetime Blues, 135.
169
Cicely Tyson was 50 years old at the time.
80
sheriff, watching, she makes her way to the fountain. A few feet away, she pauses and looks
around at the armed officers standing in front of the fountain. The sheriff crosses his arms and
blocks her way. When Jane then takes a few more steps towards the fountain, he moves out of
her way. She lifts up her cane, slowly lowers her body to drink from the fountain with the “White
Only” sign clearly foregrounded. Once the water touches her lips, she rubs her lips together to
fully taste it. She chews the water in her mouth, and turns and looks back at the sheriff, who
walks away in defeat. The look was Jane’s way of challenging the sheriff to do something. After
just one small sip, she turns and walks slowly back to the crowd of people now waiting for her.
This scene, a little over two minutes has no dialogue, just a slow harmonic tune, and it
epitomizes Tyson’s dramatic abilities. She is able to speak with just her body and facial
expressions. It was a triumphant moment in the film, for Cicely Tyson as a performer and for the
Black television audience. An Ebony reader from New York writes, “A loud round of applause
has to be given Cicely Tyson for her strong portrayal of Miss Jane Pittman!... Miss Tyson has
taken us back to the past where our people were ‘sho nuff’ starving… She showed how one
woman stood strong in her battle against the bitter mask of our blackness.”
170
While Jane
Pittman is a historical drama, the climactic moment of resistance in the film resonated strongly
with contemporaneous African American audiences. In this performance, she is stoic, dignified,
defiant, cause-oriented, and driven, many of the characteristics associated with the actress, which
contributed to her overall stardom and persona.
When the movie premiered, it was seen by 42 million people, an astounding forty-seven
percent of the television audience.
171
Tyson’s performance of Black womanhood held great
racial, social and artistic meaning for African Americans, especially poet Nikki Giovanni, who

170
Martin, Marilyn, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, July 1974, 10.
171
Bogle, Donald, Primetime Blues, 237.
81
defended Tyson against a critic who wrote an unfavorable review in the New York Times. Times
journalist Stephanie Harrington claimed, “Jane Pittman, contained nothing about black history
that I, at least, had not learned in public school or from television newscasts and
documentaries”
172
Giovanni fiercely responded, “What disappoints me about Stephanie
Harrington’s review is her lack of knowledge of blacks as well as her almost total inability to
relate to the television show. If Cicely Tyson isn’t one of the best actresses on screen, then ‘grits
ain’t groceries, eggs ain’t poultry, and Mona Lisa was a man,’ to quote Little Willie John.”
173

There was something in Cicely Tyson’s performance that elicited identification from Giovanni
but also other Black audience members who appreciated this Black woman’s story. Giovanni
called Jane Pittman “triumph of and for the enduring strength of black people.”
174
This kind of
penetrating audience identification is embedded in African American cultural history and
memory.
It was this character, and Tyson’s performance of Jane Pittman that inspired Viola Davis
to become an actress, as the depth and talent Tyson demonstrated was truly unlike anything ever
seen on television at the time, especially for Davis, a young Black girl from Central Falls, Rhode
Island. Jane Pittman was nominated for twelve Emmys and awarded nine, including
“Outstanding Special—Comedy or Drama,” “Best Lead Actress in a Drama,” and “Actress of the
Year—Special.”
175
To win the drama category, Tyson defeated accomplished actresses such as
Elizabeth Montgomery, Katharine Hepburn, Cloris Leachman, and Carol Burnett.
176
Tyson
acknowledges the role television played in making her performance available to a larger

172
Giovanni, Nikki, “‘Jane Pittman’ Fulfilled My Deepest Expectations,” New York Times, Mar. 3, 1974,
115.
173
Giovanni, Nikki, “‘Jane Pittman’ Fulfilled My Deepest Expectations,” 115.
174
Giovanni, 115.
175
Bogle, Donald, Primetime Blues, 237.
176
“‘Jane Pittman’ Special Tops With 12 Emmy Nominations,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 25, 1974, 3.
82
audience, stating, “Because it was done on the small screen, it reached a much wider audience—
and over the years, every time they play it, that audience is widened. So, in that respect, I am
pleased.”
177
After the enormous success of the film, Tyson became “a bankable TV star,” and
“one of America’s most famous actresses.”
178
Jane Pittman elevated Cicely Tyson to the level of
star, with both mainstream and African American audiences.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman fits within Cicely Tyson’s pattern of
performing heroines from the past. Her work in Sounder, Jane Pittman, and Roots all depicted
African American history through the eyes of women. These roles are also notable in their
celebration of Black resistance and their representation of Black strength and dignity. She was
invested in performances that had the ability to provoke dialogues about race and the history of
race relations, resulting in a kind of Black cultural consciousness that durably bonded Cicely
Tyson to Black audiences. An Ebony reader from Washington, D.C. wrote, “The artistry
displayed by Miss Tyson in Sounder and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is, in my
judgment, surpassed only by the inner quality which commands her to refuse all roles that fail to
satisfy her own standards of personal and racial dignity and worth. She is a personage whose
internal and external beauty comprise a splendid equation.”
179
Another Ebony reader wrote,
“Having seen several black movies, I appreciate being able to watch movies such as Sounder and
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman that depict other attributes of the black race besides the
stereotype drugs, super-bad, super-con scenes that have been offered movie goers.”
180
This
particular reader expresses a sense of exhaustion from Blaxploitation films that were popular in

177
Portman, Jamie, “Tyson Continues to Fight for Equality,” The Ottawa Citizen (Canada), March 19,
2005.
178
Bogle, Donald, Primetime Blues, 237.
179
Haywood Jr., J.W, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, August 1974, 20.
180
Exum, Margaret Tinsley, “Letters to the Editor,” Ebony, July 1974, 10.
83
the early ‘70s, and applauds Tyson for her deviation from the popular but often stereotypical
films being released by Hollywood. Tyson’s historical dramas were intentional interventions into
African American history, and while she did not write these stories, her performances of these
characters are just as significant. As Tyson wrote in her autobiography, “I protested using not my
own words, but those of the characters I inhabited. Fifty years after I made a silent pact with
myself to play women whose legacies uplift us, that vow still guides me.”
181
She left everything
on the screen, letting her performances speak for themselves. Throughout her early career on
television, she demonstrated a kind of race consciousness that is evident in her selection of
characters. In discussing the May 1959 cover of Ebony featuring Sidney Poitier, Arthur Knight
argues that in positioning Poitier as the first real African American star, Ebony makes the claim
that African American stardom is infused with a sense of history, progress, and political
import.
182
Tyson’s characters exhibit all three criteria, establishing her as an undisputable
African American star by Ebony’s own standards. Cicely Tyson’s stature as a television actress
and a dramatic performer, fortified with her appearance in “the two most important television
dramatic presentations of the era that were also Black special events: The Autobiography of Miss
Jane Pittman and Roots.”
183
Her historical heroines are significant to the process of history
making and these two roles cemented her distinction as Black famous.
Between 1963 and 1977, Cicely Tyson became Black famous as a result of being a
television star. Her most notable roles fall within this period and the characters she embodied
after this period continued to be strong and dignified Black women; she even portrayed historical

181
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, Just as I Am: A Memoir, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2021), 9.
182
Knight, Arthur, “Music Star. Movie Star. Super Star?,” in Black Star: a BFI Compendium. ed. James
Bell, (London: BFI, 2016), 96, 98.
183
Bogle, Donald, Primetime Blues, 234.
84
Black female heroines, Coretta Scott King and Harriet Tubman. This period is key to
understanding Cicely Tyson’s staying power; she was not a very prolific actress in terms of
starring roles, but her standards for quality storytelling secured her a reputation as one of the best
dramatic performers of the period. Her significance to Black history and Black popular culture is
demonstrated by her top billing in the credits for Roots, even though her actual screen time was
minimal. “Cicely Tyson as Binta” flashed across the screen as millions tuned in to watch the
miniseries. Tyson’s legacy and her continued relevance as an African American actress hinged
on her performance of Black womanhood at this critical time in American history. Her name has
been referenced in Black popular culture, on shows such as Good Times, The Bernie Mac Show
(2001-2006), Black-ish, and most recently on A Black Lady Sketch Show (2019-). On HBO’s A
Black Lady Sketch Show, a comedy starring four Black women, Cicely Tyson received a shout
out in a courtroom sketch where all the parties involved were Black women including: the court
stenographer, bailiff, judge, defendant, and both lawyers. In acknowledging the rarity of the
situation, the judge proclaimed, “I have been sitting in this courtroom for twenty years, and I
have never seen melanin this popping! Cicely Tyson would be very proud.”
184
The judge’s
comments are an acknowledgment of Tyson’s embodiment of Black womanhood in her roles,
and her distinction amongst Black actresses. Filmmaker Tyler Perry sought out her talents for
three of his films, and Viola Davis suggested Cicely Tyson for the role of her mother on How to
Get Away with Murder (2014-2020). Seeing “Cicely Tyson” in the credits prompted certain
audience expectations and carried the historical weight of her lengthy career, and she continued
to make appearances in film and television until her nineties as a result of her status as a Black

184
A Black Lady Sketch Show, season 1, episode 6, “Born at Night, Not Last Night,” dir. Dime Davis,
aired Sep. 6, 2019, on HBO.
85
famous dramatic star. Throughout her career, Cicely Tyson achieved a level of prestige stardom
based on her performances and ability to connect with Black audiences.
The cyclical nature of television and its ability to rerun and recirculate images helps to
maintain a level of parallel stardom for African American performers, especially Black women.
Television shows like Good Times, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Living Single (1993-1998) are
culturally significant and attain a kind of cult status within Black popular culture as a result of
television’s ability to keep these shows in syndication and introduce them to new generations. As
televisual stardom is itself a subcultural category of stardom, according to prevailing Hollywood
logic, it seems fitting that television stardom would contribute to helping establish Cicely Tyson,
Esther Rolle, and many more African American actresses as Black famous. Black famous, as a
classification of stardom, is separate from Hollywood institutions of stardom, recognizing that
African Americans have a parallel system for identifying stars premised on audience
identification, social significance, generational influence, and cultural legacy. Actresses who are
Black famous are not required to remain within traditional conventions of mainstream popular
culture, where stardom is fleeting. Unlike Hollywood stardom, Black famous is an enduring
designation resulting from television’s ability to keep certain actresses within the realm of Black
popular culture. To be Black famous is to be forever etched into Black cultural memory.

86
CHAPTER 2
“I’M A WOMAN, AND I’M BLACK”: INTERSECTIONALITY, SELF-REPRESENTATION AND
BLACK WOMEN’S CULTURAL IDENTITY

I did not set out to become a role model. I did set out to become the best possible actress I could be. My
careful choice of roles came as a direct result of the type of negative images that were being projected of
Black people throughout the world, particularly Black women. I knew deep within me that I could not
afford the luxury of just being an actress – I had something to say as a member of the human race, Black
and female.
185

-Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson’s preference for historically grounded and racially specific roles
distinguished her among other Black actresses and reinforced her cultural significance, but her
role selection process was as much a part of her star persona as the roles themselves. For Tyson,
being an actress meant selecting particular characters and using her career as a platform for an
unambiguous depiction of Black womanhood as strong, dignified, respectable, and most
importantly, human. In the epigraph, Cicely Tyson demonstrated her understanding and keen
awareness of what legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw has termed intersectionality. According to
Crenshaw, Black women often “experience double-discrimination—the combined effects of
practices which discriminate on the basis of race, and on the basis of sex.”
186
Crenshaw’s use of
intersectionality describes the “multidimensionality of Black women’s experience” of
domination and marginalization within dominant discourses of feminist theory and other political
agendas that claim to be antiracist in their politics and policies.
187
Intersectionality as an
analytical theory focuses on relationality and interconnectedness, seeking to name how
Blackness and femininity inform Black women’s experience of marginalization from multiple
structures of power, while also encouraging an acknowledgement of their fundamental

185
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, ed. Barbara
Summers, (New York: Stewart, Tabari & Chang), 27.
186
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique
of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal
Forum 1.8 (1989): 149
187
Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” 139.
87
connection to each other as Black women.
188
As such, it is a useful framework for discussing
why African American actresses like Cicely Tyson had a vested interest in participating in her
own representation onscreen. I argue that intersectionality is a theoretical nexus deeply rooted in
Black women’s cultural history that further connects the actresses in this study. Throughout this
chapter, I trace the development of intersectionality within dominant discourses of Black
women’s cultural and political ideology to demonstrate how shifts in intersectional thinking
correlate with generational shifts in how Black actresses foreground African American cultural
politics in their work.
For African American actresses, their political relevance is created by the cultural work
they do, and their efforts at self-representation.
189
My use of intersectionality examines how
Black actresses shared positionality signals a concerted acknowledgement and appreciation of
each other’s interconnectedness, where each actress participates in a collective reimagining of
Black womanhood within the “dominant cultural ideology of American society.”
190
As Tyson’s
statement in the epigraph also illustrates, her experience of being Black and being a woman
motivated her to change the perception of Black women by using her profession and public
visibility as her platform to present an alternative depiction of Black womanhood. African
American actresses’ participation in their own image production should be understood through
an intersectional lens and approach. I argue that despite the generational divide between
actresses, they have an ingrained understanding of their intersectionality, which allows them to
utilize television as a Black representational space that redefines cultural images of African

188
Hill Collins, Patricia and Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality, (Polity Press: Cambridge, 2016), 27-8.
189
Feldstein, Ruth, How It Feels to Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement
(Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013), 7.
190
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Whose Story Is It Anyway?: Feminist and Antiracist Appropriations of Anita
Hill” in Race-ing Justice, En-gendering Power, ed. Toni Morrison, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992),
404.
88
American women. Their efforts at self-representation through role selection, script consulting,
and producing foreground African American cultural discourses and political agendas, thus
intervening in evolving television representations of Black women.
An Intersectional Approach to Political Activism
Intersectionality is not merely a theory of race and gender domination, but in fact a
critical praxis used by African American women to name their experience of social inequality
and establish practical strategies to challenge such discrimination. African American women
employed an intersectional framework well before Kimberlé Crenshaw’s foundational 1989
essay was published. Crenshaw acknowledges these antecedents to her work, “In every
generation and in every intellectual sphere and in every political moment, there have been
African American women who have articulated the need to think and talk about race through a
lens that looks at gender, or think and talk about feminism through a lens that looks at race. So,
this is in continuity with that.”
191
Here Crenshaw alludes to the more than one hundred year
history of African American women’s intersectional thinking. For instance, in 1890, at the
National Women’s Suffrage Association convention in Washington, D.C., Mary Church Terrell
argued, “A White Woman has only one handicap to overcome—a great one, true, her sex; a
colored woman faces two—her sex and her race.”
192
In advocating for women’s suffrage, Mary
Church Terrell, a Black clubwoman who later became the first president of the National
Association of Colored Women (NACW) and early organizer for the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), inserted her voice and drew attention to how

191
Bim Adewunmi, “Kimberle Crenshaw on Intersectionality,” New Statesman America, published April
2, 2014, https://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-
come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-could.
192
Church Terrell, Mary, Quest for Equality: The Life and Writings of Mary Eliza Church Terrell, 1863-
1954, ed. Beverly Washington Jones (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing Inc., 1990), 3.
89
Black women’s road to suffrage faced more obstacles than white women. Fifty years later while
at Howard Law School in the 1940s, Pauli Murray coined the term “Jane Crow” to describe the
prejudice and marginalization she endured as the sole female student.
193
Murray, a lawyer, poet,
and advocate for women’s rights, later applied her concept of Jane Crow, Jim Crow’s “evil
twin,” to her work as a legal strategist with the President’s Commission on the Status of Women
(PCSW), for President John F. Kennedy, which was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt.
194
The
committee was constructed to explore legal issues around women and make suggestions about
“employment policy, education, and property rights.”
195
In addition to her work with the PCSW,
Murray used her concept of Jane Crow as a founding member of the National Organization for
Women and as a legal strategy for the Equality Committee on the Board of Directors of the
American Civil Liberties Union.
196
Crenshaw’s legal theory of intersectionality builds upon Pauli
Murray’s early work and the work of other African American women who understood that for
Black women, discrimination occurs at the intersection of both race and gender.
Black feminist literary scholars and artists have also intervened in emphasizing the
importance of an intersectional paradigm for understanding Black women’s lived experience. In
1970, Toni Cade Bambara edited The Black Woman: An Anthology, which included essays,
poems, and short stories by notable Black women including: actress-singer Abbey Lincoln,
novelist Alice Walker, and poets Audre Lorde and Nikki Giovanni. Several contributors directly
interrogated Black women’s double discrimination, including: Abbey Lincoln’s “To Whom Will

193
In her lifetime, Pauli Murray struggled with her gender identity, and as both Patricia Hill Collins and
Brittney Cooper argue, by contemporary terminology she would mostly likely be considered
transgendered or gender nonconforming.
194
Cooper, Brittney, Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (Urbana: Univ. of
Illinois Press), 96.
195
Azaransky, Sarah, The Dream Is Freedom: Pauli Murray and American Democratic Faith (New York:
Oxford UP, 2011), 60.
196
Azaransky, Sarah, The Dream Is Freedom, 65 and 67.
90
She Cry Rape?;” Frances Beale’s “Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female;” Jean Carey
Bond and Patricia Peery’s “Is the Black Male Castrated?;” and Kay Lindsey’s “The Black
Woman as a Woman.” The Jean Carey Bond and Patricia Peery essay, originally published in
1969 for Liberator magazine, states, “Black women are victimized on two counts: they are
women and they are Black, a clear case of double indemnity.”
197
Double jeopardy and double
indemnity are terms that attempt to name the specificity of Black women’s lived experience of
domination from multiple systems of oppression. Kay Lindsey’s essay “The Black Woman as a
Woman” argues, “As the movement toward liberation of women grows, the Black woman will
find herself…in a serious dilemma. For the Black movement is primarily concerned with the
liberation of Blacks as a class and does not promote women’s liberation as a priority.”
198
She
continues, “The feminist movement, on the other hand, is concerned with the oppression of
women as a class, but is almost totally composed of white females. Thus the Black woman finds
herself on the outside of both political entities, in spite of the fact that she is the object of both
forms of oppression.”
199
Lindsey’s argument correlates with one of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s central
claims that Black women’s “marginalization within dominant discourses of resistance limits the
means available to relate and conceptualize” experiences specific to African American
women.
200
These early examples reveal intersectionality’s ability to connect “personal
experiences and structural analyses of interlocking oppressions without skirting the meaning of
life experiences, multiple identifications, and political communities.”
201
The Black Woman is an

197
Bond, Jean Carey and Patricia Peery, “Is the Black Male Castrated?” in The Black Woman: An
Anthology, ed. Toni Cade Bambara (New York: Washington Square Press, 1970), 146.
198
Lindsey, Kay, “The Black Woman as a Woman,” in The Black Woman: An Anthology, ed. Toni Cade
Bambara (New York: Washington Square Press, 1970), 103.
199
Lindsey, Kay, “The Black Woman as a Woman,” 103.
200
Crenshaw, Kimberlé, “Whose Story Is It Anyway?,” 404.
201
Hill Collins, Patricia and Sirma Bilge, Intersectionality, 76-7.
91
important early iteration of ideas that would come to form the basic tenets of intersectionality, as
an active, ongoing theory and praxis born in anti-racist struggle against gender discrimination.
202

Intersectionality, according to Vivian May, is “a form of resistant knowledge developed to
unsettle conventional mindsets, challenge oppressive power, think through the full architecture
of structural inequalities and asymmetrical life opportunities, and seek a more just world. It has
been forged in the context of struggles for social justice as a means to challenge dominance,
foster critical imaginaries, and craft collective models for change.”
203
For over one hundred
years, African American women have developed a knowledge base of resistance to address how
they experience discrimination, marginalization, and oppression as Black women in America.
African American actresses have explicitly acknowledged the specificity of being Black
women in America working in a predominantly white institution, and in doing so, have
rearticulated the one-dimensional and stereotypical ways Black womanhood is represented on
screen. By embracing an intersectional consciousness to challenge Hollywood’s institutional
power, representational distortions, and erasures, Black actresses created strategies to address
issues of concern specific to being an African American actresses, in terms of representation,
visibility, job opportunities and group solidarity. One significant example can be found in a
special issue of Negro Digest on “The Negro In American Theatre” published in 1966, where
African American actress Ruby Dee wrote an essay entitled, “Some Reflections on the Negro
Actress: Tattered Queens.” Dee argued:
When we talk or write about ourselves and our place in American society so much is
necessarily a lament. But perhaps a look at stark reality may help clarify and make
objective our grievances, indicate alternatives to despair through some program of action.

202
Recent scholarship on intersectionality by scholars such as Brittney Cooper, Ange-Mare Hancock,
Patricia Hill Collins, Vivian May, and Jennifer Nash have advanced intersectionality as a field of study,
an approach, framework, research paradigm, and critical social theory in the making.
203
May, Vivian, Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries, (New York: Routledge,
2015), xi.
92
I fully realize the cultural poverty that is abroad in the land. Leading white actresses are
afflicted by some of the same ills that affect the Negro actress. (Their lowest level of
employment is, however, often commensurate with our highest.) There are many more
parts written for men than women, white and black. But my concern here is with the
Negro actress, who faces double discrimination—that of sex and that of race. What must
we do—we Negro actresses to be saved? We must certainly make a determined effort to
encourage our playwrights—particularly female—to write for all media.
204

I quote Ruby Dee at length to demonstrate her awareness of her difference as a working Black
actress in a predominantly white business, and what that means for her career and the careers of
other Black actresses. Her words are observant, intuitive and insightful. Additionally, Ruby
Dee’s discussion of her double discrimination uses the framework of intersectionality as both an
analytical and practical tool. She placed herself in the role of cultural archivist by urging African
American actresses to find alternatives through action, suggesting they learn their history by
reading books written by and about Black performers “to feel a sense of belonging…as part of a
tradition.”
205
Dee’s intersectional approach to acting is premised on the intersubjectivity of Black
actresses in terms of identity politics and cultural self-determination. She calls on other African
American actresses to intervene in representational politics in an effort to take an active role in
representing Black women on stage and onscreen. In her intellectual activism, Ruby Dee
participates in Black women’s sociopolitical tradition of intersectional analysis in seeking
liberation and empowerment.
Cultural identity and representation are at the crux of Dee’s invitation to African
American actresses. Stuart Hall theorizes cultural identity within representation as a collective,
shared and common historical experience, “which provide us, as ‘one people,’ with stable,
unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning, beneath the shifting divisions and

204
Dee, Ruby, “Some Reflections on the Negro Actress: Tattered Queens,” Negro Digest Apr. 1966, 35.
205
Dee, Ruby, “Some Reflections,” 34.
93
vicissitudes of our actual history.”
206
He is careful not to essentialize cultural identity, pointing
towards the differences as well as similarities that constitute cultural identity. Hall posits that
cultural identity is not fixed as it “belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something
which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from
somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant
transformation.”
207
Hall rejects the notion of identity within representation acting as a mirror
reflecting what already exists, but instead argues that cinema is a form of representation that
allows groups the ability to discover who they are by creating new identities on screen.
208
For
Hall, identity is created within the representation and not outside of it. The knowledge of Black
women’s social and political history is a driving force behind an actress’s need to involve herself
in the process of representing cultural identity. Dee’s call for Black cultural expression is based
on the understanding that restricting and stereotypical cultural images of African American
women have “warranted that African American women reject and reconstruct cultural images
symbolizing African American womanhood. In so doing, the cultural imagery of African
American women is redefined and reconstructed by African American women themselves.”
209

Ruby Dee’s essay asserts the need for Black women to write and produce their own stories, using
the means available to them to cultivate representations of Black womanhood.
Answering Ruby Dee’s call, African American actresses have looked to television to
write and produce their own narratives, often without receiving official credit for the work they
do off-screen. Television, as an arena of Black popular culture, has become an accessible space

206
Hall, Stuart, “Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation” Framework: The Journal of Cinema
and Media 36(1989): 69.
207
Hall, Stuart, “Cultural Identity,” 70.
208
Hall “Cultural Identity,” 80.
209
Jewell, K. Sue, From Mammy to Miss America and Beyond: Cultural Images and the Shaping of US
Social Policy (London: Routledge, 1992), 33.
94
for African American cultural expression, allowing actresses to insert racially specific moments
into their narratives. Historically, images of African Americans were used as a means of white
domination, and African American women especially, in their intellectual, cultural and political
efforts have worked to redefine these racist and stereotypical depictions. As bell hooks argues,
“From slavery on, white supremacists have recognized that control over images is central to the
maintenance of any system of racial domination.”
210
Post-reconstruction, Black women became
invested in changing the dominant culture’s racist perception of African American women as
inferior, immoral and hypersexualized. These constructed images of Black womanhood, defined
by stereotypes such as the asexual dark-skinned mammy, the sexually insatiable jezebel, or the
sassy sapphire are at the crux of Black women’s challenge to and redefining of cultural images.
In their intersectional way of intervening, Black actresses have explored multiple
approaches to insert control over their image and screen representations often using their own
life experiences to introduce visual moments of identification into the television text that
specifically speak to Black women. These visual messages to the Black female audience within a
mainstream narrative are what James C. Scott refers to as hidden transcripts, a practice created
out of domination by subordinated groups resulting in hidden meanings that are not easily
identified by dominant groups.
211
Christine Acham advances the conception of hidden
transcripts, arguing, “The hidden transcript is a way in which black people used the mainstream
venue of television to communicate with a wider black American community. The black
audience garners a different meaning from the television text because of its members’
understanding of the conversations and cultural forms that are created within the black

210
hooks, bell, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 2.
211
Scott, James, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale UP, 1990).
95
community.”
212
My use of hidden transcripts examines the cultural production within the
meaning of the image that Black audiences come to understand. For example, in the final scene
of the season one episode “Let’s Get to Scooping” on How to Get Away with Murder
(HTGAWM), Viola Davis’s character Annalise Keating reveals to the audience an intimate
depiction of a Black woman in a very private moment. As Naughty Boy’s “No One’s Here To
Sleep” plays over the scene, a close-up shows Annalise pulling off her wedding ring, and then
looking at herself in a vanity mirror, following a close-up of her hands. She then removes a
bracelet from her wrist, followed by a drastic cut to a close-up of the back of her neck as both
hands grasp her wig. She slowly pulls off her wig revealing her natural hair tightly pulled back
and braided. Annalise then looks into her mirror again as she rubs her hair to lay it in back in
place. After plucking her false eyelashes one by one, she grabs a make-up removal wipe and
begins to remove her eye shadow and the surrounding make-up. For approximately half a
minute, the audience watches closely as Annalise wipes away all of her make-up, including her
eyebrows. She again looks at herself in the mirror as she puts lotion on her hands, neck and
chest. Eventually her husband walks into the room, and she turns to him wearing a dark blue silk
lace robe, and utters the final words of the episode, “why is your penis on a dead girl’s phone?”
Before the episode premiered, the promos advertised to audiences “Your jaw will hit the floor
with Viola Davis’s LAST 9 WORDS.” As indicated by the episode advertisements, the shock
value of the scene and what audiences are meant to focus on are Viola Davis’s final words;
however, the scene’s resonance for many Black women watching was the intimate performance
of Black femininity. While mainstream audiences focused on her final question, this scene
speaks to Black women on multiple levels. When Annalise removes her wig, she removes the

212
Acham, Christine, Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2004), 7.
96
mask, the façade; what she is left with is her actual, private self that the public is unaware even
exists. As Viola Davis strips away the many layers of Annalise Keating’s public persona, she
uncovers a distinctive image of an African American woman to the mainstream white audience,
but a very emblematic image to many Black women. For Black female audience members, the
scene provided a deep sense of identification and affirmation.
Audiences never saw Claire Huxtable or Olivia Pope even wear a scarf to bed, but when
Annalise Keating removes her wig, it was such an astounding moment for Black women because
it was an aspect of Black culture that was not shown on network television. Fellow actress Taraji
P. Henson describes Viola Davis’s performance in her memoir, Around the Way Girl, as,
I’m here to say…that her work that night was so thoughtful, so truthful, so damn genius, I
rewound the scene over and over again, screaming from my gut each time she finished
stripping away her layers and stared at her authentic, natural, beautiful black self in that
mirror. She wasn’t just looking at her own reflection, she was glowering at us, the
viewer, daring us to think and stretch beyond the beauty ideal as defined by the pop
culture that is shoved down our throats with practically every flicker of light emanating
off the television and film screen.
213

Viola Davis’s nuanced performance of Black women’s rich interiority is what gave the scene
such a strong, penetrating resonance among many Black women, including Taraji P. Henson.
Henson’s comments additionally frame the scene within the politics of representation and beauty
standards, arguing that the scene rearticulates beauty ideals by revealing an unconventional
portrayal of Black femininity. This scene, referred to by New York Times best-selling author and
cultural critic Phoebe Robinson as, “the single greatest moment in black women television
history,” is the result of Viola Davis insistence that she be allowed to remove her wig.
214
She

213
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl: A Memoir, (New York: Atria, 2016), 200.
Kindle Edition.
214
Phoebe Robinson, “The Single Greatest Moment in Black-Women Television History,” The Cut, Vox
Media Network, published October 3, 2016 https://www.thecut.com/2016/10/viola-davis-her-wig-and-a-
great-moment-in-tv-history.html.
97
only accepted the role of Annalise Keating if HTGAWM creator Peter Nowalk would let her take
off her wig. According to Davis, “Before I got the role, I said, ‘Shonda, Pete, Betsy, I’m not
gonna [sic] do this unless I can take my wig off’… One of the reasons I stopped watching TV
was that I didn’t see myself on TV. I’m not just saying as a woman of color or a woman of 49,
but just as a person.”
215
Viola Davis’s need to see herself onscreen is precisely why the scene
resonates so strongly with Black women; it was created out of her need for self-representation on
television.
On the night the episode premiered, Peter Nowalk tweeted “In our very first convo
@violadavis pitched a scene where we see Annalise take off her wig.”
216
Viola Davis’s
negotiation of hair politics alone is something Black women viewers would inherently
understand. Black women’s discourse around hair is very much a cultural engagement with their
gender and racial identity.
217
In her intersectional thinking, Viola Davis was able to visually
represent something culturally specific to Black women that is an everyday occurrence yet never
depicted onscreen. As Ingrid Banks argues in Hair Matters, “Black women share a collective
consciousness about hair,” as hair can “embody one’s identity, beauty, power, and
consciousness.”
218
Discussing the Black female fandom surrounding Scandal, Kristen Warner
explores how fan communities of Black women use discussions of Olivia Pope’s hair to make

215
Diane Gordon, “Viola Davis Wouldn’t Have Played Annalise Keating If Her Wig Didn’t Come Off,”
Vulture, Vox Media Network, published May 30, 2015, https://www.vulture.com/2015/05/viola-davis-
came-up-with-htgawms-wig-scene.html.
216
Nowalk, Pete, Twitter, Oct. 16, 2014, accessed November 29, 2019.
217
Jacobs-Huey, Lanita, From the Kitchen to the Parlor: Language and Becoming in African American
Women's Hair Care (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 4.
218
Banks, Ingrid, Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness, (New York: NYU
Press, 2000), 21 and 38.
98
the character more racially specific and identifiable.
219
Warner demonstrates how the discourses
surrounding Black women’s hair “can invoke communal relations among Black ladies.”
220
Even
for a character that lacked explicit racial specificity, Black female audiences inserted the
importance of hair and hair culture in identifying with Olivia Pope. When Viola Davis removes
her wig, she not only speaks to Black women, but she additionally deconstructs popular
standards of beauty by depicting an alternative image of Black femininity. Taraji P. Henson
continues, “Viola brought intelligence, experience, and even a little pain to the moment,
displaying in no uncertain terms that she will never fit into ‘the standard,’ and that’s okay—not
just for her, but for us all… it’s a message that should be shouted from every rooftop in
Hollywood, so that the decision makers can move beyond the stereotypes and actually see us
black actresses and what we have to offer.”
221
Henson’s extensive discussion of Viola Davis’s
performance in her memoir also illustrates the way Black actresses intentionally archive the
cultural legacies of other Black women. The relevance of Viola Davis’s lived experience and
what she brings to her performance is reflected in the way many Black women responded to the
scene on social media, but also how it exposed and contested institutional standards of beauty.
The HTGAWM scene, for Taraji P. Henson, is a significant moment worthy of being archived
precisely because it advocates for institutional visibility and legibility for Black women in
Hollywood. Black actresses intersectional labor off-screen inserting these hidden transcripts,
borne of their cultural experiences and racial realities, helped to create scenes that reverberate
with Black women on a deeply psychic level.

219
Warner, Kristen, “ABC’s Scandal and Black Women’s Fandom,” in Cupcakes, Pinterest,
and Ladyporn: Feminized Popular Culture in the Early Twenty-First Century, ed. Elana Levine, (Urbana:
Univ. of Illinois Press, 2015), 35.
220
Warner, Kristen, “ABC’s Scandal and Black Women’s Fandom,” 45.
221
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl, 200-201.
99
Hair is an important racial signifier for Black women, and the intentional removal of a
wig created one of the most profound Black communal moments in the history of African
American representation on television. After reading the script and relating the character to her
own experiences, Davis’s idea manifested into a visual representation of Black femininity that
Black female audiences understood in very culturally specific ways. In television, actresses
receive credit and are applauded for performance, but their role in contributing to the character or
narrative is less celebrated. In actively constructing her character, Davis embedded within
Annalise Keating specific connections to Black audiences and Black cultural history, inserting a
Black structure of feeling into the television text. Robin Means Coleman and Andre Cavalcante’s
essay “Two Different Worlds: Television as a Producer’s Medium” adopts Raymond Williams
term “structure of feeling” to argue that successful, quality Black images have the ability to tap
into a Black structure of feeling, which they define as imagery that elicits identification and
engages with the complexity of Black life and subjectivity.
222
Viola Davis’s narrative suggestion
is just one example of how Black actresses have embraced an intersectional framework and
developed strategies for shifting the cultural imagery of African Americans. She is among many
actresses including Cicely Tyson and Ruby Dee, who collectively transformed the image of
Black women in mainstream American culture, using television as a representational space to
explore African American cultural, artistic and aesthetic endeavors.
The Race Woman Generation: A Closer Look at Black Women’s Intellectual Activism
Black women’s conscientiousness around intersectionality is impactful, consequential,
and reflected in the different approaches and strategies used to reframe their image within

222
Means Coleman, Robin and Andre Cavalcante, “Two Different Worlds: Television as a
Producer’s Medium,” in Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences, ed. Beretta
Smith-Shomade (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP), 2012.
100
popular culture. Their intersectional positionality is inherently tied to other African American
cultural discourses and movements; as such, it is very much determined by generation. Diahann
Carroll, Ruby Dee, Esther Rolle, and Cicely Tyson were all born prior to the beginning of the
Civil Rights Movement. Their political perspectives, their understanding of race, representation
and its abilities, are steeped in a civil rights conception of progress, social responsibility, and
morality. These actresses belong to what I am referring to as the race women era, the generations
of African American women with similar ideals and values to the founding principles and
intellectual legacy of Black club and church women in the late 19
th
and early 20
th
century.
African American political and intellectual thought is premised on the work of “Great Race
Men,” with figures such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and
Martin Luther King Jr. The image and “figure of the race man has haunted black political and
cultural thought” for over a century.
223
The race man’s work gets reproduced, critically assessed,
and academically legitimated. The race man paradigm is premised on the idea that the voice of
one prominent and vocal Black leader shall arise to become the voice and representative of the
entire African American population. He is looked upon to answer questions regarding the state of
Black America; his ideas and ideals for how to improve Black life are seriously considered; his
speeches are written about and heard by thousands; he is a defender of the race; he is a founding
member of a specific school of thought, approach, or organization; and perhaps, most
importantly, he is recognized by other African Americans as a leader of the race, as someone to
follow. My intention in using the term race woman is not meant to insert women into a
patriarchal leadership system that failed to acknowledge them in the first place, but instead
explore how the intellectual thought of African American women in the late nineteenth and early

223
Carby, Hazel, Race Men, (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998), 4.
101
twentieth centuries created a cultural-historical legacy deeply embedded in the work of African
American women for generations.
The race woman is defined by a sense of history, identity, and community. Race women
are intersectional thinkers with a profound understanding of the relationship between personal
and political actions. Additionally, the race woman generation perceives Black femininity as
fundamentally respectable. In 1902 writer Pauline Hopkins in The Colored American magazine,
of which she was a founding member, described the race woman as, “From the time that the first
importation of Africans began to add comfort and wealth to the existence of the New World
community, the Negro woman has been constantly proving the intellectual character of her race
in unexpected directions; indeed, her success has been significant. From the foregoing we
conclude that it is the duty of the true race-woman to study and discuss all phases of the race
question.”
224
Hopkins makes the argument that the “true race woman” is an intellectual who both
studies and engages in all facets of African American life. Pauline Hopkins also privileges Black
women as the actual race leaders and defenders of the race. Quoting Pauline Hopkins’ above
declaration, Brittany Cooper in Beyond Respectability contends that once race women moved
into leadership roles outside of church groups in the decades following reconstruction, “they
explicitly fashioned for themselves a public duty to serve their people through diligent and
careful intellectual work and attention to ‘proving the intellectual character’ of the race…Not
only were these women institution builders and activists; they declared themselves public
thinkers on race questions.”
225
These women include: Pauline Hopkins, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary
Church Terrell, Pauli Murray, Fannie Barrier Williams, Ida B. Wells, among a host of others

224
Hopkins, Pauline, “Some Literary Workers,” in Daughter of the Revolution: the major nonfiction
works of Pauline E. Hopkins, ed. Ira Dworkin. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2007), 142.
225
Cooper, Brittney, Beyond Respectability, 11.
102
who remain relatively unknown despite contributing significantly to African American
intellectual activism. These Black women established their own political and intellectual thought
processes, adding to the social and political contributions of African Americans. As Brittany
Cooper maintains race woman has no singular meaning, but “it does name and help make visible
multiple generations of Black women who dedicated their lives to the Black freedom struggle,
not only by theorizing and implementing programs of racial uplift but also by contesting the
gendered politics of racial knowledge production and pushing back against limiting notions of
Blackness and womanhood.”
226
My usage of the term race woman is specifically meant to
underscore the importance of the intellectual work of these Black women, who created an
intersectional framework and intellectual paradigm that endured for many generations. In many
ways, Black actresses of the race woman era have an understanding of the role of representation,
grounded in the theoretical work of early race women, and the intersectional theories they
formed.
Similar to Pauline Hopkins, Anna Julia Cooper makes the argument that African
American women are the true representatives of the Black community and the public image of
Black women will be used by white America to represent all African Americans. In her often
quoted declarations in A Voice From the South, Anna Julia Cooper writes, “Only the Black
Woman can say ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood,
without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race
enters with me.’”
227
Written in 1892, Cooper continues, “‘I am my Sister’s keeper!’ should be
the hearty response of every man and woman of the race, and this conviction should purify and

226
Cooper, Brittney, Beyond Respectability, 139.
227
Cooper, Anna Julia, A Voice from the South (Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc., 2016), 12, Kindle.
103
exalt the narrow, selfish and petty personal aims of life into a noble and sacred purpose.”
228

Cooper argues that only Black women can define Black womanhood, and that Black women are
the pillars and stalwarts who represent all African American people, at least in the minds of
white America. Here, Cooper’s intersectional turn theorizes a method of group solidarity that
centers Black women.
There is continuity in the work of these intellectual thinkers and Black actresses. While
there were limited opportunities available to Black actresses in theatre and onscreen in 1966,
Ruby Dee places mentorship and solidarity before job security, calling on Black actresses to
concern themselves “more with the fate of each other, and of the younger actresses coming
along,” embodying the “lifting as we climb” model adopted by the National Association of
Colored Women (NACW).
229
Mary Church Terrell, as president of NACW, in her 1904
presidential address stated, “It has been suggested, and very appropriately, I think, that this
Association should take as its motto—Lifting as we climb. In no way could we live up to such a
sentiment better than by coming into closer touch with the masses of our women, by whom,
whether we will or not, the world will always judge the womanhood of the race.”
230
The NACW
motto was a direct effort to correct the perceived immorality of working class, less educated
Black women, whom the NACW believed needed reforming so that all African Americans could
be seen by the dominant white population as worthy of assimilation. Mary Church Terrell’s
address continues, “It is useless to talk about elevating the race if we do not come into close
touch with the masses of our women, through whom we may correct many of the evils which
militate so seriously against us, and inaugurate the reforms without which, as a race, we cannot

228
Cooper, Anna Julia, A Voice from the South, 12.
229
Dee, Ruby, “Some Reflections,” 35.
230
Church Terrell, Mary, Quest for Equality, 144.
104
hope to succeed.”
231
Church Terrell reasons that although they may “wish to shun” uneducated
and impoverished Black women, the women of the NACW “cannot escape the consequences of
their acts” and therefore if they were going to be inevitably linked to the masses of Black women
by dominant white culture’s racist perceptions, than they should make every effort to challenge
racial discrimination by reforming and educating the majority of Black women.
232
It is here that
she underscores by implication the way her intersectional identity as Black and female also hints
at an inescapable interconnectedness among Black women. The NACW sought to challenge
racial discrimination, and defend Black women against representations of Black inferiority and
notions of Black women as hypersexual on a national level.
233
For Pauline Hopkins, Anna Julia
Cooper, Mary Church and the NACW “lifting as we climb,” meant building communal
relationships based on sisterhood among African American women through respectability
politics.
As an organization created and controlled exclusively by Black women, the NACW saw
respectability as a method to advance African Americans politically. Respectability is a defining
intellectual principle of the race woman. In discussing the role of Black Baptist women between
1880 and 1920, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham in her book Righteous Discontent describes the
uses of respectability politics; it “emphasized reform of individual behavior and attitudes both as
a goal in itself and as a strategy for reform of the entire structural system of American race
relations.”
234
Respectability politics were a form of self-regulation, a set of moral codes and
behaviors, representing the ideal, upstanding African American. The politics of respectability

231
Church Terrell, Mary, Quest for Equality, 144.
232
Church Terrell, 144.
233
Davis, Angela, The Angela Y Davis Reader, ed. Joy James (Oxford: Blackwell,1998), 224.
234
Higginbotham, Evelyn, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist
Church, 1880-1920, (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1993), 187.
105
exemplified a standard behavioral model, based on a desire for assimilation and white
acceptance. Higginbotham demonstrates how these Black churchwomen, used the politics of
respectability as “a powerful weapon of resistance to race and gender subordination.”
235

Additionally, she places the politics of respectability along a spectrum of other resistance
techniques such as boycotts and petitions. This intersectional line of thinking was taken most
seriously by African American clubwomen and churchwomen as an assimilationist strategy
meant to achieve social mobility, advancement through perceived moral and social values, as
well “as navigate a hostile public sphere and to minimize the threat of sexual assault and other
forms of bodily harm routinely inflicted upon Black women.”
236
Together African American
club and churchwomen adhered to some form of respectability politics in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century. For African American actresses specifically, respectability politics are
an attempt to counter the stereotypical and racist imagery that continuously circulate through
popular culture. Respectability politics is a negotiation between one’s screen representation and
off-screen politics, as well as being a practical method of acknowledgement, visibility and
recognition. Black women strategically used respectability to shift public perception and opinion
of their experience, and ability to be fully participating and accepted members of American
society.
In addition to respectability politics, uplift ideology is a central component in the thinking
of race women. Respectability was created and theorized specifically by Black women; however,
uplift is credited to Booker T. Washington and his industrial education approach to racial
progress. In the book Uplifting the Race, Kevin Gaines defines the many different connotations
of uplift ideology at the turn of the twentieth century. Gaines argues that, “uplift ideology

235
Higginbotham, Evelyn, Righteous Discontent, 227.
236
Cooper, Brittney, Beyond Respectability, 3.
106
describes African Americans’ struggles against culturally dominant views of national identity
and social order positing the United States as ‘a white man’s country.’”
237
Uplift ideals were
perceived to be a form of cultural politics that hinged on both class differentiation and racial
progress. It is important to Gaines that uplift ideology is understood as shifting in meaning
within different historical and political contexts. One such connotation of uplift is represented in
the “struggle for a positive black identity in a deeply racist society, turning the pejorative
designation of race into a source of dignity and self-affirmation through an ideology of class
differentiation, self-help, and interdependence.”
238
I am using the phrase racial uplift in the
context of Black actresses having a perceived duty or obligation to portray “positive” or
progressive images of African Americans. By positive imagery, I particularly mean images
premised on a perceived moral or social value, but also images that are often culturally and
racially specific. Respectability politics and uplift ideology is a necessary lens through which to
view the careers of the race woman era of African American actresses. In tracing Black women’s
engagement with respectability and uplift as forms of political and cultural reconstruction, I
examine the cultural history of the work of early race women and how these women influenced
future generations of actresses that attempted to challenge the existence of stereotypical images
of Black womanhood using a range of tactics and strategies.
Actresses who fall within this cohort of women tend to have morality-based careers, with
an understanding of race and representation that encompasses a perceived social responsibility
premised on respectability politics and racial uplift. These actresses are very intentional in their
“positive” depictions of Black women. Respectability politics and racial uplift are embedded in

237
Gaines, Kevin, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 14.
238
Gaines, Kevin, Uplifting the Race, 3.
107
the careers of an older generation of African American actresses such as Ruby Dee, Diahann
Carroll, Esther Rolle and Cicely Tyson.
239
These actresses additionally represent the ideology of
the race woman, and their work onscreen cannot be separated from the ideals and principles that
defined the thinking of African American women’s cultural and intellectual undertakings for
decades. In many ways, these actresses are drawn to characters that are racially specific, and
when that specificity is lacking, they use an intersectional framework to insert ideas, moments,
and even characters that they believe contribute to the image of African Americans as
respectable, dignified, and more importantly, human. For example, Cicely Tyson’s entire career
was tailored to fit within a specific cultural and political agenda. Her role selection process was
where she affirmed both her adherence to respectability and uplift, as well as an intersectional
approach to her craft. One means of doing this was by portraying historical and prominent
African American women on screen. Cicely Tyson’s way of opposing the stereotypical roles
offered to her, and other African American actresses, was by limiting her participation in film
and television to roles she deemed culturally significant. When she asserted that she could not
“afford the luxury of just being called an actress,” she meant she did not have the privilege of
being able to accept roles that simply benefited her financially.
240
Her way of resisting and
protesting stereotypical screen representations of Black women was by being definitive about her
roles. Tyson’s attempts to uplift Black women through respectability politics is a model that
defined her career. This staunch positioning of her role as an actress cost her financially, as she
had gone years without working in film because she felt there were no worthwhile dramatic and

239
The Maya Angelou inspired television movie I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1979), which
features Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee, and Esther Rolle is an example of how these women are drawn to
similar culturally redeeming work.
240
Norment, Lynn, “Ebony Interview: Cicely Tyson,” Ebony, February 1981, 124.
108
respectable roles available to her.
241
Her strict adherence to respectability and uplift in some
ways limited Tyson’s opportunities for mainstream stardom, but she prioritized uplift over
Hollywood stardom. Being an actress for Cicely Tyson meant selecting particular roles and using
her body as a platform for serious depictions of Black womanhood that underscore Black popular
expression, cultural identity and Black women as human beings.
When selecting her characters, Cicely Tyson’s body would elicit a corporeal response.
She relied on a physical bodily instinct to choose her roles claiming, “When I read a script, either
my skin tingles or my stomach churns. When my stomach churns, I know it’s not right for
me.”
242
Sounder was a role that made her skin tingle.
243
A stomach-churning role for Cicely
Tyson is one that does not uplift African Americans or women in some way. Reading a script
was a sensory experience and when she repeatedly read scripts, “certain things begin to happen
to me. I begin to feel, to taste, to smell certain things. I begin to absorb. I feel that it just gets into
the pores. Acting for me is such an organic process. It’s really getting into the cells and fibre
[sic] and being of the character.”
244
I argue that the identification audiences experience when
watching Cicely Tyson can be partially attributed to the corporal response she embodied when
selecting roles. Tyson broke her characters down to a molecular level to experience them fully,
as a result, audiences enthusiastically responded to her performances. When she learned she got
the part in Jane Pittman, she recalled being, “paralyzed for four days. My mind and body just
stopped. I was terrified. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I asked myself: How are
you going to play a woman 110 years old?”
245
Acting was both a mind and body experience for

241
Norment, Lynn, “Ebony Interview: Cicely Tyson,” 124.
242
Davidson, Muriel, “What Makes Miss Tyson Run…Even at 3 A.M.?,” TV Guide, January 1974, 15.
243
“The Inside of Actress Cicely Tyson,” Los Angeles Sentinel, March 1, 1973, B3A.
244
Robinson, Louie, “Cicely Tyson: A Very Unlikely Movie Star,” Ebony, May 1974, 40.
245
Robinson, Louie, “Cicely Tyson: A Very Unlikely Movie Star,” 40.
109
Cicely Tyson, and she delve deeply into her characters using her experience as a Black woman to
inform her roles. In doing so, choosing characters was both an instinctual and moral decision,
meant to advance the mainstream image of Black women as respectable. Tyson used
respectability politics on screen to uplift Black women off-screen, directly responding to the
historical memory imprinted by the legacies of slavery. Tyson’s artistic process is based on the
need to use her career as her stage to correct the “negative images” and brutalities Black
Americans experienced on a daily basis.
By being selective about her roles, especially given the limited roles available to dramatic
African American actresses, Cicely Tyson demonstrated how significant shifting the cultural
imagery of Black women was to her career. When recounting her relative absence from film
during the Blaxploitation era of the early 1970s, Tyson responded, “I couldn’t do the films I was
offered. I have pride in myself as a black woman. I couldn’t portray empty-headed, turned-on,
spaced-out, swinging chicks.”
246
Cicely Tyson’s absence from film was a political choice, one
grounded in deep-rooted notions of respectability and uplift ideology. She described the scripts
sent to her at this time as “idiotic, insulting, old-fashioned, corny and stupid.”
247
Tyson went
years without significant film or television roles because she refused to play certain characters
she believed to have no redeeming value or worth. During this period, the bulk of Cicely Tyson’s
roles consisted of guest appearances on television shows. According to Tyson, “I didn’t work at
all during that period of Blaxploitation films except the occasional guest spot. I said ‘No’ for six
years. And then Sounder came.”
248
Sounder can be seen as Tyson’s personal saving grace, as her
film career was relatively non-existent between East Side/West Side and Sounder. Cicely Tyson

246
“The Inside of Actress Cicely Tyson,” B3A.
247
Robinson, Louie, “Cicely Tyson: A Very Unlikely Movie Star,” 40.
248
Norment, Lynn, “Ebony Interview,” 124.
110
recognized her value as a Black actress and refused to contribute to a project she felt demeaned
herself or other African Americans. For Tyson, having pride in herself as a Black woman meant
utilizing respectability as a method of political resistance, and selecting roles based on moral as
opposed to monetary reasons. Her relationship to uplift ideology and respectability politics is
premised on a perceived positive/negative binary, and an understanding of representation as
having the ability to distort and reconstruct ideological perceptions of African Americans.
In this way, Cicely Tyson constructed a narrative about the ability of images to advance
respectability politics, as well as counter and reframe the image of Black women. I argue that in
her preference for drama, Tyson demonstrated a kind of “performed agency,” where she
exercised control over her image by using respectability politics, her reputation and stardom in
selecting particular characters.
249
Performed agency, or star agency, foregrounds the
representation of the performer as author of their own star persona and ability to select roles.
250

Cicely Tyson acknowledged her star agency in constructing her image, “I suppose when they say
typecast, they mean that the women—the roles—I play are all very positive. Sometimes I do feel
that way. I think that people pretty much know what I’m about; everyone in the industry
certainly knows…I feel there’s a great need, especially for the youth, for positive images.”
251

Cicely Tyson’s career decisions were premised on an imagined audience; her roles were intended
to speak directly to African Americans, Black youth, and Black women. As Racquel Gates
argues “the categories positive and negative are modes that individuals perform…which resonate
with larger discourses of identity, race, politics, and norms of behavior in our society. These

249
Williams, Rebecca, “From Beyond Control to In Control: Investigating Drew Barrymore’s Feminist
Agency/Authorship,” in Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, ed. Sean Redmond and Su Holmes (Los
Angeles: Sage, 2007), 120.
250
Williams, Rebecca, “From Beyond Control to In Control,” 120.
251
Norment, Lynn, “Ebony Interview,” 124.
111
modes possess markers that are culturally legible and carry with them connotations about their
bearers.”
252
Tyson was very deliberate in her performance of positivity through respectability
and uplift, in terms of role selection and in her role as an actress who represents Black
womanhood onscreen. She used her career to insert herself into cultural politics with the
expressed intent of shifting perceptions of African Americans, especially Black women. Even at
the script level, Cicely Tyson’s intersectional understanding of herself as a Black woman
contributes to how she approached acting as a mode of representation, resulting in a career
defined by culturally specific roles.
Unapologetic Blackness: Challenging Institutional Power
Similar to Cicely Tyson, Esther Rolle’s career as an actress was defined by a sense of
duty, unapologetic Blackness, and careful selection of roles. Esther Rolle’s adherence to
respectability and uplift almost lost her the role of her lifetime as Florida Evans. The character
was originally a maid on Maude (1972-1978), but Rolle initially passed stating, “No! I don’t
want to be no Hollywood maid…They don’t want a black woman. They want something they
cooked up in their heads.”
253
Given the careers of African American actresses such as Hattie
McDaniel, Louise Beavers, and Butterfly McQueen, Esther Rolle understood that Hollywood
tended to pigeonhole Black actresses who looked like her into only portraying stereotypical roles
as maids and mammies. Acknowledging the limiting opportunities available to actresses before
her, Esther Rolle in many ways dedicated her career to these women by attempting to “rewrite,
challenge, and uplift the role of the stereotypical Hollywood maid in what she conceived of as a
more positive image.”
254
According to Rolle,

252
Gates, Racquel, Double Negative: The Black Image and Popular Culture (Durham: Duke UP, 2018),
12.
253
Riley, John, “Esther Rolle the Fishin’ Pole,” TV Guide, June 1974, 17.
254
Acham, Christine, Revolution Televised, 128.
112
I’ve always been very unhappy about the role of domestics. The black woman in America
doesn’t need to go to drama school to be a maid. The old stereotypes are not villains—it’s
the ones who hired them. We have been stereotyped and unrecognized for too long.
Anyone who digs in the earth or scrubs somebody’s floor—I don’t blame them for taking
that job, I ache that they had to do it.
255

Esther Rolle demanded that Hollywood, in particular Norman Lear, respect her acting ability and
the abilities of other African American actresses. Many African American actresses including
Cicely Tyson, Esther Rolle and Diahann Carroll developed their acting talents in theatre, both on
and off-Broadway, and were therefore, quite adept in dramatic arts. In refusing to play the typical
maid, Rolle underscores how Black women’s talents have been historically underutilized by
Hollywood in film and television. In her intersectional thinking, Esther Rolle placed herself
within the history of Black women onscreen, while simultaneously asserting a need for a more
well-rounded depiction of Black women’s actual experience of working in white homes as maids
and housekeepers. The work of actresses such as Nell Carter, Octavia Spencer and even Viola
Davis can attest to the persistent use of Black actresses’ talent to depict the “Hollywood maid.”
After being convinced by Norman Lear that Florida Evans would not be the typical grinning,
subservient maid, but in fact an opinionated and independent Black woman who works as a
maid, Esther Rolle agreed to appear on Maude. Despite Norman Lear’s assurances, Rolle’s
character on Maude was quite similar to the previous depictions of maids, with the major
exception being her occasional direct challenges to her employer Maude Findlay. However, the
popularity of the character inspired Norman Lear to develop a series around Esther Rolle as
Florida Evans.
During initial discussions for Good Times, Esther Rolle asked executive producer
Norman Lear “Am I going to have some say about this (show)? Remember, I’ve been black

255
Riley, John, “Esther Rolle the Fishin’ Pole,” 18.
113
longest.”
256
Despite the dearth of Black actresses in 1974 with their own television sitcom,
Esther Rolle made it clear to Norman Lear that she wanted to actively participate in creating the
show’s depiction of African Americans. She reminds Lear of her innate Blackness as a means of
affirming her credentials, letting him know that she is more than qualified to make suggestions
about how African Americans should be represented on television. When she read the script for
the pilot episode, she immediately noticed the absence of a father figure. She notes, “I looked at
the first script, I said well where is these children’s father, where is my husband? ‘There is none.
Oh no it wasn’t written for that; it was written for you and your three children.’ I said well then
you find the actress who can do it. I’m sure there’s someone who can do it. I can’t! Because I
insisted, I got the husband.”
257
Rolle’s initial “no” affirmed her dedication to presenting uplifting
images of African Americans. She reasoned that the image of a single mother with three children
was not a respectable one, or one she was willing to participate in. The willingness to say no to a
role on principle is a strategy used by both Cicely Tyson and Esther Rolle. Both actresses
realized the power in saying no to certain roles and used that power as a strategy for challenging
images of African Americans they deemed misleading, stereotypical or morally degrading. By
consistently saying no on the basis of racial pride, Tyson and Rolle assert their unapologetic
Blackness. Tyson emphasized her unapologetic Blackness, when she stated, “This constant
reminder by society that I am ‘different’ because of the color of my skin, once I step outside of
my door, is not my problem—it’s theirs. I have never made it my problem and never will. I will
die for my right to be human—just human.”
258
Esther Rolle expresses a similar sentiment,

256
Robinson, Louie, “Bad Times on the ‘Good Times’ Set,” Ebony, September 1975, 40.
257
Color Adjustment, directed by Marlon Riggs (1992; San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 2004),
DVD.
258
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World, 27.
114
“Being Black is not my problem. That’s society’s problem. I never set myself apart. They did.”
259

Intersectionality is a paradigm for political intervention, and a way for Black actresses to
challenge institutional power, both in Hollywood and American society. Their unapologetic
Blackness presents itself in their resolve in selecting particular roles, and in the case of Esther
Rolle, her determination to have a voice and contribute to the narrative of her shows.
Good Times became the first series to present an image of the Black nuclear family
specifically because Esther Rolle demanded it. Rolle refused to further the stereotype of the
matriarchal family, problematized in the Moynihan Report. The pilot episode of Good Times
jokingly alludes to this when Florida asks her friend, “Willona, don’t all the magazines say, our
women are supposed to be heads of the house?” Florida’s next line, “Well, somebody ought to
tell James,” is a narrative challenge to the Moynihan Report, as well as previous images on
television that featured Black women as matriarchs such as Diahann Carroll’s Julia.
260
The
representation of a stable and intact Black family was important enough to Esther Rolle that she
was willing to walk away from the entire project. This is the same actress who cried in her
dressing room for fifteen minutes when she first heard that she would be given her own series.
261

In order to make the role of Florida Evans right for her, Esther Rolle placed herself in the
position of informal script consultant, making narrative suggestions to Norman Lear and the
writers. By attempting to uplift African Americans, she changed the entire direction of Good
Times by insisting the writers add a father to the script. Getting a male lead added to the series is

259
Riley, John, “Esther Rolle the Fishin’ Pole,” 18.
260
Written by sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan and published in 1965, The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action, commonly referred to as the Moynihan Report, argued that single- parented homes
headed by Black women were responsible for the persistent poverty and deterioration of the Black
community. For a show about living on the brinks of poverty, this reference is meant to be a pointed
dismissal of the claims made in the Moynihan Report.
261
Riley, John, “Esther Rolle the Fishin’ Pole,” 18.
115
one of her most significant contributions to the series, but it was certainly not her only
suggestion. She continuously consulted with the writers about script choices, and according to
costar Ja’net DuBois, Rolle fought “every week for the characters.”
262
For example, she went to
Norman Lear and requested more substance for Florida’s daughter Thelma claiming, “My
daughter is not to be just a sponge to soak up men’s problems. We have young black writers. I
asked for young black women writers.”
263
In requesting Black female writers, Rolle was
conscious of the absence of Black women’s voice in representing Black women onscreen. As
Ja’net DuBois declares, “How can you tell a black woman how to portray a black woman when
she’s been one all her life?”
264
Within an ideology of racial uplift, Esther Rolle demonstrated a
clear vision for what she thought the role of television was in the representation of African
Americans and the expression of African American culture. In her unapologetic Blackness,
Esther Rolle’s behind-the-scenes interventions were meant to uplift Black women, inserting their
voices into her narrative in an effort to achieve cultural self-determination.
Race woman ideology does not always present itself as being selective about roles; like
Cicely Tyson, Esther Rolle was in fact particular about choosing characters that were right for
her, and in doing so, altered the image of the Black family on television as an un-credited script
consultant. Throughout her career, Esther Rolle wanted to change the image of the Black woman
as a domestic, yet when Julia premiered it “felt like a step above the grinning domestic who had
to be very stout, very dark, preferably with large eyes and a wide grin. And I guess we were tired
of being so inundated with that imagery that we accepted Julia as a breath of fresh air.”
265
Julia

262
Robinson, Louie, “Bad Times on the ‘Good Times’ Set,” 38.
263
Riley, John, “Esther Rolle the Fishin’ Pole,” 18.
264
Robinson, Louie, “Bad Times on the ‘Good Times’ Set,” 40.
265
Color Adjustment, directed by Marlon Riggs (1992; San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 2004),
DVD.
116
for Esther Rolle was a deviation from the images of Black women as maids that she was so used
to seeing; the show, for Rolle, represented an incremental step in pursuit of exponential gains for
Black actresses as well as African American representation. Unlike Cicely Tyson or Esther
Rolle, Diahann Carroll’s role selection process did not rely on morality and respectability. She
reasoned, “I worked hard to get where I am. I took the best jobs I could get. I’m doing it for
money and power, because money is power in this country, and power means freedom. I want
the freedom to do what I want to do, and you can’t do that in this business or in this country
without money or power.”
266
Carroll defines her role selection process in terms of artistic
freedom, and not a sense of duty. It is important to note that acting for Diahann Carroll initially
was secondary to her singing career. Contrary to Tyson or Rolle, Carroll’s principal profession
was as a singer performing in nightclubs, before transitioning into acting on Broadway and later
in film and television. Collectively these women represent the founding principles of early
nineteenth century race women, but their connection does not necessitate a like-minded view of
acting.
As cultural archivists, these actresses acknowledge each other’s work, challenge
Hollywood’s institutional power, and collectively contribute to creating Black representational
spaces where none had previously existed. In her autobiography, Diahann Carroll writes, “Cicely
Tyson has moved in a straight line her entire career—just say her name, and you think of black
ladies who are purpose-oriented. It’s clear to the public; it’s clear to the creators and producers
who she is. But Jack-of-All-Trades, here—I confused everyone, including myself.”
267
Carroll’s
singing persona as a chanteuse was quite different than her television image as Julia Baker.
While both were known for being very glamorous, the audiences were conflicting. Julia catered

266
Carolyn See, “I’m a black woman with a white image,” TV Guide, Mar. 14, 1970, 27.
267
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone, Diahann! (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986),162.
117
to families at home, while Diahann Carroll, the singer, performed in nightclubs, casinos and
hotels for an exclusively adult audience. Although Diahann Carroll differentiates herself from
Tyson in terms of persona and image, what she also underlines is an issue of colorism, where
having a lighter skin complexion privileged her career in terms of roles available to her. Whereas
the above quote is what became published in Diahann Carroll’s autobiography, what she
additionally stated to her biographer was, “when she talks about herself, she talks almost as
though she really had a choice, but she did not have a choice. Cicely looks like what she plays,
and it has been a straight line [her] entire career and the lack of diversification has made her a
certain kind of symbol that works in her favor.”
268
She acknowledged Cicely Tyson’s status as a
symbol representing Black womanhood, while simultaneously condemning the entertainment
industry for participating in systemic colorism. This is Carroll’s way of saying despite Cicely
Tyson’s best efforts, the industry chose her roles because “she doesn’t require a great deal of
definition.”
269
In other words, what you see is what you get. Being in the industry a bit longer
than Tyson, Carroll’s perspective was a bit more skeptical of the entertainment industry. Though
not as strict about role selection as Tyson or Rolle, Diahann Carroll still worked behind the
scenes to alter the cultural images of African Americans being presented in her series Julia. Julia
was created with an inherent respectability already attached to the character based on Julia’s
middle-class environment, and Diahann Carroll understood that the show gave her direct access
to the immense power television wields in representing African Americans. She used her artistic
freedom to shift Julia’s narrative to reflect a larger African American cultural perspective. In
doing so, she did push to uplift African Americans in her work onscreen.

268
Carroll, Diahann, box 89_011b_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260),
UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los
Angeles.
269
Carroll, Diahann, box 89_011b_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
118
Where the race woman wanted to uplift the masses of African American women using
respectability, for African American actresses this approach was often theorized as a concern for
Black children. Both Julia and Good Times were highly rated shows watched by a racially
diverse television audience, but Diahann Carroll and Esther Rolle were concerned with the
response of the Black audience, especially children. Esther Rolle stated, “First of all, I have to
like me, and I couldn’t like me if I depicted crap that made a black child hang its head. I feel an
obligation to do something that will make him stick his little chest out and say, ‘Did you see
that?’ My goal is to give Black women dignity.”
270
This perceived obligation for representing
favorable images of African Americans is premised on respectability politics and the belief that
representations have the ability to further the goals of social equality. Rolle privileges both Black
children and Black women in her work on Good Times and when she felt “the show had become
a clown show” becoming “sillier and sillier and worse and worse,” she left the series.
271
Contrary
to Julia, Good Times was a very different and intentional representation of class. Rolle’s values
as an actress would not allow her to take part in a show that became more about the humor than
the serious depiction of working-class African Americans.
Like Esther Rolle, Diahann Carroll placed herself in the role of script consultant. Every
weekend she would provide endless notes on the script to Julia creator Hal Kanter. For Carroll,
“there was a great deal of work that I had to do on the script, always! I worked very hard on the
scripts of going through, reading and calling Hal before the reading.”
272
She would pull apart the
script from multiple point of views, including actor, acting teacher, and director.
273
Even though

270
Lucas, Bob, “A ‘Salt Pork and Collard Greens’ TV Show,” Ebony, June 1974, 53.
271
Lewis, Shawn, “Esther Rolle: Down from her television pinnacle but far from out,” Ebony, May 1978,
92.
272
Carroll, Diahann, box 89_007_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
273
Carroll, box 89_007_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
119
she read every script, she felt she had no real control or power over the character or the narrative.
She was allowed suggestions appropriate for her character, but Hal Kanter had final say. Diahann
Carroll stated, “I did believe that it was our responsibility to set a good example for black
children primarily, and eventually it became clear to me that was something that I had to suggest
and fight for, it wasn’t really something that Hal understood completely but we talked about it
back and forth.”
274
One memorable exchange between Carroll and Hal Kanter involved a
reference to John Wayne in the script. Julia’s son Corey was playing cowboys with his friend
and yelling, “I’m John Wayne! Bang, bang. I’m John Wayne!”
275
Carroll and Kanter went back
and forth as he did not understand why John Wayne would not be a role model for Black
children. Diahann Carroll argued, “The community seems to feel that I write, produce and star in
this thing, so I am taking a stronger view and I can’t be a part of this script.”
276
Kanter relented
and changed the lines in the script. Given that most of the criticism for Julia was aimed at her
and not Hal Kanter, Carroll wanted to privilege Black audiences in any way she could. She knew
Julia lived in a world far removed from the realities of many Black Americans at the time, yet
she remained instrumental in getting Hal Kanter to hire a psychologist to read every script and
review it for potentially harmful occurrences to Black children.
277
Additionally, she suggested
her childhood friend and actress Diana Sands be added as a character in the third season to give
the series a new perspective.
Despite popular criticisms surrounding Diahann Carroll and her characters, she was in
fact unapologetically Black. In a very telling Essence magazine article, Carroll retorted:
There is no confusion in my mind that I am Black. And if confusion exists—and it
obviously does—in the minds of some Blacks, then I ask them: What makes one Black

274
Carroll, Diahann, box 89_007_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
275
Carroll, box 89_007_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
276
Carroll, box 89_012b_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
277
Unfortunately, he turned out to be a check collector, who never even read a single Julia script.
120
more Black than the next? Even if I were the kind of Black who turned her back on
present-day pressures, that still wouldn’t make me any less Black. Just uninvolved. And
that is one’s choice. Whether I am or am not involved is no one’s business. I refuse to
discuss what I do or do not do for Blacks. I will not appease anyone to prove that I am
Black.
278

In her response to constantly being asked to defend her Blackness, Diahann Carroll rejected the
notion that being Black meant that she had to embody a certain kind of racial authenticity on and
off-screen. For Carroll, artistic freedom meant that she could explore multiple facets of her Black
femininity in film and television, since “You never, but never, walk away from being Black. It
stays with you all the way to Beverly Hills.”
279
In this sarcastic counter to criticism by Black
audiences, Diahann Carroll affirms her unapologetic Blackness. Using strategies such as role
selection and script consulting to address their intersectional identities, these actresses illustrate a
continuity and interconnectedness in the work of African American actresses who adhere to race
women principles. Respectability and uplift are ways in which Black actresses used their agency
to alter mainstream images of African Americans, especially Black women. The race woman
ideology allowed them to act as intersectional activists, surveying, suggesting and changing any
scripts or images they deemed culturally or racially inappropriate.
Generational Influence: The Legacies the Race Woman Era
Born towards the end of the Civil Rights Movement in 1965, Viola Davis recalls, “When
I was younger, it was people like Cicely Tyson and Diahann Carroll and Madge Sinclair who
made me believe I could do it. And then somewhere along the line, they disappeared.”
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Viola
Davis is specifically referring to actresses she grew up watching, women who inspired her to
want to become an actress, and whose cultural legacies merit naming and conserving. When

278
Ebert, Alan, “Diahann Carroll,” Essence, July 1974, 73.
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Ebert, Alan, “Diahann Carroll,” 75.
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The View, season 18 episode 9, “Viola Davis,” directed by Ashley Gorman, aired September 25, 2014,
on ABC.
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Cicely Tyson and Diahann Carroll “disappeared,” so too did an era of actresses committed to
respectability and uplift. I argue that Viola Davis as an actress represents the last remaining
remnants of the race woman ideology, precisely because she can remember seeing actresses such
as Diahann Carroll, Madge Sinclair and Cicely Tyson on television as a child. Davis’s
connection to Tyson and Carroll position her as this dividing line between the race women era of
actresses and the post-civil rights, hip hop generation of actresses such as Taraji P. Henson,
Kerry Washington, and Gabrielle Union.
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Viola Davis’s career points towards a decline in race
woman thinking, but not a decline in an intersectional approach to acting and representation.
Viola Davis’s success as Annalise Keating on HTGAWM represents the continuation of a legacy
that began with actresses such as Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll and Esther Rolle. While most of
the race woman era of actresses may have passed on, the visual memory of their cultural work
and efforts at self-representation have continued in the work of actresses such as Viola Davis and
Kerry Washington, who continue to emphasize an intersectional consciousness in their artistic
creations onscreen.
As an actress in her mid-fifties, Viola Davis is unapologetically true to her own self-
worth and personal standards of beauty, which she brings to her cultural productions, especially
How to Get Away with Murder. Viola Davis became an official producer on the series in season
three, but I argue she had been producing the show since she agreed to the role. Prior to her
producer credit, Viola Davis consulted on the script and casting decisions. In actively
contributing to her character Annalise Keating, Davis inserted moments of cultural identification
and ideas based on her lived experience as a Black woman. It is a well-published fact, that some

281
Bakari Kitwana, former editor of The Source, a magazine on hip hop culture, first coined the term in
the mid-1990s to discuss Black youth culture. He established the birth years of the hip hop generation as
those born between 1965-1984. Kitwana, Bakari. The Hip Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis
in African-American Culture. New York: BasicCivitas Books, 2002. Ebook.
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of HTGAWM’s most memorable moments for Black women came from Viola Davis, including
the previously mentioned wig scene and requesting Cicely Tyson be hired to play her mother
Ophelia. These decisions intensified the complexity of African American culture within the
narrative context of the show. The introduction of Cicely Tyson’s character Ophelia onto
HTGAWM, and the significance of that decision, is best demonstrated in the season one episode,
“Mama’s Here Now.” Even the title of the episode and the use of the word “mama” elicit links to
Black southern life and vernacular.
Audiences first get a glimpse of Cicely Tyson’s Ophelia from behind, wearing a green
pinstripe coat and purple beanie, her slightly hunched small frame enters Annalise’s home,
“Anna? Anna, you there?!” Two of Annalise’s employee’s Frank and Bonnie greet Ophelia at
the door,
Frank: Can I help you?
Ophelia: Do you always leave the door open for folks to walk in off the streets?
Frank: Excuse me?
Ophelia: Huh? With all the murderers and criminals y’all got around here, it seems to me
you could be a little more careful. All you need is another dead body stinking up the
place—
Bonnie: I’m sorry ma’am, but we’re not taking on any new clients at present so—
Ophelia: Clients? Don’t you know a V.I.P. when you see one?
Bonnie: V.I.P.?
Ophelia: Your boss came out of my V and her Daddy’s P. So show a little respect for her
mama! My daughter, where is she?

Tyson’s entrance is seamless, as she is able to keep up with the quick pacing of the dialog, while
still adding a touch of humor to her lines. The way she delivers her dialogue with a slight
Southern accent provides audiences with a glimpse into Annalise’s upbringing. The subsequent
scenes between Viola Davis and Cicely Tyson, as the two go back and forth matching wits and
dramatic intensity are noteworthy. Each exchange between Annalise and Ophelia hints at this
unspoken history between the two characters. It starts when Annalise questions her mother about
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protecting her in a subtle reference to Annalise’s childhood sexual abuse by a family member.
The tension between the two characters builds throughout the episode, until Annalise finally asks
her mother “did you know?” To which Ophelia responds, “Uncle Clyde is dead!” Dissatisfied
with her mother’s answer, Annalise throws a glass at the sink in anger. Ophelia turns and follows
Annalise into another room, where the two have the following conversation:
Ophelia: Anna Mae!
Annalise: My sorry-ass husband might have been a cheater and a lowlife, but he saw
me—why I am this way.
Ophelia: That man understood nothing.
Annalise: Sam knew exactly what happened to me the minute I stepped into his office—
Everything! He said this thing that happened to me, what you ignore, is WHY I AM THE
WAY I AM.
Ophelia: (she stares at her daughter a moment before speaking) Your Aunt Lynn was got
out by her first-grade schoolteacher. Reverend Daniels got me after choir practice. The
first man I worked for, some of the men I dated. I told you, men take things. They’ve
been taking things from women since the beginning of time. Ain’t no reason to talk about
it and get all messy everywhere. Certainly no reason to go to a headshrinker for help and
end up marrying him. You ain’t learned nothing.
Annalise: No. I learned Anna Mae belonged in a hand-me-down box. Go home, mama. I
don’t need you.

Annalise walks away as Ophelia starts to follow but pauses with a sorrowing look on her face,
and watches as her daughter walks up the stairs. The scene’s strategic use of coded language,
never naming the sexual violence Annalise experienced as a child speaks to the buried history
between the two women. Additionally, viewers learn part of the reason why Anna Mae became
Annalise, and why she insisted that her mother refer to her as Annalise. However, no scene in the
episode resonated more with Black women than Tyson’s final moments in the episode. Ophelia
stands in the doorway of Annalise’s room to tell her, “I’ll be leaving in the morning.” She walks
over to Annalise, grabs and hugs her “Shh. Come on, baby. Come on.” Ophelia holds her
daughter’s head against her chest, and Annalise begins to weep. Ophelia then grabs Annalise’s
hair, and chuckles, “Let me at your hair. Your kitchen is tight.” Here, kitchen refers to the “nape
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of the neck where Black hair is typically more curly.”
282
Ophelia sits on the bed and places
Annalise on the floor between her legs, and starts to comb her hair. Davis wears her hair in its
natural state for the scene, and as Tyson combs through it, the sound of the comb passing
through natural Black hair is almost loud enough to distract from Ophelia using this moment to
reveal to her daughter that once she discovered the abuse, she purposefully burned down her
home and “Uncle Clyde burned right with it.” The scene is just over 4 minutes long and is
primarily a monologue for Tyson with Davis sitting quietly on the floor getting her hair combed.
Although both actresses appeared in The Help (2011), they did not have any scenes
together. Davis contends, “Episode 13 is my idea. I’m claiming it. Bringing Ms. Cicely Tyson
onboard is my idea…I’m a woman. I like to see women on TV. I like to see real women on TV.
That for me is what’s inspiring and that for me is exciting.”
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Viola Davis names Cicely Tyson
not simply to take credit for bringing her to HTGAWM, but to also emphasize Tyson’s cultural
significance. Tyson’s language “your kitchen is tight,” her distinctive mannerisms and
movement, the sound of her combing Davis’s hair are all small moments of racial identification
for Black women. Cicely Tyson acknowledged the specificity of the scene, “I don’t know a black
woman on the face of this universe that did not identify with that particular scene because that’s
what our mothers did with us. They snapped us between their legs and combed our hair.”
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These moments could not have been possible or nearly as emotionally gripping had it not been
for the influence and agency of Viola Davis. Cicely Tyson brings an additional level of cultural

282
Jacobs-Huey, Lanita, From the Kitchen to the Parlor, 7.
283
Mekeisha Madden Toby, “Viola Davis on Finding Her Sexy: 'It Feels Really Good to Embrace Exactly
Who I Am',” Essence Magazine, published January 30, 2015, https://www.essence.com/celebrity/viola-
davis-finding-her-sexy-it-feels-really-good-embrace-exactly-who-i-am/.
284
Piccalo, Gina, “Viola Davis and Cicely Tyson on the ‘blackest’ moment on TV from ‘HTGAWM’,”
LA Times, published August 13, 2015, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/emmys/la-en-st-
how-to-get-away-wth-murder-davis-tyson-20150813-story.html.
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fortitude with her performed agency to every role. Davis is able to match Tyson’s dramatic
abilities creating moments within the show that become a Black representational space that
foregrounds African American cultural experiences. Viola Davis inserted herself into as many
aspects of the production as possible, with the common denominator being, her suggestions
resonate with Black audiences, especially Black women. In doing so, her intersectional
understanding of herself as a Black woman and her desire to want to see people who look like
her onscreen resulted in a privileging of African American cultural discourses.
With success came greater public visibility, and for Viola Davis, the increased visibility
included a sense of responsibility or, rather, a burden of representation. Or as Viola Davis
describes it, “feeling like I am the great black female hope for women of color.”
285
When asked
about her top three professional or personal challenges, Davis listed number three as
responsibility.
286
She elaborates,
The responsibility of feeling like I am the great black female hope for women of color
has been a real professional challenge. Being that role model and picking up that baton
when you’re struggling in your own life has been difficult. Looking at the deficit and
seeing that once you’re on top, you can either take the role of leadership or you can toss it
in the garbage and say, “I’m just out to save myself.” I choose to be the leader.
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In deciding to be a leader, Davis is not insisting that she can represent the diversity and
complexity of all Black culture, but instead she is actively choosing to underscore Black cultural
creativity and agency in her work. She started a production company with her husband JuVee
Productions, producing film and television shows that center African Americans or women,

285
Mekado, Murphy, “Viola Davis on What ‘The Help’ Got Wrong and How She Proves Herself” New
York Times, published September 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/movies/viola-davis-
interview-widows-toronto-film-festival.html.
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Davis listed number one as finding “great dramatic or great roles” worthy of her talent and number two
was always having to prove her ability.
287
Mekado, Murphy, “Viola Davis on What ‘The Help’ Got Wrong,”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/movies/viola-davis-interview-widows-toronto-film-festival.html.
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including the four-part docu-series narrated by Davis Two Sides (2018), which offers an in-depth
look at four examples of police involved deaths of unarmed African Americans and the
documentary Emanuel (2019) about nine African American churchgoers shot to death in
Charleston, South Carolina by a white supremacist. The race women era of actresses understood
this burden and used respectability politics and uplift ideology in their representations of African
American women. Beretta Smith Shomade argues, “Historically, one show on television every
few years has borne the burden of reflecting all of Black American culture. Thus, both quality
and quantity of representation have been, and remain, an issue.”
288
As Diahann Carroll stated,
“You know Black people cannot just accept a job of work…If there’s one thing I envy a white
actor, is the fact that his major concern is his craft. Every got damn thing we do is a
documentary, and there’s no getting away from it. I mean it’s all examined in terms of how do
you represent the community, what is your commitment to the young minds of that
community.”
289
In 1968, as the only show on television that starred a Black woman, Diahann
Carroll faced intense scrutiny, where despite being fictional, and in many ways a fantastical
sitcom, Julia was still expected to represent the Black community in terms of life experiences
and culture.
In 2012 when Scandal premiered, Kerry Washington experienced a similar feeling of
responsibility. She discusses her experience at the time:
I think that feeling like the face of the race is not an unknown feeling for me. You know
there was a lot of talk when Scandal first aired, that it was the first show in 38 years to
have a black woman as the lead of a network drama. I mean there was nothing I could do
to guarantee eyeballs. Unfortunately, my business is not often meritocracy. But I knew
that I had to reach toward excellence in every area because even though I knew I couldn’t
control the result, if Scandal was a failure, it might be another 40 years before a black
woman was allowed to be the lead of a network drama. Instead, in the success of

288
Smith-Shomade, Beretta, Shaded Lives: African-American Women and Television (New Brunswick:
Rutgers UP, 2002), 8.
289
Carroll, Diahann, box 89_012a_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
127
Scandal, we had Empire and How To Get Away…We had all of these shows with black
women at the helm because what was considered a “risk” before we aired, suddenly
became commonplace.
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Although she never addressed this specific feeling during Scandal’s actual airing, perhaps
strategically, the discourse surrounding the show made it nearly impossible for Kerry
Washington not to place Scandal within a trajectory of past and (potentially) future
representations of Black women on television dramas. When Scandal premiered, Kerry
Washington instead continually highlighted the fact that in her lifetime, she had never seen a
Black woman as a lead in a network drama. She may not have publicly acknowledged this at the
time, but she was well aware of the stakes if the show did not do well. Her lack of
acknowledgement was an intentional strategy, championed by Shonda Rhimes, that in many
ways allowed Scandal to find its audience by downplaying Olivia Pope’s race. Since ABC only
gave the initial Scandal season seven episodes, the network additionally did not believe a drama
starring an African American woman could prove successful, especially when the only precursor
Get Christie Love (1974-1975), also on ABC, only lasted a season. They may refer to it by
different names, “great Black female hope” or “face of the race,” but successful Black women on
television have historically been perceived as being able to represent all Black Americans,
despite the fact that Black Americans are not monolithic and cannot be represented in just one
manner, by one show or one actress.
The Hip Hop Generation: Shifting Black Femininity Onscreen
Although born in what Mark Anthony Neal refers to as the post-soul aesthetic, Kerry
Washington was still subject to the similar burdens of representations that eventually caused
Diahann Carroll to opt out of her Julia contract after the third season because the burden and

290
Scott, Simon, “In American Son, Kerry Washington Wants You to ‘Let Yourself Be In This
Nightmare,” NPR, published November 2, 2019, https://www.npr.org/transcripts/775411351.
128
stress of the criticism was too much. Neal defines post-soul aesthetic as “an aesthetic center
within contemporary black popular culture that at various moments considers issues like
deindustrialization, desegregation, the corporate annexation of black popular expression…the
general commodification of black life and culture, and the proliferation of black ‘meta-
identities,’ while continuously collapsing on modern concepts of blackness.”
291
For Neal, post-
soul refers to “the political, social, and cultural experiences of the African-American community
since the end of the civil rights and Black Power movements.”
292
Kerry Washington’s entrance
into acting with Save the Last Dance (2001) was a time of shifting representations of Black
femininity on television. According to Patricia Hill Collins in Black Sexual Politics, the hip hop
generation “has encountered, reproduced, and resisted new forms of racism that continue to rely
on ideas about Black sexuality.”
293
This is primarily seen in hip hop music videos and with the
rise in popularity of female rappers such as Foxy Brown and the original “Queen Bee” Lil’ Kim.
The prominence and visibility of hip-hop culture directly interrogated and challenged ideas of
positive imagery, respectability politics, and Black female sexuality. Before Nicki Minaj or
Cardi B., Lil’ Kim exuded sexuality with hits like “No Matter What They Say” (2001) and “The
Jump Off” (2003), and causing controversy with her appearance at the 1999 MTV Video Music
Awards wearing a purple, mermaid-inspired catsuit that exposed her left breast, which she
covered with a sequin pasty. Beretta Smith-Shomade argues that in many ways Lil’ Kim
“represented the fruits of womanist/feminist agitation, the right to define oneself,” but the issue
is that she “embraced objectification as a career choice.”
294
Additionally, hip hop is not

291
Neal, Mark Anthony, Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (New York:
Routledge, 2002), 3-4.
292
Neal, Mark Anthony, Soul Babies, 3.
293
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism, (New
York: Routledge, 2004), 35.
294
Smith-Shomade, Beretta, Shaded Lives, 102.
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concerned with moral behavior, but instead a perceived authenticity, creativity, self-promotion,
and self-expression. Hill Collins argues that Lil’ Kim “must sell sexuality as part of working-
class Black female authenticity.”
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Herein lies the major difference between Black female
rappers and Black actresses, rappers present a persona or rather a presentation of self, whereas
actresses in their performances onscreen represent Black women. Succinctly stated, there is a
clear difference between an actress’s representation of an image of Black womanhood and a
female rapper’s embodiment of a persona. As Kerry Washington states, “For a lot of people, my
characters may be the very few black women that they spend time with.”
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This is why for
Washington, producing has so much potential and so much power.
Kerry Washington’s biggest contribution to African American cultural production, in
terms of self-representation, is her post-Scandal work as a producer. While on Scandal she
produced and starred in the HBO original film Confirmation (2016) about Anita Hill and the
Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearings. Her first significant post-Scandal role onscreen is the
in Netflix original film American Son, which she also produced and starred in. Like Viola Davis,
Kerry Washington also has a production company, Simpson Street (named after the Bronx street
where her mother grew up). For Washington, “playing Olivia gave me the opportunity to become
a producer. The charge of my production company, Simpson Street, is to tell stories that are
about people, places, and situations that may not always be considered by the mainstream.
Inclusivity is not about, you know, creating a world where straight white men have no voice; it’s
about creating a world where we all have a voice.”
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As a producer, Washington’s artistic

295
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Sexual Politics, 127.
296
Mock, Janet, “Kerry Washington’s Next Act,” Marie Claire, Hearst Digital Media, published October
8, 2019, https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a23596751/kerry-washington-november-2018-cover/.
297
Mendoza, Paola, “Kerry Washington on Art as Activism and the Importance of ‘Staying Awake’”
Glamour, April 4, 2017, https://www.glamour.com/story/kerry-washington-may-glamour-cover.
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endeavors have been stories centered on Black women. American Son, based on a Broadway
play that Washington also produced and starred in, is a ninety-minute story about a Black mother
in a Florida police station waiting to hear news about her missing teenage son.
The story unravels in real-time, as Kendra Ellis-Connor (Washington) paces in a Miami
police station lobby on a dark and stormy night, pleading with the one cop on duty Officer
Larkin, a rookie, to give her any information on her son that he can. Audiences watch as tension
builds between Kendra and Officer Larkin, her white husband Scott, whom she is recently
separated from, and Lieutenant Stokes, the man who has information on her son’s whereabouts.
The foregrounding of race is made very clear early in the film. In detailing brief moments with
Kendra and each male character, their dynamic in the film becomes clear. When Officer Larkin
makes an insincere attempt at sympathy, Kendra quickly calls out their different circumstances
as parents:
Officer Larkin: I completely understand your concerns.
Kendra: Respectfully, officer, I don’t think you do.
Officer Larkin: Ma’am, I have kids too.
Kendra: Do you?
Officer Larkin: (optimistically) Okay. I do.
Kendra: How old are they?
Officer Larkin: Well, they’re—
Kendra: Any of them black?

Kendra asks the white police officer if he has any Black sons three times, until he finally
responds “No ma’am. I have two—young daughters. White daughters.” When Kendra describes
her son Jamal as 6’2 with cornrows and green eyes, Officer Larkin gives her a clear look of
disbelief. He asks her questions about Jamal’s street name, if he has any tattoos or gold teeth.
Later in the film when Kendra’s white husband Scott shows up, wearing his FBI badge, Officer
Larkin assumes he is the lieutenant on duty that they have been waiting for and gives him
privileged information. In attempting to get her husband to understand that he and their son live
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in two different worlds, Kendra begins an oration, “Keep your hands on the wheel, boy. Look
straight ahead. Don’t make any sudden moves. Wouldn’t want to make the man in the
bulletproof vest nervous when he walks up to your window pointing a Glock at your head (she
raises her hand imitating a gun and points two fingers at her husband’s forehead). Your father
ever tell you that?” Her husband responds, “He never had to,” which is precisely Kendra’s point.
When Lieutenant Stokes, an older Black man, enters the room he immediately asserts his
authority by demanding that both parents calmly sit-down so that he can give them the little
information he has on their son’s incident with the police. When Kendra’s husband Scott
demands that Stokes just give them the information, Lt. Stokes has Officer Larkin arrest him. In
the course of the conversation between Kendra and Lt. Stokes, she tells him, “Well, I guess I just
wasn’t raised to be a bitter Uncle Tom like you.” Right before he leaves, Stokes minimizes
Kendra’s insult, “and sister next time you call a black man an Uncle Tom, it’d play a whole lot
better if that black man hadn’t just dragged your white husband out the room in handcuffs.”
From the very beginning of the film, it is clear to audiences that this is not Olivia Pope. Kendra
wears her hair naturally in a bun, and she has on a light brown long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and
sneakers. She also wears very modest jewelry, a thin gold necklace and pearl stud earrings. The
film confronts topics such as police brutality, unconscious bias, code-switching, and
microaggressions. When asked if she thought the film is a piece of activism, Kerry Washington
responded, “I’m asking you to look at me, to be with me, to walk in my shoes for ninety minutes,
so that is because we don’t often walk in the shoes of Black women in our culture, that is an act
of activism.”
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Producing this story allowed Kerry Washington to explore a narrative that is

298
“Kerry Washington American Son and the Impact of Scandal,” Today, published November 10, 2019,
https://www.today.com/video/kerry-washington-s-american-son-and-the-impact-of-scandal-
73234501538.
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specific to African American women, while simultaneously making it available to a large
audience. This example of Black cultural agency and creativity is the result of Kerry
Washington’s understanding of herself as a Black woman and her attempts to represent the
diversity and complexity of African American culture, privileging the experiences of Black
mothers. American Son forces the audience to experience the anxiety of a Black mother when
she learns her son has been involved in an “incident” with the police. By framing this role as an
act of activism, Kerry Washington’s intersectional positionality as a Black actress confronts and
contests limited screen representations of Blackness and womanhood.
In 2019, Kerry Washington made an announcement via Twitter that she would be
directing an episode of the fourth season of HBO’s Insecure (2016-Present) starring Issa Rae.
She joins a cohort of other African American actresses turned directors such as Debbie Allen,
Angela Bassett, Kim Fields, and Regina King. Kerry Washington posted a video of herself
preparing for her role as director in essentially an Issa Rae-style direct address rap into a mirror.
Washington raps, “Here we go, I’m about to direct Insecure on HBO, it’s not a scandal. I’m
about to handle it, cuz this cast is fire and THE SHOW IS MINE!” Issa Rae enters the room
interrupting Washington and asks, “What are you doing? You were talking to your mirror bitch
weren’t you?” By imitating Issa Rae’s performance style, Kerry Washington’s short video
recognizes and celebrates Issa Rae’s cultural work, while simultaneously advertising the
upcoming season of Insecure and Washington’s role as a director. In her coded use the word
“scandal” in her rap, she winks at the audience in an intertextual reference to her previous role.
Washington’s directorial debut was on an episode of Scandal in 2018, “The People v. Olivia
Pope,” but her position as a director on Insecure links her to an even younger generation of
Black actresses like Issa Rae. As cultural archivists, Black actresses of different generations
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continually find ways to coalesce onscreen, such as when Kerry Washington, Viola Davis and
Cicely Tyson appear together in the “How to Get Away With Scandal” crossover episode. These
moments onscreen illustrate how African American actresses are interconnected based on a
shared history, an intersectional identity, and sense of community. Intersectionality is part of
Black women’s sociopolitical tradition; as such, it is a fundamental framework for reconsidering
Black actresses’ agency, resistance, and empowerment. In their intersectional labor as script
consultants, producers, and directors, African American actresses have challenged Hollywood’s
distorted and stereotypical depictions of Black femininity.

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CHAPTER 3
“I STAND ON YOUR SHOULDERS DIAHANN”: SHOUT OUT CULTURE, TV HERITAGE, AND
THE DISCOURSE OF BLACK WOMANHOOD

This moment is so much bigger than me. This moment is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, Diahann
Carroll. It’s for the women that stand beside me, Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and it’s for
every nameless, faceless, woman of color that now has the chance because this door tonight has been
opened. Thank you. I’m so honored. I’m so honored and I thank the Academy for choosing me to be the
vessel for which this blessing might flow. Thank you.
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-Halle Berry

On the biggest night of her career, when she made history as the first African American
actress to receive an Academy Award for Best Actress, Halle Berry used her acceptance speech
at the 2002 Oscars to “shout out” other Black actresses. As such, Berry placed herself within a
larger legacy of Black women in Hollywood and symbolically shared her win with the Black
actresses that came before her, such as Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Diahann Carroll,
while also hoping that her win would herald opportunities for contemporary African American
actresses such as Jada Pinkett-Smith, Angela Bassett, and Vivica A. Fox. Halle Berry’s speech
illustrates a larger Black cultural tradition, what I am terming shout out culture. A shout out is an
African American colloquial term meaning: a public expression of appreciation or gratitude; an
acknowledgment; an intentional mention or reference; a way of naming names to show
admiration and respect.
Shout outs are dynamic acts of cultural archiving that serve multiple functions, including
cultural recognition and legitimization, recirculating Black cultural figures back into popular
memory, building community, and crafting alternative histories. They can be spoken, written, or
performed, and are intrinsically intertextual. As practices of cultural archiving, shout outs are
individual acts that contribute to larger African American cultural discourses and Black

299
Berry, Halle, “Halle Berry Wins Best Actress: 2002 Oscars,” May 23, 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llgL7mGYVTI.
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collective memory; they provide cultural affirmation that does not rely on mainstream white
validation. As such, they are often hard won and earned by modeling a particular kind of Black
cultural consciousness. At stake is Black cultural heritage and the historical memory of the
individuals whose significance and contributions to African American cultural politics are at risk
of being disremembered. For Black actresses specifically, shout outs function to acknowledge
debts to previous generations, as a form of communal bonding and camaraderie, to craft
alternative histories, and challenge Hollywood’s exclusion of Black women. In mainstream
primarily white spaces such as the Oscars, shout outs serve a dual purpose, acknowledging
fellow actresses, while simultaneously calling out Hollywood for failing to do so. In culturally
reflexive primarily African American spaces, the shout out functions as a powerful rhetorical
form for Black actresses, allowing them to connect with other Black women and artists and be
heard in a space that prioritizes their voices.
In tracing the explicit ways that Black actresses use shout outs, this chapter examines the
interconnections between Black actresses in Hollywood, revealing what they say to and about
each other, and the larger meanings implicit in these conversations as it relates to broader issues
of African American representation. While some Black actresses of different generations find
ways to collaborate onscreen, I argue that off-screen they use shout outs to further demonstrate
their interconnectedness based on a shared history, a kinship, and sense of community. I explore
shout out culture as an inherent aspect of Black culture and tradition, while revealing how Black
actresses use shout outs as a form of community building, and in many respects, as an
embodiment of “lifting as we climb.” African American actresses are living repositories of the
history of Black women on screen; they carry this notion with them on and off-screen and it
informs their understanding of their position as Black actresses in Hollywood.
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Shout outs reveal the importance of Black collective memory, self-affirmation, and
cultural heritage to African Americans. For Black actresses, shout outs encompass an
epistemology of seeing and wanting to be seen as human beings. Poet, writer, and Black feminist
Audre Lorde writes,
Within this country where racial difference creates a constant, if unspoken, distortion of
vision, Black women have on one hand always been highly visible, and so, on the other
hand, have been rendered invisible through the depersonalization of racism…we have
had to fight, and still do, for that very visibility which also renders us most vulnerable,
our Blackness. For to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to
learn this first and most vital lesson—that we were never meant to survive. Not as human
beings.
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The systematic devaluation of Black womanhood,
301
where the humanity of African American
women is constantly questioned, has created an impetus for Black women to act as their own
cultural archivists. I argue that through critical pedagogy, “the sharing of information and
knowledge by black women with black women,”
302
Black actresses have taken on the task of
becoming cultural archivists, passing on generational knowledge and historical experience to
each other. Shout outs are an artistic method of engagement with Black bodies that is linked to
histories of struggle and the legacy of slavery in America. As such, shout out culture is a distinct
process of remembrance, where African Americans have created ways to maintain, disseminate,
and remember their histories. African American women specifically use shout outs so that Black
women’s cultural work, historical contributions, and legacy do not get lost or erased within the
annals of white American history.
Throughout this chapter, I survey numerous examples of shout outs in several popular
spheres to illustrate the existence of shout out culture within African American cultural

300
Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider (Berkeley: Crossing Press, 2007), 42.
301
hooks, bell, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (London: Pluto Press, 1982).
302
hooks, bell, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South End Press,1992), 56.
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discourses. I begin by locating early shout outs in the writing of Black cultural thinkers to
examine how shout outs have traditionally been used to show lines of influence between Black
political leaders. I then move into a discussion of shout outs in poetry and its relationship to
Black musical tradition. Later, I trace the evolution and expansion of the shout out in hip hop
culture, and its influence on film and television. I conclude by shifting my focus to Black themed
award shows to argue that in these spaces Black actresses foster a sense of sisterhood by using
shout outs to celebrate and acknowledge the work of both past and present Black actresses,
thereby continuing to lift as they climb.
Situating Early Shout Outs in African American Popular Culture
Shout outs have traditionally been used to recognize a lineage between Black political
thinkers across generations. For African Americans, shout outs are about valuing and
recognizing the cultural and political production of other Black leaders, performers, and artists.
Early examples of the shout out can be seen in the writings of many notable Black cultural
thinkers to position themselves historically, and as a part of the larger cultural lineage of race
leaders. In his seminal book The Souls of Black Folk, originally published in 1903, W.E.B. Du
Bois wrote, “After the war and emancipation, the great form of Frederick Douglass, the greatest
of American Negro leaders, still led the host. Self-assertion, especially in political lines, was the
main programme, and behind Douglass came Elliot, Bruce, and Langston, and the
Reconstruction politicians, and, less conspicuous but of greater social significance Alexander
Crummell and Bishop Daniel Payne.”
303
Du Bois shouts out several men whom he believed to be
significant race leaders; these men clearly had his reverence, but additionally he established a
line of descent or historical connection between these men starting with Frederick Douglass.

303
Du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1994), 29-30, Kindle
Edition.
138
However, it is their connection to Black political activity that earned these men a shout out from
W.E.B. Du Bois. He continued, “Nearly all the former ones had become leaders by the silent
suffrage of their fellows, had sought to lead their own people alone, and were usually, save
Douglass, little known outside their race.”
304
Du Bois admits that many of these men were
primarily known by African Americans and names them in order to give them credit and
legitimize their work as race leaders. Additionally, Du Bois understood that their work was in
conversation with a more expansive group of Black cultural figures in terms of racial identity
and political activity. Black cultural figures found ways to acknowledge their antecedents and
contemporaries through shout outs, while also giving them credit and recognizing their
achievements.
305

Black artists across genres also shout out each other’s cultural work and production as a
way of showing approbation and respect, and as a way to recirculate African American cultural
figures back into popular memory. African American poets, for example, routinely shout out
Black cultural figures in their work. Poet, literary critic and educator Sterling A. Brown’s ode to
Blues singer Ma Rainey, published in 1932, is one such example. Brown wrote, “O Ma Rainey/
Sing yo’ song/ Now you’s back/ Whah you belong/ Git way inside us/ Keep us strong…” The
poem is intentionally written in a Black Southern folk dialect to illustrate Rainey’s importance to
whom Brown believed were her genuine fans, Black southerners. Similarly, Langston Hughes
demonstrated his appreciation of Blues in his 1941 essay “Songs Called the Blues,” writing, “In
America, during the last quarter of a century, there have been many great singers of the Blues,
but the finest of all were the three famous Smiths—no relation, one to another—Mamie Smith,

304
Du Bois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk, 29-30, Kindle Edition.
305
Other early shout outs can be seen in the writings of Marcus Garvey, such as his article “The West
Indies in the Mirror of Truth” published in 1917 and his essay “The Negro’s Enemy” written in 1923.
139
Clara Smith, and the astonishing Bessie Smith. Clara and Bessie are both dead now, and Mamie
no longer sings.”
306
This essay was initially published by Clark Atlanta University, a historically
Black institution; in shouting out these Blues singers after their era of prominence, Langston
Hughes, acknowledged their talent and contribution to American culture by reintroducing them
to a younger generation of African Americans. The Blues is understood by both Sterling A.
Brown and Langston Hughes as a significant Black musical tradition, due to the women whose
voices helped defined the genre.
307

Scholar Mark Anthony Neal draws a line of descent from Bessie Smith to singers Aretha
Franklin and Nina Simone, arguing that both Franklin and Simone “consciously appropriated the
sensibilities of a lineage of black women blues singers, ranging from Ma Rainey and Bessie
Smith to more contemporary artists like Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday.”
308
He points to
Nikki Giovanni’s “Poem for Aretha” as an example of Franklin’s significance as a cultural icon
and her importance to the history of Black female singers. Nikki Giovanni’s “Poem for Aretha”
asserts, “Aretha doesn’t have to relive Billie Holiday’s life; doesn’t have to relive Dinah
Washington’s death, but who will stop the pattern?” In expressing a genuine concern for Aretha
Franklin’s well-being, Nikki Giovanni associates Aretha Franklin’s work within “the broader
contexts of the lived reality of black women as well as the black musical tradition that she
upholds.”
309
Giovanni continues, “She’s more important than her music—if they must be
separated— and they should be separated…and I say I need Aretha’s music. She is undoubtedly
the one who put everyone on notice.” In her shout out to Aretha Franklin, Nikki Giovanni calls

306
Hughes, Langston, “Songs Called the Blues,” Phylon 2.2 (1941): 144.
307
The continued relevance of these women is illustrated in the HBO movie Bessie (2015) and the Netflix
original film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020).
308
Neal, Mark Anthony, What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (New
York: Routledge, 1999), 152-3, Ebook.
309
Neal, Mark Anthony, What the Music Said, 153.
140
out other Black performers, letting them know or putting them “on notice” that Franklin’s
musical ability surpasses theirs. According to Giovanni, Aretha Franklin “pushed every Black
singer into his Blackness and negro entertainers into negroness.” In other words, it is Aretha’s
Franklin’s ability to tap into a Black structure of feeling through her music that gives her the
capacity to connect with Black audiences in ways other artists like Nancy Wilson, Diana Ross
and Dionne Warwick are unable to do. Aretha Franklin’s relationship to African American
cultural representation is what earned her Nikki Giovanni’s shout out. As an act of cultural
archiving, Nikki Giovanni’s shout out cements Aretha Franklin’s talent and legacy within Black
musical tradition by linking her music to the careers of some of the most successful and well-
known Black singers from James Brown to Diana Ross. To understand Nikki Giovanni’s poem,
the reader would need to be familiar with Black popular music from different eras to fully grasp
her positioning of Aretha Franklin as a great musical talent, but also Franklin’s similarities to the
tragic circumstances of other Black female performers, like Billie Holiday and Dinah
Washington.
Comparably, actress Jenifer Lewis writes about these same Black female performers
when discussing the motivation behind her one-woman show From Billie to Lena with Jenifer.
Lewis argues that contemporary singers like Toni Braxton, Beyoncé, and Rihanna, stand “on the
shoulders of genius women whose artistry and struggle, I feared, were becoming lost in the tide
of history. I chose seven women: Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Mahalia Jackson, Dinah
Washington, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Lena Horne.”
310
Jenifer Lewis’s one-woman
show was a shout-out to the Black singers she felt deserved to be revitalized and remembered. In
this instance, the stardom of the seven women, their generational legacy and importance were in

310
Lewis, Jenifer and Malaika Adero, The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir (New York: Amistad,
2017), 127-8, Kindle Edition.
141
danger of becoming forgotten, thereby erasing them from African American cultural discourses.
Through critical pedagogy and cultural archiving, Jenifer Lewis makes a determined effort to
establish a clear genealogy of Black women as performers so that contemporary Black female
artists are aware of the trailblazers, pioneers and groundbreaking women who paved the way for
their future careers, further tethering the connection between Black female singers.
Poets such as Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, and Maya Angelou contribute to
recirculating Black popular culture by filling their prose with allusions and direct references. A
shout out can bring African American cultural figures back into popular memory, as was the case
with rapper Kanye West’s shout out to both Angelou and Giovanni in his 2005 song “Hey
Mama.” West reintroduced Nikki Giovanni to a new generation simply by naming her in one of
his songs, “Can’t you see, you’re like a book of poetry/ Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, turn one
page and there’s my mommy.” It is these kinds of direct references that continually circulate
Black cultural figures from generation to generation within the realm of Black popular memory.
The use of shout outs in poetry also connect Black women to an awareness of African American
cultural history. Take for example the Maya Angelou poem “Our Grandmothers,” which begins
with an indistinct description of a woman laying “skin down in the moist dirt;” however, as the
poem continues it is clear that Angelou is describing a slave. Angelou wrote, “She muttered,
lifting her head a nod toward freedom, I shall not, I shall not be moved. She gathered her babies,
their tears slick as oil on black faces, their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.
Momma, is Master going to sell you from us tomorrow? Yes. Unless you keep walking more and
talking less.” From her title to the first few stanzas, Maya Angelou positions her poem through a
collective racial past and shared historical struggle for freedom.
142
Acknowledging one’s ancestors is a fundamental part of Black cultural expression, which
has repeatedly incorporated a nod to past generations and the people who lived before. The
ambiguous description of the woman is an intentional choice of Angelou’s meant to convey
slavery, and the many faceless women who endured it, as a part of a shared ancestry for Black
women. She invoked the memory of slavery as a historical experience to discuss freedom as a
never-ending journey, “The divine upon my right impels me to pull forever at the latch on
freedom’s gate.” To strengthen her point, Maya Angelou gives a shout out to Black women, who
historically knocked on and knocked down “freedom’s gate.” She wrote, “She is Sheba the
Sojourner, Harriet and Zora, Mary Bethune and Angela...” This historical and symbolic list of
women, from the biblical Queen Sheba to Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, civil rights activist
Mary McLeod Bethune, author Zora Neale Hurston, and Angela Davis, is used to establish a
pattern of Black women fighting for independence and liberation. Maya Angelou gave a shout
out to historical and contemporaneous Black women to show a lineage and commonality among
Black women searching for freedom.
“Our Grandmothers” uses the hard-fought battles of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth
and Angela Davis as intertextual references that reimagine the different obstacles these women
faced as a common and intergenerational experience among Black women. Published in her 1990
volume of poems I Shall Not Be Moved, “Our Grandmothers” demonstrates the cyclical and
intertextual nature of Black culture. Throughout Black culture, there is a desire to acknowledge
itself, as if to directly state that any success achieved, was not achieved alone. Rapper and actress
Queen Latifah included a similar comparison in her music video “Ladies First” (1989), which
begins with a series of photographs of Black female political figures, including Sojourner Truth,
Harriet Tubman, and Angela Davis. Maya Angelou and Queen Latifah both perform the role of
143
cultural archivist by recirculating these women within Black culture and Black collective
memory, the former in print and the latter through the visual image. Angelou and Latifah are able
to reproduce a knowledge and history that centers Black women, a history that is often
minimized, absent or inaccurate in American history books.
Similar to Maya Angelou’s poem, Cicely Tyson imagined her work through a historical
lens and Black cultural consciousness, dating back to slavery. When she was inducted into the
Television Academy Hall of Fame in 2020, Tyson acknowledged more generally the women
who lifted her up, “I have had an incredible career. I am grateful not the shoulders that I stood
on, but the backs that I laid on and stood on, while the women in our families picked the cotton
with the babies strapped to their back. I am grateful for them.” Cicely Tyson’s portrayal of
historical heroines was linked to her understanding of herself as connected to a lineage of Black
women who preceded her. Comparably, when discussing growing up impoverished and feeling
worthless, Viola Davis stated, “The dark-skinned Black woman’s voice is so steeped in slavery
and our history. If we did speak up, it would cost us our lives. Somewhere in my cellular
memory was still that feeling—that I do not have the right to speak up about how I’m being
treated, that somehow I deserve it.”
311
As a Black woman, Viola Davis imagined her silence as a
part of a collective racial past, where the memory and historical experience of slavery and the
brutalities enacted against Black women are so deep-rooted that they could be felt centuries later.
One of the ways in which repetition occurs in Black culture is through shout outs of
historical figures and restating of popular phrasing. James Snead’s essay “Repetition as a Figure
of Black Culture,” argues that, “‘Culture’ in its present usage always also means the culture of
culture: a certain continuance in the nurture of those concepts and experiences that have helped

311
Saraiya, Sonia, “Viola Davis: ‘My Entire Life Has Been a Protest’,” Vanity Fair July 14, 2020,
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/cover-story-viola-davis.
144
or are helping to lend self-consciousness and awareness to a given group.”
312
The repetition in
Black culture is in fact a continuity in the development and cultivation of experiences that have
profoundly impacted and defined Black life in America. It is also a stake in one’s identity,
premised on a history of Black popular expression that has been reworked and transformed.
Snead continues, “So the second way in which repetition enters the dimension of culture is in the
necessity for every culture to maintain a sense of continuity about itself: internal changes
notwithstanding, a basic self-identity must not be altered.”
313
In “Our Grandmothers” that basic
self-identity is premised on a pursuit of freedom, both literal and figuratively. Several times
throughout the poem, Maya Angelou repeats the expression, “I shall not be moved.” The phrase
has been used as a Negro spiritual,
314
a gospel song and later adopted into a civil rights protest
song, “We Shall Not Be Moved.” Even in 1990, the phrase would have resonated with Angelou’s
readers, as it is etched in Black popular memory as historically and culturally important to the
consciousness and awareness of Black political struggles.
Hip Hop and the Expansion of Shout Out Culture
Hip hop represents a significant shift in shout out culture by first coining the term shout
out, popularizing its usage, and making it ubiquitous in rap music. With hip hop’s emergence,
shout outs expanded to reference different aspects of Black popular culture including poetry,
politics, film, and television. Additionally, hip hop generated the term shout out as a way to pay
dues to one’s musical elders, express gratitude, and acknowledge respect for someone’s artistry.
Shout outs are important to African Americans and Black cultural traditions because they
emphasize history, identity, and Black popular culture; they are often the only recognition Black

312
Snead, James, “Repetition as a Figure of Black Culture,” in Black Literature and Literary Theory,
edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Routledge, 1990), 60.
313
Snead, James, “Repetition as a Figure of Black Culture,” 60.
314
Cicely Tyson quotes this spiritual in her autobiography, Just as I Am.
145
people receive for the cultural and artistic work they create. As such, shout outs are a vital form
of African American social resistance that do not rely on mainstream white validation for
acknowledgment. Within primarily Black arenas like hip hop, shout outs exist as a form of
communal bonding through recognition. Furthermore, it is important to examine shout outs
within Black popular expression as acts of cultural self-determination and pride in one’s racial
identity.
Hip hop was built on a strong sense of competition, but shout outs remained intact as the
artform developed.
315
In what follows, I use rapper Rapsody’s 2019 album Eve to illustrate shout
outs varied uses and connection to Black popular culture. Rapsody dedicates every song on the
album to a famed Black woman whose influenced her; some of the women include Maya
Angelou, R&B singer Aaliyah, former model and television host Tyra Banks, civil rights activist
Myrlie Evers-Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Michelle Obama, Nina Simone, Oprah Winfrey,
Serena Williams, and even the fictional character Cleo from the film Set It Off (1996). While the
songs are not about these women, each of Rapsody’s songs engages with the cultural work and
accomplishments of her chosen Black women in some way. Shout outs can also be a way to pay
tribute to those who paved the way for future generations, those who inspired you and those who
helped you achieve your success. For rap artists this can include both the living and the deceased.
Michael Eric Dyson maintains that rap music has “retrieved historic black ideas, movements, and
figures in combating the racial amnesia that threatens to relegate the achievements of the black
past to the ash heap of dismemory. Such actions have brought a renewed sense of historical pride
to young black minds that provides a solid base for racial self-esteem.”
316
In addition to cultural

315
Rapper Big Daddy Kane’s 1989 single “Young, Gifted, and Black” is an example of an early rap shout
out.
316
Dyson, Michael Eric, Reflecting Black: African-American Cultural Criticism (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1993), 12-13.
146
archiving, Rapsody’s use of these specific Black women in the title of her songs is meant to be a
form of racial pride in one’s history and the historical accomplishments of Black women.
Rap songs are replete with intertextual references to Black popular culture, often explicit
but other times concealed in a web of lyrical repartee. According to Tricia Rose, “Rap tales are
told in elaborate and ever-changing black slang and refer to black cultural figures and rituals,
mainstream film, video and television characters, and little-known black heroes.”
317
For
example, in the song “Nina” Rapsody states,
Y’all can have the bars nigga, I spit hard metal gates
Henry Louis Gates when I cop me some new estate
Make room for myself, I’m in a way different mental place
I keep it real, all y’all look anime
I’m fine like Anna Mae
Black don’t crack like Angela
318

A bar is a measure of time in music; in rap, a bar refers to a rhyme within a four count of a beat.
Here, Rapsody boasts that her rhyming and lyricism is beyond the average rappers’, while
cleverly referencing an incident involving African American historian and scholar Henry Louis
Gates Jr., where he was arrested outside of his home when a neighbor called the police. Black
culture is cyclical and intertextual, creating a perpetual need to acknowledge itself, or as Henry
Louis Gates argues, “The black tradition has inscribed within it the very principles by which it
can be read. Ours is an extraordinarily self-reflexive tradition, a tradition exceptionally conscious
of its history...”
319
Rap’s use of shout outs explores this self-reflexive tradition, while also

317
Rose, Tricia, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, (Middletown:
Wesleyan UP, 1994), 3.
318
Rapsody, performer, “Nina,” by Lewis Allen, Mark Byrd, and Marlanna Evans, August 23, 2019,
Jamla Records and Roc Nation, track 1 on Eve, 2020.
319
Gates, Henry Louis, Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism, (New
York: Oxford UP, 1988), 18, Ebook.
147
establishing an archival paradigm premised on African American cultural traditions and
historical experiences that become preserved within the realm of Black popular culture.
In his book Signifying Monkey, Henry Louis Gates explores repetition and revision in
African American literature by theorizing the concept of Signifyin(g) as a “black metaphor for
intertextuality as configured in Afro-American formal literary discourse.”
320
For Gates, rap
music developed out of signifying, which he argues is a specific African American rhetorical
tradition. According to Gates, “Signifying is the grandparent of Rap; and Rap is signifying in a
postmodern way.”
321
It is quite fitting for Rapsody to mention Gates and his encounter with the
police as an intertextual reference, and as a moment in Black cultural history, worthy of revision
and repetition. Her naming of Henry Louis Gates has both a literal and figurative meaning
attached to it. Rap’s use of intertextuality crosses genre lines and artistic mediums. In the last
line of the aforementioned example, Rapsody gives a shout out to Angela Bassett and her role as
Tina Turner in the film What’s Love Got to do With It (1993). She further contextualizes Angela
Bassett’s reputation among Black women as aging minimally and gracefully, or as fellow actress
Regina King jokes, “the founding member of Black don’t crack.”
322
The song “Nina” is full of
references to history and Black popular culture that are used to contextualize and complement
the rap lyrics.
Additionally, “Nina” is an example of how rap music recalls, repeats, and remembers
Black culture. Through her own embodiment of Nina Simone, Rapsody samples Nina Simone’s
vocals from her version of “Strange Fruit,” which itself is a cover of a 1939 Billie Holiday song.
Sampling is created using “computers that can digitally duplicate any existing sounds and play

320
Gates, Henry Louis, Signifying Monkey, 78.
321
Gates, Henry Louis, foreword to The Anthology of Rap, edited by Adam Bradley, and Andrew DuBois
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), xxii, Ebook.
322
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), dir. Sandra Restrepo, aired September 8, 2019, on BET.
148
them back in any key or pitch, in any order, sequence and loop them endlessly.”
323
As Nina
Simone sings, “Southern trees bearing strange fruit, blood on the leaves,” Rapsody layers
Simone’s vocals by repeating some of her words. According to hip hop scholar Tricia Rose,
sampling is “an invocation of another’s voice to help you say what you want to say. It is also a
means of archival research, a process of musical and cultural archeology.”
324
Sampling centers
Black collective memory and Rapsody samples “Strange Fruit” to pay homage, but also to make
a connection between her music and Nina Simone’s. In a song dedicated to Nina Simone, it is apt
that Rapsody would sample one of her most notable songs.
325

Early in hip hop history, several rappers felt the need to defend the use of sampling while
some criticized the technique as theft.
326
Tricia Rose notes, “prior to rap, the most desirable use
of a sample was to mask the sample and its origin; to bury its identity.”
327
Sampling is an
intentional method used by rap artists and producers, where Black musical expression is mined,
transformed and recirculated as new material to a contemporary, often younger, audience. It is
also a means of recollection, preserving Black musical history, breathing new life into old music,
and transforming it for a younger generation. Hip hop’s development of shout outs into a cultural
trend has as much to do with the process of sampling as it does with recognition. In hip hop,
sampling is another layer of intertextuality; they are often sonic shout outs that pay tribute to
Black musical tradition. Samples can also be seen as aural moments of repetition and revision,
where they can be recycled so often that it can be difficult to discern which song is being

323
Rose, Tricia, Black Noise, 73.
324
Rose, Tricia, 79.
325
She is not the first rapper to sample Nina Simone’s “Strange Fruit,” as Kanye West samples the same
song on his 2013 single “Blood on the Leaves.”
326
Nelson, Havelock, “Stetsasonic: A Sampling Supporter,” Billboard, November 12, 1988, 28. Examples
include jazz/rap group Stetsasonic’s “Talkin’ All That Jazz” (1988) and rapper Big Daddy Kane’s
“Young, Gifted and Black” (1989).
327
Rose, Tricia, Black Noise, 73.
149
sampled, the original material or a sampled version.
328
In reformulating specific aspects of Black
musical tradition, sampling is a means of archiving and recirculating Black popular culture,
sharing it with a new generation of listeners.
Rapsody uses “Nina” and her entire album to establish a lineage among Black women
across generations. This is most evident in the latter part of Rapsody’s “Nina” verse, “For the
present and future days, I say what I gotta say/ I am Nina and Roberta, the one you love but ain’t
heard of.” In giving a shout out to Nina Simone and Roberta Flack, Rapsody recognizes the
influence of these two women in popular American music, often through the use of
contemporary artists sampling their music. Michael Eric Dyson suggests that the historicism in
rap “permits young blacks to discern links between the past and their own present circumstances,
using the past as a fertile source of social reflection, cultural creation, and political resistance.”
329

When Rapsody states, “I am Nina and Roberta,” she argues that she is an embodiment of the
legacy of these two women; that in many ways, her music is indebted to them. She additionally
names Nina Simone and Roberta Flack as a method of remembering them and their significance
to Black musical tradition and culture.
Interestingly, when Rapsody performs “Nina” she changes the lyrics to parts of the song,
so that her words always speak to the particular audience being addressed. Before the song was

328
For example, soul/funk group Mtume’s 1983 single “Juicy Fruit” has been sampled so many times that
it has become a hip hop staple. Ironically, Mtume’s founder James Mtume, who wrote and produced
“Juicy Fruit,” criticized the use of sampling in hip hop, which spawned one of the first uses of the song as
a sample for rap group Stetsasonic’s 1988 “Talkin’ All That Jazz.” The most famous use of Mtume’s
sample is the Notorious B.I.G.’s 1994 single “Juicy,” off his debut album Ready to Die. The song title is a
reference and credit to Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit.” Additionally, the chorus for Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” is a
rewording of the first verse of “Juicy Fruit” and the beat is sampled directly from the 1983 remix of
“Juicy Fruit” entitled, “Fruity Instrumental.” R&B, rap, and even pop songs sample or interpolate
elements of either “Juicy Fruit” or “Juicy,” which can be heard in an ongoing list of over one hundred
songs.
329
Dyson, Michael Eric, Reflecting Black, 13-14.
150
released, she performed a version of it at the 2018 Black Girls Rock! awards altering the lyrics to
reflect her audience of Black women. Her performances always include the line “I am Nina and
Roberta, the one you love but ain’t heard of,” but she additionally adds lyrics such as,
It’s that queen in me
I got the gene in me
From all the queens I seen
Emitting that glow, you know
My mama, yo mama, home girls, sisters
Phylicia’s, Aretha’s, Cicely’s, Anita’s

At an awards show celebrating Black women, Rapsody gives an additional shout out to Phylicia
Rashad, Aretha Franklin, Cicely Tyson and Anita Baker. In doing so, she celebrates Black
female performers, relating her performance to the artistry of these women, while simultaneously
revealing an awareness of these Black women as linked artistically, culturally and historically.
Alternatively, when she performed “Nina” at the 2019 BET Hip Hop Awards, the song became a
shout out to female rappers, many of whom were in the audience. She raps, “Cause Nina is a
legend, I’m a future G.O.A.T/ Cardi is a star, Megan drove the boat/ Lauryn was on time when
we needed her the most…/ Nicki is a queen…/ Lil Kim an icon.” While still paying respect to
Nina Simone, she further gives shout outs to other female rappers including newcomers Cardi B.
and Megan Thee Stallion, as well as Lauryn Hill, Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim. “Nina” is a
noteworthy example of shout out culture due to the fact that Rapsody performs the song as an
encompassing shout out to Black women. The entirety of the song is a shout out to Nina Simone,
yet Rapsody manages to fill her lyrics with several intertextual references that explore Black
cultural heritage across generations. Her lyrics exhibit a knowingness about Black history,
cultural legacy and artistic inheritance. I discuss Rapsody’s “Nina” in detail to show the
relationship between shout out culture, signifying, sampling, and hip hop.
151
Rap and rap artists expanded shout out culture, making it an innate feature of popular
Black expression. Hip hop culture has seeped into many different aspects of American culture,
including academia.
330
Occasionally rap shout outs encompass references to popular television
shows within Black popular culture such as when Nicki Minaj raps, “Back to them/ I lead the
pack so my backs to them/ Yep, the queen’s back, What’s Happening?/ Rerun ‘bout to make
these bitches rap again.”
331
She makes an allusion to the 1970s sitcom What’s Happening!!
(1976-1979) and its breakout character Freddy “Rerun” Stubbs. Her shout out is intertextual and
relies on audience knowledge of the show to catch the craftiness of her lyric. Well-liked
characters in primarily Black-cast sitcoms are frequently referenced, such as when Alicia Keys
mentions Good Times characters James and Florida Evans on her song “Unbreakable” (2005).
The song makes references to several well-known couples, “We could fight like Ike and Tina/ Or
give back like Bill and Camille/ Be rich like Oprah and Steadman/ Or instead struggle like Flo
and James Evans.”
332
While the song is about couples who are seen on television, Florida and
James are the only fictional couple she names in the entire song. As previously stated, Good
Times receives numerous intentional mentions within the realm of Black popular culture,
representing its cultural significance among African American audiences. In this instance, shout
outs can be seen as a way of gauging the significance of a television show. Rapper Snoop Dogg’s
verse on the TLC song “Way Back” (2017) additionally makes a Good Times reference, “Now
what the future holds, no one knows/ But the past is a blast, game overload/ It’s like Good Times,

330
African American historian Robin D.G. Kelley concludes his groundbreaking book Race Rebels with a
shout out to Gangsta rap and several rappers. In his book The New H.N.I.C., Todd Boyd refers to what is
generally known as the “Acknowledgment” section as the “Shout Outs” section instead.
331
Nicki Minaj, performer, “Big Bank,” by Sean Anderson, Tauheed Epps, Keenon Jackson, Nye Lee Jr.,
Onika Maraj, and Dijon McFarlane, May 25, 2018, Universal Music Group and Def Jam Recordings,
track 7 on Stay Dangerous, 2020.
332
Alicia Keys, performer, “Unbreakable,” by Alicia Keys, Garry Glenn, Harold Lilly, and Kanye West,
September 13, 2005, J Records, track 5 on Unplugged, 2020.
152
my favorite episodes.”
333
When a character or show gets mentioned in a song or rap lyric, these
are in fact shout outs that illuminate the cyclical nature of Black popular culture. It is through
shout outs that Black pop culture “echoes, mirrors, repeats, revises, or responds to” itself.
334

Within African American cultural discourses, shout out culture should be considered a process
and practice of remembrance and rap music has further developed and expanded this process.
Lifting as They Climb: Television, Generational Influence, and the Importance of
Artistic Heritage

Television shows that feature primarily African American casts are constantly
referencing Black popular culture, and often Black actresses are named and receive shout outs on
these shows. These references work to keep certain actresses and television shows relevant
within Black cultural memory. On the first season of The Bernie Mac Show, Bernie Mac installs
an alarm system after his house is robbed and tries to explain the alarm codes to his nieces and
nephew,
Bernie: If there’s a false alarm the police will call, and you’ve got to give the password.
You got to. And the password is going to be Claudine, ‘cause that’s my favorite movie.
Jordan: I thought your favorite movie was Cooley High?
Bernie: Yeah, well Cooley High’s my favorite Chicago movie, Car Wash is my favorite
L.A. movie, and Claudine’s my favorite New York movie, along with Cotton Comes to
Harlem. Let’s just say that Claudine is my favorite Diahann Carroll movie.
Vanessa: Who’s Diahann Carroll?
Bernie: You don’t know Dia-? Diahann Carroll—let’s move on (as he grabs his
chest).
335

While not explaining to his children who Diahann Carroll is, Bernie Mac’s reaction of shock and
disappointment illustrates her importance to him. Diahann Carroll’s starring role in Claudine is
perhaps her most noteworthy performance among African American audiences, and it is this film

333
Snoop Dogg, performer, “Way Back,” by James Abrahart, Calvin Broadus, Dernst Emile II, and
Tionne Watkins, April 14, 2017, 852 Musiq and Cooking Vinyl, track 2 on TLC, 2020.
334
Gates, Henry Louis, Figures in Black: Words, Signs, and the “Racial” Self (New York: Oxford UP,
1987), xxxi, Ebook.
335
The Bernie Mac Show, 15, “Lock Down,” dir. David Grossman, aired March 6, 2002, on FOX.
153
role that generally gets referenced with her name in Black popular culture. Both Diahann Carroll
and Cicely Tyson were in the audience for the 2017 American Black Film Festival (ABFF)
Honors, and while receiving an award Queen Latifah stated, “Miss Tyson, Miss Carroll, it’s so
wonderful to see [you]. I had the great pleasure of working with Miss Cicely Tyson and you can
learn so much from her in twenty minutes than some people can teach you in a lifetime. She’s
just brilliant to watch and Claudine was one of my favorite movies. It made me feel like I could
do it. So, this is very special.”
336
It’s not Julia or Dynasty (1981-1989), roles where Diahann
Carroll was surrounded by primarily white casts, that get Carroll the majority of her shout outs; it
is her role in Claudine. At the ABFF Honors, Queen Latifah gives both Diahann Carroll and
Cicely Tyson a shout out to show her admiration and respect for two actresses whose artistic
work onscreen have made significant contributions to the cultural imagery of Black women.
Additionally, Queen Latifah’s shout out expresses the kind of reverence Cicely Tyson had
among Black audiences.
Being Black famous provided the context for the many Cicely Tyson references in Black
popular culture. On another episode of The Bernie Mac Show, he watches a sad movie with his
nephew and his niece’s boyfriend, and as the three of them are sobbing, he states, “It’s all right
to cry boys. There’s only three movies a man’s allowed to cry on. One, It’s a Wonderful Life.
Two, Brian’s Song. And three, any movie with Cicely Tyson in it.”
337
Bernie Mac’s Cicely
Tyson reference speaks to the kind of work she was known for, very serious, and often tragic
heroines. Tyson’s staying power within the realm of Black popular culture relates to her
numerous and continuous references. On the Netflix special A Family Reunion Christmas (2019),

336
Queen Latifah, ABFF Honors (2017), dir. Leon Knoles, aired February 22, 2017, on BET.
337
The Bernie Mac Show, 50, “Love Bug,” dir. Reginald Hudlin, aired January 11, 2004, on FOX.
154
three sisters reminisce about the time two of them stopped talking to each other, and actress
Loretta Devine’s character makes a reference to Cicely Tyson as well:
Dot (Jackée Harry): Well remember the time you—what, stopped speaking to me for
about a year-and-a-half because I used some brochure to kill a fly?
Amelia (Loretta Devine): That was not a brochure. That was Ernestine Brown’s funeral
program.
Maybelle (Telma Hopkins): Girl, you didn’t even like Ernestine.
Amelia: But I loved her program! She looked like a young Cicely Tyson.
338

In a scene featuring three Black women, Cicely Tyson’s name is used to invoke the image of a
young beautiful Black woman. In an opposing example on the Netflix comedy special Not
Normal (2019), comedian Wanda Sykes discusses how presidents usually visibly age while in
office, but with Donald Trump everyone else ages, including her. She jokes, “He has cracked
Black. That’s damn near impossible. I was like we gotta get rid of him. Two more years, I’mma
look like Cicely Tyson. She look good, but I ain’t ready. I ain’t ready to go there.”
339
The joke is
humorous only to an audience familiar with Cicely Tyson, and what she looked like. Here
Tyson’s image is used to refer to the image of an older Black woman. Taken together the
examples illustrate Cicely Tyson’s prominence within Black collective memory, as well as her
embodiment of what it means to be Black famous. Black famous is about being ingrained within
Black cultural memory, and Cicely Tyson’s numerous references and shout outs reveal her
importance among Black audiences, especially Black women. Cicely Tyson earned these shout
outs through her engagement with Black cultural politics on screen. If “the true measure of all
cultural producers is the contribution, residual impact, and substantive change that they leave
with the culture they exist in,”
340
then Cicely Tyson’s legacy and generational influence become

338
A Family Reunion Christmas, dir. Robbie Countryman, aired December 9, 2019, on Netflix.
339
Wanda Sykes, Wanda Sykes: Not Normal, dir. Linda Mendoza, aired May 21, 2019, on Netflix.
340
Boyd, Todd, Am I Black Enough for You?: Popular Culture From the ‘Hood and Beyond
(Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1997), 15.
155
increasingly clear based on the numerous shout outs she receives. These frequent references to
Cicely Tyson on television also added to her cultural cachet, helping to keep her relevant within
Black popular culture, while additionally remembering her onscreen legacy.
Often actresses such as Cicely Tyson, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Dorothy Dandridge
and Lena Horne, women who have achieved some notable “first” for a Black actress, are the
ones who receive shout outs from younger Black actresses. Black actresses are aware of the
shoulders and backs that they stand on; they know that they did not achieve success without the
trials and triumphs of the women who came before them. Diahann Carroll was the first Black
actress to star in her own sitcom in a non-domestic role; Dorothy Dandridge was the first Black
woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress; and Lena Horne was the first
Black actress to be given a major studio contract by Hollywood. In the case of Cicely Tyson and
Ruby Dee, it is their longevity and engagement with African American cultural politics that
contributed to their numerous shout outs. Black actresses give these women credit for their
achievements, while also making sure that their hard work and sacrifice is remembered and
celebrated. In an Ebony article written by actress Robin Givens, entitled “Why Are Black
Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” she writes,
The paucity of roles for Black actresses—and Hollywood’s limited vision of us as maids,
hookers, sidekicks and best friends—makes it tremendously difficult for us to keep on
keeping on, never mind find steady work. Yet, despite the enormous obstacles we face
daily, we do. And we do it, in no small way, because of the legacy left to us by Black
actresses who walked this road before us. We do it because of Dorothy Dandridge and
Lena Horne and Josephine Baker—Black women who decades ago fought this very fight
and made our struggles just a little bit easier, our triumph a little bit sweeter.
341

In the opening epigraph, Halle Berry’s Oscars’ shout out to Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and
Diahann Carroll is meant to celebrate the legacy of these actresses’ work and accomplishments,

341
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?” Ebony, June
1991, 36.
156
in addition to demonstrating a lineage of Black women onscreen who are linked through their
artistry and struggle. These actresses helped define particular notions of Black womanhood by
shifting away from the typical subservient roles prevalent in Hollywood, and Berry’s shout out is
intended to illustrate this.
342
Additionally, both Robin Givens and Halle Berry use shout outs to
lift up Black women by invoking the historical experience of notable Black actresses. Givens
mentions these same women partially because there were so few Black actresses who found
work in Hollywood outside of the archetypal maid roles, and their work motivates the women
who grew up watching them to “keep on, keeping on.” Her naming of Dandridge, Horne and
Baker is another act of critical pedagogy, where she imparts generational knowledge about Black
women’s historic experiences in Hollywood to younger Black actresses.
When asked how it made her feel to know that so many women say that she has inspired
them and that they stand on her shoulders, Diahann Carroll responded, “I don’t know that they
stand on my shoulders…because I’d fall down. But what I do like is they are teaching me how to
become closer to our community of young Black women who are actresses, writers, directors,
producers, and…that was not a part of my industry when I started. We were always very
secretive about what projects we were doing because there were practically no projects for any of
us and we wanted to be employed...”
343
Though she gave a coy response, Diahann Carroll was
honest about how the entertainment industry has changed for not only Black actresses but Black
women in the industry as a whole. There was not always a community or camaraderie among
Black actresses, but those who continued to work found ways to mentor up-and-coming Black
women. Carroll continues, “I used to work in nightclubs constantly, so I had a great admiration

342
Ironically, she received her Oscar for a role that is very common for Black women in Hollywood.
343
Carroll, Diahann, “Diahann Carroll Speaks On Her Legacy At Alfre Woodard’s 2013 Sistahs Soiree,”
YouTube, October 4, 2019,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOhw2C4m3D8&list=WL&index=81&t=0s.
157
for Lena Horne, and I don’t think during that period any of us were that generous with our gift,
we were too frightened. But just watching her was very helpful to me and I assume that’s what’s
going on with young people today watching the older group. I hope so.”
344
Lena Horne did not
personally mentor her, yet she still inspired Diahann Carroll and so many other Black performers
and actresses. Whether through actual mentorship or simply watching from afar, Black women
found ways to inspire and lift each other up.
It is the line between competition and camaraderie that Diahann Carroll admits was
difficult for the women in her generation. With so few working Black actresses, it was easier to
keep your distance and compete rather than establish mentorships or even friendships. As Lena
Horne admitted, “Out there in Hollywood, I was completely isolated…Me and the shoeshine boy
were the only two black people out there at the studio, most every day…I made a couple of
stands out there at MGM and I was encouraged on the surface. But the very people that I had
admired and written to for advice to turn down these parts, were sending their sisters or their
cousins.”
345
Both Lena Horne and Diahann Carroll worked in Hollywood at a time where
competition for limited roles prevailed over the impetus for camaraderie and sisterhood.
346
When
considering auditioning for the film Carmen Jones (1954), Diahann Carroll “had a few
apprehensions of my own. I knew enough about the business to realize that just about the only
black actress to achieve anything at all in Hollywood was Lena Horne, and she was usually seen
in a separate segment that could be removed when the film toured the South.”
347
As a Black

344
Carroll, Diahann, “Diahann Carroll Speaks On Her Legacy,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOhw2C4m3D8&list=WL&index=81&t=0s.
345
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, ed. Barbara
Summers, (New York: Stewart, Tabari & Chang), 77.
346
This relates to a common slave practice, where there wasn’t enough to go around, so one slave tries to
bring down the other in order to rise above.
347
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone. Diahann! (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1986), 43-4.
158
actress, Diahann Carroll was aware of the odds of becoming a success in Hollywood; yet, she
looked to Lena Horne’s career to gauge the glass ceiling at the time. In her autobiography
Diahann!, Carroll described her impression of Dorothy Dandridge on the set of Carmen Jones,
“Her vulnerability touched me deeply. Although she was years older and far more experienced, I
found myself wanting to comfort her and take care of her. She had very few friends in the
cast.”
348
At nineteen years old, Diahann Carroll saw first-hand the kind of angst Dorothy
Dandridge experienced simply by attempting to break down doors in Hollywood as a Black
actress. Carroll continues, “On the set she seemed strained and uncomfortable. Off the set she
was painfully shy and self-absorbed, concerned only with improving her performance. So much
was riding on it that she seemed to be living in a constant state of anxiety.”
349
Despite the fact
that Dorothy Dandridge received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Carmen
Jones, when Diahann Carroll saw her again five years later on the set of Porgy and Bess (1959),
she wrote that “the early promise remained unfulfilled and she was wracked with uncertainty.”
350

The Hollywood star system created the desire for Dorothy Dandridge to want to become a star
and it is this same white hierarchal system that destroyed her.
For a long time, many Black actresses succumbed to a “crabs in a barrel”

mentality trying
to become the next Dorothy Dandridge, until they realized that Dandridge’s career is not the
ultimate goal and that they were stronger together.
351
By Diahann Carroll’s own admission, she
was not close friends with Dorothy Dandridge, but she still recognized Dandridge’s potential to
broaden the opportunities available for future African American actresses. Later in her Ebony
article, Robin Givens argues,

348
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone, Diahann!, 48.
349
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone, 48.
350
Carroll, Diahann and Ross Firestone, 48.
351
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” 40.
159
We have been ‘tricked’ into believing there is only one spot and that we must fight each
other tooth and nail to fill it and become ‘the next Dorothy Dandridge.’…We must not
allow the industry or society to dictate our behavior. We must not allow the industry or
society to make us feel insecure or inferior. We must not allow the industry or society to
divide us. There is room for us all to be strong, beautiful, sensual and intelligent women
on screen.
352

Here Robin Givens connects the challenges Black actresses face with larger issues Black women
also deal with. She does not simply place blame on the industry, but additionally recognizes the
connection between how Hollywood treats Black actresses and the systematic devaluation of
Black womanhood in American society. The Hollywood star system does not encompass Black
women in its conception of stardom, and Robin Givens encourages Black actresses to value their
own self-worth when striving for a career as an actress in Hollywood. In the event an African
American actor does achieve success, they are usually male and there is a perceived notion that
only one Black star is allowed into Hollywood at a time.
353
The star system for African
Americans is very much about exceptionalism, individualism, and to a certain extent tokenism,
and Black women use shout outs to challenge this notion. Givens continues, “I also pray that
none of us becomes ‘the next Dorothy Dandridge.’ For as talented and as beautiful as she was,
she was not strong or comfortable with her Blackness. I pray that we, as Black actresses, have
learned from her struggle and her untimely death. This business isn’t worth dying for.”
354
Robin
Givens uses her Ebony article as an opportunity for archiving Black women’s histories onscreen
and struggles working in Hollywood. She tries to warn young actresses seeking Hollywood
stardom of its potential dangers using Dorothy Dandridge’s career as an example. Dorothy
Dandridge is considered both a trailblazer and a cautionary tale of the ultimate price a Black
actress paid attempting to be accepted into a Hollywood star system that was never intended to

352
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” 40.
353
Examples include Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Will Smith.
354
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” 40.
160
support or elevate Black women. As Diahann Carroll wrote, Dorothy Dandridge’s career is an
example of the promise of stardom unfulfilled. The desire to work in an industry that either
ignores or minimizes the talents of African American actresses can create a system of deep
competition, but despite the odds Black actresses have established a kinship of support, respect
and admiration as a result of Hollywood’s continued dismissal.
For Black women “lifting as we climb” and shout outs are a means of actively resisting a
system that does not encompass Blackness in its formation of stardom. In her book, Women,
Culture, and Politics, Angela Davis discusses the importance of the National Association of
Colored Women (NACW) motto to empowering African American women, “our most
efficacious strategies remain those that are guided by the principle used by Black women in the
club movement. We must strive to ‘lift as we climb.’ In other words, we must climb in such a
way as to guarantee that all of our sisters, regardless of social class, and indeed all of our
brothers, climb with us.”
355
African American actresses realize that representation onscreen can
reflect and shape African American’s cultural understanding of themselves, the world and their
place in it. Viola Davis continually credits Cicely Tyson as the actress she saw on screen who
changed her perception of herself. Seeing Tyson on television for a young Viola Davis was a
confirmation that a dark-skinned Black woman can be considered beautiful and make it as an
actress. Davis reasons, “You’re a little Black girl with dark skin and a wide nose. You’re not
cute…you’re nothing. You know, you’re invisible. That’s when you understand the importance
of a role model and when Miss Tyson walked in, I could then reach beyond my circumstances
and see something materialize that made me feel like it was possible.”
356
Before ever meeting

355
Davis, Angela, Women, Culture & Politics (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 5.
356
Jackson, Brian Keith, “The Veterans,” The New York Times, published on April 13, 2020,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-magazine/black-actresses-bassett-berry-blige-henson-
whitfield-elise.html.
161
Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis would shout her out in interviews to give Tyson credit for helping her
to see an alternative depiction of beauty and Black womanhood onscreen. Davis’s career came
full circle when she was able to call on Cicely Tyson for the role of her mother on How to Get
Away with Murder. In this way, shout outs are more than verbal homage, but are tied to Black
women’s efforts to increasingly lift up the careers of other Black women in Hollywood. Angela
Davis argues, “This must be the essential dynamic of our quest for power—a principle that must
not only determine our struggles as Afro-American women, but also govern all authentic
struggles of dispossessed people. Indeed, the overall battle for equality can be profoundly
enhanced by embracing this principle.”
357
In their battle for equal opportunity in Hollywood,
Black actresses have adopted a lifting as they climb approach to empowering themselves and
future African American actresses. Even beyond the race women generation of Black actresses,
“lifting as we climb” remains a useful strategy they employ to motivate each other and mentor
younger up-and-coming Black actresses. Black actresses’ quest for institutional power in
Hollywood is premised on a desire to be seen as human and deserving of opportunities to tell
their own stories. This sense of empowerment for Black women, especially Black actresses,
begins with a “lifting as we climb” approach.
Black actresses can remember the women onscreen they looked to as role models
growing up, and they hope to provide the same kind of influence and inspiration to a new
generation of young Black girls. For these actresses, role models function as a kind of
inheritance and legacy to live up to. Viola Davis, for example, looked up to Cicely Tyson,

357
Angela Davis, Women, Culture, & Politics, 5.
162
Rosalind Cash, Paula Kelly, and Ruby Dee.
358
Actress Jenifer Lewis writes about the importance
of Ruby Dee in her autobiography The Mother of Black Hollywood,
I am proud of Ruby. To me she is the exemplification of what ‘mother of black
Hollywood’ means. She represents how far we’ve come. I grew up watching black
women play characters that, in some ways, stereotyped black womanhood—Hattie
McDaniel in Gone with the Wind, Juanita Moore in Imitation of Life. Don’t get me
wrong: those actresses were well aware of their positions and were doing an honest job.
My point is the heritage is real.
359

Black actresses realize the importance of heritage and legacy, and this knowledge informs them
in their careers as working Black women in Hollywood. Or as Cicely Tyson theorized,
“Whatever good I have accomplished as an actress I believe came in direct proportion to my
efforts to portray black women who have made positive contributions to my heritage.”
360
In the
case of Tyson, these women include Harriet Tubman and Coretta Scott King, among others.
Tyson’s depiction of these women elucidates her notion of heritage and the lineage of Black
women as connected historically. For Taraji P. Henson, her role models were Debbie Allen and
Pam Grier, for Lynn Whitfield it was Diana Sands and Lena Horne, and for Angela Bassett it
was Mary Alice, Diahann Carroll, Gloria Foster, and Diana Ross.
361
For a younger actress like
How to Get Away with Murder’s Aja Naomi King, “growing up I feel lucky that I got to watch so
many amazing women in Hollywood like Viola Davis, and Alfre Woodard, and Gabrielle Union.
And what it taught me was to not limit myself, you know? And not limit the idea of who or what
I could be, and because I got to watch these women play these kinds of roles, I was able to allow

358
Jackson, Brian Keith, “The Veterans,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-
magazine/black-actresses-bassett-berry-blige-henson-whitfield-elise.html.
359
Lewis, Jenifer and Malaika Adero, The Mother of Black Hollywood, 299-300.
360
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World, 27.
361
Jackson, Brian Keith, “The Veterans,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-
magazine/black-actresses-bassett-berry-blige-henson-whitfield-elise.html.
163
myself to dream big.”
362
African American actresses name the Black women they grew up
watching as an acknowledgment of the shoulders they stand on, as well as a showing of
admiration and respect. Robin Givens, who played Cicely Tyson’s daughter in the television
miniseries The Women of Brewster Place (1989), gives her a shout out in her Ebony article, “If
Cicely Tyson, as tired and weary as I am sure she must have become at times during her
illustrious career, had given up, then the dream would not have gotten as far as me. And I know
I’m not alone.”
363
In her shout out to Cicely Tyson, Givens credits her for the success of many
African American actresses, including herself. In doing so, Robin Givens shows her
indebtedness to Cicely Tyson for lifting as she climbed. Cicely Tyson’s generational influence
and legacy onscreen, according to Givens, made it possible for future Black actresses to work.
These shout outs name role models and acknowledge debt to earlier women, but they also are
actively rewriting history by establishing and sustaining an alternative historiography that centers
Blackness and Black women.
Cultural Legacy: Shout Outs, Sisterhood and Black Women’s Ancestral Knowledge
Shout outs are a useful and public way to acknowledge the work of past and present-day
Black actresses. In doing so, shout outs are acts of cultural archiving that actresses use to connect
to previous generations, build community, craft alternative histories of Black womanhood, and
challenge Hollywood to do the same. In what follows, I explore the cultural efforts of African
American actresses whose public acknowledgments of each other’s work collectively rearticulate
ideological understandings of Black womanhood and the struggles of working Black actresses in
Hollywood. Maxine Leeds Craig asserts that everyday Black women “rearticulate the meaning of

362
King, Aja Naomi, “Aja Naomi King on How Dorothy Dandridge Changed Her Outlook in
Hollywood,” YouTube, March 5, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RThDupFih7A&list=WL&index=121.
363
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” 36-7.
164
black racial identity as they position themselves in relation to culturally available images of
black womanhood,”
364
as such, these actresses can be seen as actively taking on this reshaping of
racial meaning, where they intentionally examine imagery of Black womanhood by making
connections between the politics of Black women’s lived experience, representation, and their
position as actresses. Focusing specifically on Black themed award shows, I argue that Black
actresses cultivate their own spaces and create room for themselves to celebrate and shout out
each other and each other’s work, forming a sisterhood that thrives on mentorship and
empowerment, thus creating a legacy and an alternative archive of Black women’s
accomplishments onscreen.
In her memoir, We’re Going to Need More Wine, actress Gabrielle Union discusses the
importance of mentorship among Black actresses, “They trusted that if they uplifted each other,
in twenty years, there might just be more work to go around. Women like Regina King, Tichina
Arnold, Tisha Campbell-Martin, and Jenifer Lewis went out of their way to mentor and educate
the next generation. That empowerment is why we have Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington,
Viola Davis, Sanaa Lathan, and more starring in TV shows and producing films.”
365
In her shout
out to these Black women, Union emphasizes the way Black actresses intentionally mentored
and created opportunities for each other to work. Black actresses are interconnected as a result of
their continued effort to uplift each other’s legacies. It is also their lived experience as Black
women working in a predominantly white industry that connects Black actresses. Gabrielle
Union, as well as many other Black actresses, use shout outs as an in-group acknowledgement of
the interiority of being a working Black actress in Hollywood and the specific struggles that

364
Craig, Maxine Leeds. Ain’t I a Beauty Queen?: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of
Race (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002), 9.
365
Union, Gabrielle. We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True
(New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2017), 191, Kindle Edition.
165
entails. Similarly, Halle Berry states, “I’m really proud to a part of our industry now because
we’re finally understanding that we are stronger together and there doesn’t have to be one of us,
but we can all go and when one goes, we all go.”
366
Berry again reiterates the perception of
Hollywood as limited in its acceptance of Black stars and the industry’s continued acceptance of
tokenism. The “lifting as we climb” strategy implemented by Black actresses has bonded them
together, while simultaneously changed who is working in Hollywood by deliberately hiring
Black actors, writers, and directors.
367

Award show speeches at the Oscars, Golden Globes, or Emmys, are generally used to
thank industry professionals. In the opening example, Halle Berry briefly fulfills her professional
obligation by thanking the Academy; however, her shout out to Black actresses is a call to action
for Hollywood to see the talent of African American actresses as worthy of Academy Awards. In
a space where professional obligation is the norm, Berry’s aberration should be seen as a stake in
Black representational politics, one premised on a conversation with the industry that recognizes
the legacy of African American women onscreen. While Halle Berry’s Oscar speech is about
Black actresses, her message is not to Black actresses. Additionally, shout outs by African
American actresses in mainstream spaces, such as the Oscars, are counter-narratives to the
systemic devaluation of Black womanhood in American society. These shout outs are where
actresses utilize these very mainstream platforms as an intervention into their own stardom and
the stardom of other Black actresses in Hollywood.

366
Jackson, Brian Keith, “The Veterans,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-
magazine/black-actresses-bassett-berry-blige-henson-whitfield-elise.html.
367
Shout outs are also about giving more Black women opportunities to work as an embodiment of lifting
as they climb. Oprah Winfrey’s relationship with Ava DuVernay, as well as Duvernay’s focused effort to
hire Black women writers and directors from different generations illustrates this point.
166
In their efforts to lift as they climb, many Black actresses have formed a sisterhood,
where shout outs are used to empower, demonstrate their gratitude, interconnectedness, and
shared struggles as working actresses. Halle Berry is not the only Black actress to shout out other
Black women at the Academy Awards. At the very end of her acceptance speech at the 79th
Academy Awards for her role in Dream Girls (2006), Jennifer Hudson gives Jennifer Holliday a
shout out.
368
Actress and comedienne Mo’Nique used her Oscars acceptance speech for her role
in Precious (2009) to shout out Hattie McDaniel, “First, I would like to thank the Academy for
showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics. I want to thank Miss Hattie
McDaniel for enduring all that she had to, so that I would not have to.” Hattie McDaniel received
her Oscar in 1940 for her role in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was the first African American
actor ever nominated, and the first to win. However, at the ceremony she had to sit “with her
escort at a rear table away from the Caucasian attendees.”
369
Despite this, she was still grateful
for the opportunity, as expressed in her acceptance speech, “This is one of the happiest moments
of my life…It has made me feel very, very humble and I shall always hold it as a beacon for
anything I may be able to do in the future. I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race
and to the motion picture industry.” Although segregated and relegated to the back of the room,
Hattie McDaniel was honored by the achievement and she nevertheless wanted to respectfully
represent African Americans in her work. Mo’Nique’s shout out to Hattie McDaniel was her way
of remembering and celebrating McDaniel’s accomplishment but also her hard-fought career and
complicated relationship to Hollywood. Mo’Nique additionally connects McDaniel’s legacy to

368
Hudson’s shout out was more an act of cultural obligation for failing to acknowledge Jennifer Holliday
in her Golden Globes acceptance speech, where she instead dedicated the award to the late Florence
Ballard of the Supremes.
369
Mapp, Edward, African Americans and the Oscar: Decades of Struggle and Achievement, 2ed.,
(Lanham: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2008), 2, Ebook.
167
her own, linking the two careers, and bridging the past to the present. Halle Berry and
Mo’Nique’s shout outs in these mainstream white spaces are a critique to the industry’s limited
approach to representing race, and specifically representing Black women onscreen. In these
spaces, the shout out is both a celebration of Black women as well as a form of cultural
resistance, where Black actresses directly challenge Hollywood’s failure to fully represent the
diversity and complexity of African American women. To thank the industry is a matter of
professional obligation, but when African American actresses shout out other Black women, it is
a matter of cultural recognition.
When a performer wins an Oscar, Emmy, or Golden Globe, the expectation and the norm
is to thank the industry and industry related persons who work with you and for you, such as the
managers, agents, publicists, producers, directors, the studio, production company, etc. When
Viola Davis finally won her Academy Award, her speech starts with the typical “Thank you to
the Academy,” but then she states, “You know there’s one place, where all the people with the
greatest potential are gathered. One place—and that’s the graveyard. People ask me all the time,
‘what kind of stories do you want to tell Viola’ and I say exhume those bodies! Exhume those
stories…I became an artist and thank God I did because we are the only profession that
celebrates what it means to live a life. So, here’s to August Wilson...” She gives playwright
August Wilson a shout out before proceeding to thank the usual industry people. Even
positioning Viola Davis in the supporting actress category was a strategic move to better her
chances of winning. She co-starred in Fences (2016) with Denzel Washington and would have
been number two on the call sheet, which more than qualifies her to be placed in the best actress
category. According to Edward Mapp, author of African Americans and the Oscar, “Any
performance by an actor or actress in any role is eligible in either the leading role or supporting
168
category…The dividing line between a leading role and supporting role nomination is arbitrary
because it is often the combined judgment call of the studio, the filmmaker, and to a lesser extent
the performer in question.”
370
The unpredictability of the acting categories makes it even more
difficult for a Black actress to win for a leading performance. Viola Davis won an Academy
Award in the same category she received her first nomination for Doubt (2008), in which she
appeared onscreen for only eight minutes. The Academy Awards for an actor are supposed to be
about performance; however, as Mo’Nique’s speech alludes to, performance is often not the
deciding factor, and awards can often be won by out spending the competition during campaign
season. While an Oscar nomination or even a win would be a tremendous accomplishment, the
dearth of Academy worthy film roles and lack of equal pay, place earning an Oscar outside the
reach of many African American actresses. Even when Black actresses such as Octavia Spencer,
Regina King or Viola Davis are awarded Academy Awards, it does not translate into equal
opportunity or pay. These actresses still rely on television for roles worthy of their talent.
While Viola Davis’s Oscars speech is geared more towards professional obligation, her
Emmy speech is about cultural recognition and being the first Black woman to do something.
Black actresses prioritize cultural recognition, especially when it involves a historical first. When
Viola Davis became the first Black woman to win an Emmy for lead actress in a drama series,
she chose to make her speech and the moment about her fellow Black actresses. As she walks to
the stage, Taraji P. Henson rushes to hug and congratulate her. Viola Davis begins her speech
with a Harriet Tubman quote, “In my mind, I see a line and over that line I see green fields, and
lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line. But
I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.” Viola Davis’s quoting of

370
Mapp, Edward, African Americans and the Oscar, x.
169
Harriet Tubman is akin to sampling via verbal citation, where past Black women’s cultural
expression is mined, transformed and recirculated. Davis not only cites Harriet Tubman, but she
uses her words to demonstrate a historical lineage of struggle, lack of opportunity, but also a
fight towards freedom. In this instance, Davis means representational freedom. Davis’s
engagement with Tubman in her speech is another instance of cultural archiving that centers
Black collective memory and historical experience. Her speech continues,
…the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You
cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So, here’s to all the
writers…Shonda Rhimes. People who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be
sexy, to be a leading woman, to be Black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons, the Kerry
Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods, to Gabrielle
Union, thank you for taking us over that line. Thank you for the television academy.

As she gives her speech, the camera repeatedly cuts to Kerry Washington, who is on the verge of
tears and Taraji P. Henson, who stands and cheers quite audibly, for reaction shots. Viola Davis
gives a shout out to other Black actresses who were all starring or co-starring in a drama series at
the time, and the last three women she honors have never received an Emmy nomination. She
intentionally names other working Black actresses to make sure that her recognition was also
theirs, as well as give these women credit for redefining Black womanhood onscreen. Halle
Berry, Viola Davis, and Mo’Nique shout out other Black actresses to make an argument about
Black women’s value within a Hollywood star system that repeatedly fails to even acknowledge
their existence. Davis and Berry used their speeches and public visibility to advocate for Black
women onscreen. Their voices are being employed to empower Black actresses and challenge
Hollywood to be more inclusive.
In her autobiography, Taraji P. Henson responds to Viola Davis’s speech by writing,
“Viola Davis was dead right when she used her historic 2015 Emmy Award acceptance speech to
contextualize the discussion on inequities in Hollywood… She went on to thank a grip of folk—
170
me included—who are working tirelessly in front of and behind the camera to be the habitual
line-steppers, bringing an influx of quality work to television.”
371
Henson’s comments reiterate
Viola Davis’s intended audience for her speech. In her shout out to Black women on television,
Davis is not speaking directly to Black women. Davis acknowledges them and their presence in a
deliberate political move to show Hollywood that talented dramatic Black actresses do exist and
should be given the opportunity to showcase their abilities. Henson hurried to hug Viola Davis
after her name was called because,
I’m happy when black women win; the significance is important to the whole. If nothing
else, Viola Davis’s Emmy win…got that ‘first black woman to ever win’ thing out of the
way so that everybody could stop harping on it as if badass actresses like Viola, Regina
King, Kerry Washington, Gabrielle Union, Sanaa Lathan, Regina Hall, Jada Pinkett
Smith, Nia Long, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox, and the like haven’t been here, grinding
and putting it down on television and film while the industry collectively slept on our
skills.
372

She continues where Viola Davis left off and keeps the shout outs going, naming names and
acknowledging a host of other working Black actresses. It is important to note that the same
names keep appearing in these shout outs because there are so few Black women in Hollywood
who have been able to find consistent and quality work commensurate with their talent. The
Black women who have been able to sustain their careers are very aware of each other’s
existence, and shout outs recognize this. Many Black actresses consider themselves part of a
collective, where a win for one is a win for all, reiterating the “lifting as we climb” practice. In
other words, Viola Davis’s win is perceived to be one step towards improving the plight of all
Black actresses in Hollywood and Davis’s crossing over the metaphorical line will soon be
followed by her fellow Black actresses. Taraji P. Henson concludes her discussion of Viola
Davis’s win by arguing that, “Perhaps what was most important about Viola’s win was her lifting

371
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl, 193, Kindle Edition.
372
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, 199-200, Kindle Edition.
171
her voice on our behalf, insisting that Hollywood follow in the footsteps of showrunners like
Shonda Rhimes and Lee Daniels in opening its eyes—and its scripts—to the physical, emotional,
mental, and social complexities of black womanhood and all the possibilities that lie in its
exploration.”
373
For Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis’s speech was about demanding Hollywood
give more Black actresses opportunities to work, but also to see Black women as existing in the
same space, with the same talent as white actresses. This is another way of asking Hollywood to
see Black actresses as human beings with mental, social and emotional complexities. In
discussing the opportunities available to Black women in Hollywood, Viola Davis argues,
“There’s not enough opportunities out there to bring that unknown, faceless Black actress to the
ranks of the known.”
374
Therefore, Viola Davis’s shout out at the Emmy awards had a dual
function that both honored Black women and critiqued Hollywood. While Black actresses have
often created opportunities for themselves by becoming producers and directors, there is still a
need for Hollywood at large to open its doors so that more Black women can walk through.
Awards shows and ceremonies specifically for African Americans in the entertainment
industry are an affirmation of Black talent and achievement. They are intended to recognize,
celebrate, and lift up the Black artists who may never receive mainstream accolades. While they
do applaud and acknowledge the work and talent of “A-list” Black stars such as Beyoncé, Halle
Berry, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, or Oprah Winfrey, they also highlight the talents of
African Americans who may never earn a Grammy, Emmy, Oscar, or Golden Globe. Awards
that focus primarily on the achievements of African Americans include the American Black Film
Festival (ABFF) Honors, the BET Awards, the BET Hip Hop Awards, the NAACP Image

373
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl, 199-200, Kindle Edition.
374
Saraiya, Sonia, “Viola Davis: ‘My Entire Life Has Been a Protest,”
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/cover-story-viola-davis.
172
Awards, and the Soul Train Awards. These ceremonies honor and celebrate African Americans
in film, television, music, and sports, and they may be the only recognition many African
Americans in the entertainment industry receive.
Black themed award shows promote and encourage counterdiscourses to Hollywood’s
perception of Black artists and Black talent, allowing those who attend the possibility of
communal engagement in a space designated for Black popular expression and artistic
celebration. Conversely, Herman Gray argues that Black themed award shows “that celebrate
‘diversity,’ are contemporary scenes of subjection where subject(ion) proceeds on the
recognition of difference, the affirmation of entrepreneurial success, class mobility,
respectability, and moral responsibility.”
375
According to Gray, the corporate sponsorship at
these events makes them a “branded space cluttered with product placements, ads, and
celebrities.”
376
Ultimately, he cautions against the limitations of quests for increased visibility
and access to representation as it can “engender new forms of subjection and marginalization.”
377

Gray is correct in asserting these spaces lack the ability to create systemic change in Hollywood;
additionally, I add that these spaces are in fact capable of implementing smaller material and
practical change. I argue that these award shows provide opportunities for African American
artists to showcase and foster their own accomplishments in a communal, counterpublic space,
thus, providing a separate space, and breath of fresh air away from the exclusion and
institutionalized racism present in Hollywood for the African American attendees. These are
spaces where Black identity is not seen as monolithic, and the diversity and complexity of
African American culture is given a platform. In these spaces, shout outs are an individual way

375
Gray, Herman, “Subject(ed) to Recognition,” American Quarterly 65:4 (2013): 788.
376
Gray, Herman, “Subject(ed) to Recognition,” 788.
377
Gray, Herman, 791.
173
of establishing one’s connection to African American history and identity. It is also a way of
acknowledging significant Black cultural figures that would otherwise remain unknown and/or
forgotten. Additionally, award shows such as the BET Awards, the NAACP Image Awards and
the ABFF Honors create opportunities for different generations of African American artists and
performers to come together, interact, and celebrate each other’s accomplishments. Some of the
biggest and most talked about moments from the BET Awards are those that involve performers
from different generations coming together, such as at the 2007 BET Awards, when Jennifer
Holliday joined Jennifer Hudson onstage to perform the song that made both women famous,
“And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.”
378
This moment was about Jennifer Hudson
acknowledging and paying homage to Holliday for her breakthrough performance of the song.
Another memorable moment occurred when Alicia Keys performed in 2008 and paid tribute to
1990s R&B and hip hop by bringing on stage the groups SWV, En Vogue and TLC to perform
with her. Alicia Keys inviting these female groups to perform was a moment of historical revival
and remembrance. Shout outs in these spaces are about connectivity and community, and do not
have the same dual function as shout outs in mainstream spaces.
Although the BET Awards is a performance-centered awards show, other ceremonies
such as the ABFF Honors focus on acting achievement and bringing together Black actors from
different generations. The 2017 ABFF Honors began with an introduction from Queen Sugar
(2016-Present) actor Kofi Siriboe, Insecure’s (2016-Present) Jay Ellis, Alexandra Shipp, and
Kylie Bunbury.
379
All of whom gave brief remarks that demonstrated the importance of legacy
and honoring those who paved the way for a younger generation of Black actors and actresses to

378
Jennifer Holliday was the original Effie White in the Broadway production of Dreamgirls, and
Jennifer Hudson played the role in the film adaptation.
379
Alexandra Shipp, played Storm in the X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and Kylie Bunbury starred in the
short-lived FOX series Pitch (2016).
174
succeed. This introduction and the subsequent monologue from host Regina Hall foreground’s
the ceremony’s purpose. Hall’s opening monologue states, “We gonna pay tribute to present day
greatness as well as those who blazed the trail. In fact, in what other room would you see two of
the world’s most legendary actresses, Ms. Diahann Carroll and Ms. Cicely Tyson.”
380
Regina
Hall’s shout out to Cicely Tyson and Diahann Carroll, both of whom received audible audience
adulation when named, illustrates the importance of legacy, tradition, and cultural recognition to
African Americans in the entertainment industry. Black cultural tradition has always
encompassed acknowledging those who came before, whether it be historical figures or those
who made an impact on the culture. This is why Cicely Tyson, who Viola Davis referred to as
“our national treasure,”

consistently received shout outs when she was present at these
ceremonies and in the audience.
381
For example, at the NAACP Image Awards in 1999,
basketball legend Michael Jordan used part of his speech to give Tyson a shout out for his
mother, “Cicely Tyson is my mother’s favorite and for me to see her and my mother seeing her
through me, believe me when I get back I’mma tell her I ran into you Cicely.”
382
Cicely Tyson’s
legacy and contributions to Black culture are maintained and underscored in the way performers
gave her shout outs at Black-themed award shows.
Unlike the Academy Awards, the NAACP Image Awards are about identity-based
representations and positive imagery. At the 30
th
NAACP Image Awards, co-host Mariah Carey
announced, “The Image Awards were established to honor the accomplishments of artists and
individuals who have worked to bring about positive images and meaningful opportunities for
African Americans in the arts.”
383
Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Cicely Tyson, Kerry

380
Regina Hall, ABFF Honors (2017), dir. Leon Knoles, aired February 22, 2017, on BET.
381
Viola Davis, ABFF Honors (2017), on BET.
382
Michael Jordan, NAACP Image Awards, dir. Chuck Vinson, aired March 4, 1999, on FOX.
383
Mariah Carey, NAACP Image Awards, on FOX.
175
Washington, and Viola Davis have all earned NAACP Image Awards. In 1987, Esther Rolle was
inducted into the NAACP Hall of Fame, and she was additionally given the NAACP Chairman’s
Civil Rights Leadership Award in 1990. In 2010, Cicely Tyson became the 95
th
recipient of the
NAACP Spingarn Medal, the organization’s highest honor. Tyson was presented the award by
Kerry Washington, who gave her “one of the most incredible introductions I have had in my
entire career. I sat there with my mouth wide open because it was so clear that she had done her
homework.”
384
It was at this event that Cicely Tyson got the opportunity to get to know Kerry
Washington. In Cicely Tyson’s response to receiving the award, she stated, “I have had the good
fortune of being acknowledged for accomplishments throughout my career, but the fact that I am
now being recognized for what has been my life’s goal by the most distinguished organization
within our community is moving beyond words.”
385
Esther Rolle makes a comparable statement
after being inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame; she was moved by the award
because “it was from my own. I have never been given the chance I deserve in the mainstream
industry. Black Film, on the other hand, has seen something in me that mainstream didn’t see or
acknowledge.”
386
For Rolle, it was “so good to be appreciated, especially when you didn’t do it
to be noticed, but to be free…An Oscar could never shake me up like this.”
387
In confessing her
relative exclusion from mainstream Hollywood awards, Esther Rolle placed greater significance
on awards received by Black institutions, and these were the majority of accolades she received.
She also connects her work onscreen to a sense of freedom, and how Hollywood stardom was
never her intended goal. Mark Anthony Neal argues, “The need to create and maintain covert

384
Galanes, Philip, “For Cicely Tyson and Kerry Washington, Roles of a Lifetime,” New York Times,
September 26, 2013.
385
“NAACP Names Cicely Tyson 95
th
Spingarn Medalist,” NAACP, April 1, 2010,
https://www.naacp.org/latest/naacp-names-cicely-tyson-95th-spingarn-medalist/.
386
Stewart, Leisha, “Good Times Continue For ‘Good Times’ Star,” Ebony, June 1991, 66.
387
“Stars Gather for Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame Gala In Oakland, Calif.” Jet, March 25, 1991, 62.
176
social spaces as a means of building and maintaining community becomes an enduring force
within the African-American diaspora.”
388
While not covert, though often broadcast on television
networks catered to Black audiences, these award ceremonies are about communal bonding, and
understanding the importance of legacy and cultural recognition.
These award shows should be considered kinship rituals that allow Black actresses to
sustain the sisterhood and camaraderie they have created for each other. A sense of community is
a significant reason why so many Black actresses and performers attend these award shows.
Sheila Radford-Hill in Further to Fly argues, “In its best sense, the black community embodies
history and a feeling of connectedness with those who have similar traditions and a specific
national, racial, and ethnic identity. Common characteristics of community include similar forms
of cultural expression, religious or spiritual traditions, and kinship rituals.”
389
The historical
connectedness of Black actors is foregrounded at many of these award ceremonies. For example,
when actress Tracee Ellis Ross won her sixth consecutive Image Award in 2020 for her role on
Black-ish, she stated:
Thank you NAACP for your work and for giving us a place to gather and to acknowledge
each other and to see each other…“We too often have been expected to be all things to all
people and to speak everyone else’s position but our very own,” said Audre Lorde about
us as Black women. Our experiences and stories are way too often told through
interpreters and history. Systems and laws have told us that we need a man’s voice or
power to name our existence, to validate our experiences, that we need a son to carry on a
legacy, to etch our impact in time, but we get to define ourselves, not through how others
imagine us but through how we see ourselves even if our truth makes you
uncomfortable.
390

This speech merits quoting at length as it further demonstrates the importance of these spaces for
Black women, and how Black actresses use their voice and visibility as tools for Black women’s

388
Neal, Mark Anthony, What the Music Said, 26.
389
Radford-Hill, Sheila, Further to Fly: Black Women and the Politics of Empowerment (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota UP, 2000), 77, Ebook.
390
Tracee Ellis Ross, 51
st
NAACP Image Award, dir.Tony McCuin, aired February 22, 2020, on BET.
177
empowerment. Therein lies the key difference between shout outs in mainstream spaces, and
shout outs in spaces “where Blackness has been normalized.”
391
At Black themed award shows,
Black actresses use shout outs to speak directly to each other and to other Black women as a
method of relating Black women’s legacies. Tracee Ellis Ross samples an Andre Lorde quote to
argue that Black women’s voices need to be heard. Her use of Lorde adds to an archival
paradigm of Black women’s voices that Black actresses specifically insert into the legacy of the
shout out. Similar to Viola Davis’s Harriet Tubman citation, Ellis Ross cites Andre Lorde to help
make an argument in her speech about Black womanhood. She directly acknowledges the
devaluation of Black womanhood in American society, but also the need for Black women to
actively participate in rearticulating the imagery of Black women onscreen. Her speech
concludes with several shout outs to Black women:
I’m honored to be in the company of Jill, Tiffany, Yara, and Logan, each whose voices
transcend the real estate of their designated roles. I am honored to be in the era of Ava,
Issa, Lena, Melina, Janelle, Viola, Rihanna, Lizzo, Kerry, Rashida…and the list goes on.
And I am humbled to learn from the legacies of Moms Mabley, Lena Horne, Cicely
Tyson, Ruby Dee, Diahann Carroll, Maxine Waters, my mom, Rosa Parks, Maya
Angelou, Nina Simone and Toni Morrison and I love being a part of this ever-growing
chorus of Black women owning our own legacies.
392

Tracee Ellis Ross contextualizes her career as a Black actress within the history of other Black
women and Black female performers. She first gives a shout out to her fellow nominees, Jill
Scott, Logan Browning, Tiffany Haddish, and Yara Shahidi. Followed by shout outs to other
Black women who are writers, creators, directors, musicians and actresses.
393
She only states
their first names, as she is in a space where there is an insider assumption of first name

391
Boyd, Todd, The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip Hop (New York: NYU
Press, 2003), 23.
392
Tracee Ellis Ross, 51
st
NAACP Image Award, on BET.
393
These women include: Ava Duverney, Issa Rae, Lena Waithe, Melina Matsoukas, Janelle Monáe,
Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, and Rashida Jones.
178
recognition being sufficient enough to identify the women she refers to. Tracee Ellis Ross ends
her speech by naming the Black women who came before her and whose legacies she stands on,
demonstrating an interconnectedness in their work and hers, binding her legacy to theirs.
Black women on television have formed a collective knowledge that embraces,
acknowledges and builds on the work of previous generations of Black actresses. These actresses
are agents in the cultural production of African American images and their work is in constant
dialogue with each other; in doing so, these actresses place themselves within larger cultural
discourses surrounding African American television representation. They do so as a means of
survival in an industry that has continually expressed little to no interest in representing the
diversity and complexity of Black women. Sheila Radford-Hill posits, “community is a pathway
for black personal survival and social transformation. Communities are networks and historical
connections through which people learn the interplay between individual aspirations and shared
group expectations.”
394
In learning from the legacies of Lena Horne, Cicely Tyson, Ruby Dee,
and Diahann Carroll, Tracee Ellis Ross cultivates a sense of community among Black actresses
and Black women. For Ross, who has been nominated for four Emmy awards for her role on
Black-ish but has never won, the Image Awards are her opportunity to thank the women who
helped her get there. She recognized the limited opportunities available for Black women to be
acknowledged and heard, so she used her acceptance speech to shout out Black women in the
entertainment industry. Even though this was her sixth straight win, she still believed it necessary
and important to give a meaningful speech that underscored her relationship to Black women
historically and the Black women she considers her peers. Black actresses frequently use the

394
Radford-Hill, Sheila, Further to Fly, 77.
179
platform given to them at these award ceremonies to shout out other Black women, maintaining a
cultural-historical lineage that exists among them.
Black women have also established events specifically for themselves, such as Oprah
Winfrey’s 2005 Legend’s Ball, where she honored twenty-five Black women in music, film,
television, poetry, literature, and civil rights. She honored Black actresses such as Diahann
Carroll, Ruby Dee, Lena Horne, and Cicely Tyson. At the time, these women were living
legends, who each contributed something unique and legendary to the representation of Black
women on screen. And these are the same women Black actresses often credit as their role
models. Oprah Winfrey declares, “I am grateful and blessed because those women whose names
made the history books, and a lot who did not, are all bridges that I’ve crossed over to get to this
side. I stand here on solid ground because of them. I am a product of every other black woman
before me who has done or said anything worthwhile. Recognizing that I am a part of that history
is what allows me to soar.”
395
She positions her success through the history of Black women in
America, and her Legend’s Ball is an example of Winfrey placing herself in the role of cultural
archivist by celebrating Black women’s cultural significance. Oprah Winfrey’s Legend’s Ball
was a once in a lifetime event, but Black women have also created annual events that
commemorate their accomplishments and achievements. Ceremonies and events such as Black
Girls Rock! (est. 2006), Essence Black Women in Hollywood (est. 2007), and Alfre Woodard’s
Sistah’s Soirée (est. 2009) are held every year. Essence Black Women in Hollywood is a
luncheon hosted by Essence magazine, a periodical targeted exclusively toward Black women.
Actress Alfre Woodard hosts a pre-Oscars celebration for Black women in Hollywood to
commemorate each other’s annual achievements. Black Girls Rock! is an awards ceremony

395
Lanker, Brian, I Dream A World, 66.
180
founded by former DJ and model Beverly Bond that celebrates the “strength, beauty and
brilliance of Black women” in entertainment, science, business, civil rights activism, and
music.
396

Within these primarily Black spaces, shout outs exist as a form of community building
and recognition. There is an acknowledgement of other Black women as sisters and Black
actresses have formed a sisterhood built on a shared occupation, sense of purpose, and a striving
to create a legacy. At these ceremonies, Black women make it a habit to shout out and celebrate
each other. Television host, author, and scholar, Melissa Harris-Perry argues, “Stories of black
excellence are particularly powerful for countering derogatory racial images because African
Americans have historically relied on ‘fictive kinship’ ties. The term fictive kinship refers to
connections between members of a group who are unrelated by blood or marriage but who
nonetheless share reciprocal social or economic relationships.”
397
Harris-Perry uses the term
sisters when referring to Black women to “draw on the deep tradition of black fictive kinship.”
398

Employing Harris-Perry’s concept of fictive kinship, I argue that Black actresses too use the term
sisters or ‘sistah’ to express a kind of familial bond and connectedness. In discussing the
sisterhood among Black actresses, Viola Davis reasons, “I feel like I’m a part of a group. I feel a
sisterhood. At the end of the day, I don’t think that you can get anywhere without connection and
especially in a business that we keep criticizing as being deprived of Black narratives. So, I have
to feel a kinship. I really do.”
399
By unifying and lifting each other up as women, Black actresses
have established fictive kinships of sisterhood to create opportunities for themselves in

396
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black Girls Rock! (2016), dir. Joe DeMaio, aired April 5, 2016, on BET.
397
Harris-Perry, Melissa, Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America (New Haven:
Yale UP, 2011), 102, Ebook.
398
Harris-Perry, Melissa, Sister Citizen, 102.
399
Jackson, Brian Keith, “The Veterans,” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/t-
magazine/black-actresses-bassett-berry-blige-henson-whitfield-elise.html.
181
Hollywood. In 2019, Alfre Woodard could not make it to the Sistah’s Soirée, but she understood
the importance of the event and wanted it to continue with or without her, so she asked fellow
actresses CCH Pounder and Lorraine Toussaint to host. There are no television cameras at this
event, because it is meant to be a safe space where Black women are free to have unfiltered
conversations without fear of outside judgement.
Unlike the Oscars, Emmy’s or even the NAACP Image Awards, Essence Black Women
in Hollywood and Black Girls Rock! give Black women the time and opportunity to be heard.
The time constraints of an awards speech do not generally allow people to fully thank everyone,
but at Black Girls Rock! and Essence Black Women in Hollywood the honorees are intentionally
given a stage without those same time restrictions. For example, at the 2019 Black Girls Rock!
ceremony, Regina King used the entirety of her speech to thank numerous Black women, stating
Because this is my season, I know that this is an opportunity for me to shine light on all
of those Black women that are the reason why I’m here. I’m here not just because of a lot
of Black women, but this is our night to shine a light on us, ‘cause we need to have that.
And that’s what I want to take this moment to do. So, it’s a long list; it’s gonna be like a
college graduation but we’re about to do this.
400

After successfully winning both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her role in If Beale
Street Could Talk (2018), Regina King attended the Black Girls Rock! ceremony and thanked all
the Black women she did not have the opportunity to mention in her other acceptance speeches.
She proceeds to thank and shout out a host of Black women for several minutes, including Taraji
P. Henson, Gabrielle Union, Regina Hall, Kerry Washington, Tracee Ellis Ross, and Angela
Bassett.
401
For Regina King, these are all women who have “touched my life in such a positive
way. You have been an advisor, or an accomplice at times, you’ve lifted me up, you’ve been an

400
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), dir. Sandra Restrepo, aired September 8, 2019, on BET.
401
She additionally names: Jackée Harry, Vivica A. Fox, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, Maya
Rudolph, Issa Rae, Mara Brock Akil, Shonda Rhimes, Niecy Nash, Ava Duverney, Oprah Winfrey, and
Michelle Obama.
182
inspiration, or you’ve just been an example of grace and I love and appreciate each one of
you.”
402
Both her Oscars and Golden Globe acceptance speeches primarily thank industry
people, and she is given less than two minutes in each instance.
403
The contrast in these speeches
again shows the difference between professional obligation and cultural recognition. Black Girls
Rock! provides Regina King the time and platform to thank all of the Black women who have
influenced, befriended or mentored her, and she utilizes this opportunity to shout them out.
Honorees are notably expected to give speeches, and both Black Girls Rock! and Essence Black
Women in Hollywood are arranged around these speeches that validate the talent, worth and
humanity of Black women.
By celebrating African American women, who have excelled in their field, Black Girls
Rock! aims to provide oppositional readings of Black female identity that directly challenge the
devaluation of Black womanhood. Each year, the show only honors a small group of women, and
some of the awards given include, the “Rock Star,” “Shot Caller,” “Star Power,” “Icon,” “Living
Legend” and “Community Change Agent.” In 2012 Kerry Washington was given the “Star
Power” award and Cicely Tyson received the “Living Legend” award in 2015. At the 2019 Black
Girls Rock! ceremony, founder Beverly Bond explains the origin and impetus behind the awards
show,
It was about 13 years ago when…I visualized a moment that would challenge
stereotypical social constructs of Black womanhood and the restraining depictions of how
the world defined us. Black Girls Rock! emerged as an intervention to re-center our
balance of power in a society that persistently told us that our Black girl-ness was less
than. History will see Black Girls Rock! as the demarcation point of when we rose. This
movement induced a seismic paradigm shift that armed our spirits and recalibrated the

402
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), on BET.
403
During her Golden Globes speech, the music starts to cut her off just as she states that she will be
using this platform to make a vow that for the next two years anything she produces will be 50% women
and she challenges the audience to stand with her in solidarity and do the same thing. The music did stop
once producers realized she was making a noteworthy point.
183
measures of our humanity, womanhood, Blackness and beauty, so that we could reclaim
our power.
404

Black Girls Rock! is intended to provide counter-narratives to the image and perception of Black
women. In honoring Black women, providing a space that celebrates their cultural and political
activity, Black Girls Rock! becomes a site of resistance, attempting to counter the mainstream,
and often racist stereotypes of Black women. The ceremony aims to empower Black women by
giving them a voice, showcasing the diversity of African American culture and African
American women, thereby disrupting traditional narratives of what it means to be a Black
woman in America. Taraji P. Henson argues, “There is no one way to present a black woman; we
have a voice and we have the right not only to have that voice but also to see it reflected back at
us on the screen. Time and again, I’ve lost roles because someone with the ability to green-light
a film couldn’t see black women beyond a very limited purview he or she thought ‘fit’ audience
expectations.”
405
This is why so many Black actresses have formed a sisterhood and use their
voices and visibility to counter Hollywood’s limited perception of Black actresses and their
talent. Furthermore, Beverly Bond created Black Girls Rock! as a vehicle to honor Black
women’s humanity and beauty, giving Black women the power and occasion to be heard, while
being surrounded by other Black women.
Black Girls Rock! brings Black women together to share in the collective knowledge that
Black women have formed for themselves, what Patricia Hill Collins theorizes as Black feminist
thought. According to Hill Collins, “the legacy of struggle among U.S. Black women suggests
that a collectively shared, Black women’s oppositional knowledge has long existed. This
collective wisdom in turn has spurred U.S. Black women to generate a more specialized

404
Beverly Bond, Black Girls Rock! (2019), dir. Sandra Restrepo, aired September 8, 2019, on BET.
405
Henson, Taraji and Denene Millner, Around the Way Girl, 201, Kindle Edition.
184
knowledge, namely, Black feminist thought as critical social theory.”
406
Black women’s
collective wisdom is premised on the ancestral knowledge passed down from generations of
Black women. This is what Maya Angelou implies in her poem “Our Grandmothers,” and this is
why Viola Davis and Tracee Ellis Ross use quotes from notable past Black women; it is a way to
share and circulate generational knowledge. Patricia Hill Collins further argues that, for Black
women “constructed knowledge of self emerges from the struggle to replace controlling images
with self-defined knowledge deemed personally important, usually knowledge essential to Black
women’s survival.”
407
Historically, Black women have created a specific and shared knowledge
that works to shift and rearticulate the image of Black women in America. That knowledge, for a
Black actress, incorporates a historical understanding of the women who came before and
attempted to challenge, in some small way, how Black women are represented onscreen. On
television, these women include Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, and Esther Rolle.
Shout outs are important to the continued survival of Black popular expression; for Black
actresses, they are vital to the fictive kinship that they have formed for themselves. As Black
women, Black actresses endeavor to empower each other as a collective to stand strong against
the institution that employs them, Hollywood. As Robin Given suggests, “For in talking with my
sister-actresses, I realized that not only do we have in common the richness of our Blackness and
the strength of our struggle, we also share its burdens…we Black actresses share—the hurt of
being Black in an industry that has a hard time accepting, never mind embracing, the beauty and
power of our Blackness.”
408
The sisterhood and community that Black actresses have established
for themselves is premised on a shared experience of rejection, the want and need to be

406
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics
of Empowerment, 2ed. (New York: Routledge, 2000), 12.
407
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought, 100.
408
Givens, Robin, “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in Hollywood?,” 37.
185
represented, and the communal knowledge that comes with being a working actress in
Hollywood. Black Girls Rock! and Essence Black Women in Hollywood are spaces where Black
actresses can foster this sense of sisterhood and camaraderie. Shout outs are a practical method
of publicly recognizing the value of the cultural and political contributions of other African
American leaders, performers, and artists.
African American actresses use shout outs to establish connections and maintain a
sisterhood, to celebrate each other’s talent, to recognize a shared struggle, and to acknowledge a
cultural inheritance and continued legacy of Black women on screen. Before the start of the 2020
Essence Black Women in Hollywood luncheon, Kerry Washington walked down the red carpet
with Lexi Underwood, the sixteen-year-old actress who plays her daughter in the Hulu series
Little Fires Everywhere (2020). This was not a publicity stunt to advertise the series, though it
did inevitably advertise the show, which had yet to premiere; it was instead Kerry Washington’s
way of mentoring a young Black actress. She literally walks Underwood down a path to
metaphorically show her a pathway to the industry, to being a successful Black actress, and to
being a voice for younger women of her generation and future generations. During the ceremony,
Kerry Washington gave a speech paying tribute to the late Diahann Carroll. She begins her
speech, “Thank you Essence. Thank you sisters. I love this luncheon, such an important
opportunity for us to celebrate and honor and just love on one another.”
409
Kerry Washington
imagines the space as an intimate community of Black women, a sisterhood. She then details
some of the personal experiences she had with Carroll, such as when the two “presented at the
Emmy’s together, where Miss Carroll had her own version of Kanye at the VMA’s moment. She

409
Kerry Washington, Essence Black Women in Hollywood (2020), Essence, February 14, 2020,
https://www.essence.com/awards-events/red-carpet/black-women-hollywood/watch-the-entire-essence-
black-women-in-hollywood-awards/.
186
demanded on stage that the Television Academy reward me with the Best Actress trophy—they
did not. That historic first went to Viola a few years later, deservedly so. But as we stood on
stage holding hands, I referred to Ms. Carroll as my hero…”
410
Kerry Washington contextualizes
her own relationship with Diahann Carroll to show Carroll’s importance to her career. She also
gives Viola Davis a shout out for being the first Black woman to win the Emmy for lead actress
in a drama series.
While other award shows such as the Emmys featured Diahann Carroll in a “In
Memoriam” tribute video with other recently deceased actors, Essence Black Women in
Hollywood specifically selected Kerry Washington to give a speech about Diahann Carroll’s
career and legacy. She personalizes the speech by establishing a clear line of influence between
Carroll’s work and her own, “I’ve stated so many times, but it needs to be said here again, that
there would be no Olivia Pope without Julia or Dominique Devereaux, for that matter. And there
would be no Kerry Washington without Diahann Carroll. That I am here, that we are all here,
working and thriving in Hollywood is because she did the work first.”
411
These remarks
demonstrate a kind of television heritage, where representations of Black women on television
are tethered to each other. As the speech continues, Kerry Washington further contextualizes
Diahann Carroll’s significance to Black women and Black actresses,
She was one of the brave souls who laid the foundation and led by example. And she did
it with elegance, and style and breathtaking grace, and a determination to be. And to be
seen, to be heard, to be respected, because she knew that she deserved to be. She knew
that we all deserved to be. She fought for our collective narrative to include the beauty
and the complexity of us. And she fought that fight on screen and off along with

410
This is an intertextual reference to the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, where Kanye West
interrupted singer Taylor Swift on stage during her acceptance speech for Best Female Video to argue that
Beyoncé deserved the award instead. Kerry Washington, Essence, https://www.essence.com/awards-
events/red-carpet/black-women-hollywood/watch-the-entire-essence-black-women-in-hollywood-
awards/.
411
Kerry Washington, https://www.essence.com/awards-events/red-carpet/black-women-
hollywood/watch-the-entire-essence-black-women-in-hollywood-awards/.
187
representing us on stage…She also made her presence felt on the front lines of the civil
rights movement. She showed up, she spoke up, she marched with her people, she stood
with us…When she was going through her mother’s belongings, Suzanne found a piece
of paper written in her mother’s handwriting, and it said, “The world is better because of
me, an American Black woman.” And to that, I say—Indeed. And now it is on us as
Black women in Hollywood, all of us in this room. That means you too Lexi Underwood,
to look to Miss Carroll’s example and to honor her legacy by continuing to make the
world a better place with our Black woman selves. To embrace our beauty, our value, and
our work while we do it.
412

Kerry Washington’s speech merits quoting at length as she is able to share Diahann Carroll’s
cultural legacy with the people it mattered to the most—Black women. In many ways,
Washington rewrites Diahann Carroll’s history for African Americans who may have dismissed
Carroll for her work on Julia. Through critical pedagogy, Washington also shares her knowledge
of and experiences with Diahann Carroll to a younger generation of actresses like Lexi
Underwood, who may have been unaware of who Carroll was and how her cultural work paved
the way for the careers of many other African American actresses, including Kerry Washington.
Her speech was an intentional act of cultural archiving, where she emphasizes the significance of
Diahann Carroll’s cultural legacy and exemplifies how Black actresses are interconnected as a
result of a continued effort to uplift each other’s legacy. Additionally, Kerry Washington takes
the time to single out her young co-star by giving her a shout out, so that she understands the
importance of her words and the meaning of legacy. Her shout out to Lexi Underwood is a direct
challenge to pick up the baton and continue the work and legacy of Black actresses, who lift as
they climb. Black actresses demonstrate the significance of shout out culture as a continuation
and efficient means of embodying a ‘lifting as we climb’ approach. Shout outs are an intrinsic
part of Black culture that connect African American actresses to a cultural tradition that
empowers their sense of belonging and places them within a history of Black actresses onscreen.

412
Washington, https://www.essence.com/awards-events/red-carpet/black-women-hollywood/watch-the-
entire-essence-black-women-in-hollywood-awards/.
188
However, Black women have demonstrated a need for separate spaces, especially Black
actresses, where they can continue the legacy built on the trials and triumphs of Black actresses
in Hollywood such as Diahann Carroll, Nell Carter, Ruby Dee, Ja’net DuBois, Eartha Kitt, Hattie
McDaniel, Della Reese, Beah Richards, Esther Rolle, Roxy Roker, Isabel Sanford, Ethel Waters,
and the late Cicely Tyson.

189
CONCLUSION
“I WANT THE FREEDOM TO DO WHAT I WANT TO DO”: CULTURAL ARCHIVING, RACIAL
REARTICULATION, AND LIFTING AS THEY CLIMB

We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation is us. Our
politics evolve from a healthy love for ourselves, our sisters, and our community which allows us to
continue our struggle and work.
413

-The Combahee River Collective

Before the start of the 2021 Essence Black Women in Hollywood ceremony, seventeen-
year-old actress Storm Reid hosted the red carpet and interviewed one of the honorees, fellow
actress Zendaya. After asking the usual red-carpet questions, such as who designed her dress,
Storm Reid begins to thank Zendaya for being a constant inspiration. As she tries to explain why
Zendaya inspires her, Reid starts to cry. Zendaya hugs the young actress and wipes away her
tears, until Reid admits, “There’s lots of people like when Wrinkle came out and they were like,
‘oh yeah I’m here to support you,’ but you were one of those people that stuck to that. So, for
that, thank you.”
414
As she hugs her, Zendaya reminisces about how the two first met at a Ben
and Jerry’s years earlier. Zendaya then tells Reid, “We’re real life sisters, I believe that, and TV
sisters and I’m so proud of everything that you do. You know that. I’m a ride or die, and I will
continue to support everything you do. And you’re phenomenal, so—the love is mutual.”
415
The
two actresses play sisters on the HBO drama Euphoria (2019-Present), which earned Zendaya a
Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 2020. She became the
youngest actresses to ever win the award at twenty-four years old, and only the second African
American actress.
416
Storm Reid posted a video on Instagram reacting to Zendaya’s historic win,

413
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” Monthly Review, January 2019, 31.
414
Storm Reid is referring to her breakout role in the film A Wrinkle in Time (2018), starring opposite
Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling. Davis, Rachaell, “WATCH: ESSENCE Black
Women in Hollywood Awards Honors…,” Essence, April 22, 2021, https://www.essence.com/awards-
events/red-carpet/black-women-hollywood/essence-black-women-in-hollywood-2021-announcement/.
415
Davis, Rachaell, “WATCH: ESSENCE…,” https://www.essence.com/awards-events/red-carpet/black-
women-hollywood/essence-black-women-in-hollywood-2021-announcement/.
416
Viola Davis was the first in 2015.
190
where she jumps up and down, clapping and streaming “Let’s go! I’m so proud of her” after
Zendaya’s name is announced. The video quickly went viral as a touching moment of sisterhood
and camaraderie between two actresses. As I have demonstrated throughout this dissertation,
African American actresses have established kinships of support, a cultural tradition borne out of
necessity for visibility and empowerment. Storm Reid’s two shout outs to Zendaya reaffirm the
sisterhood that the two young actresses created, in addition to illustrating one of the central
arguments of this dissertation. Black actresses remain linked to each other’s legacies in their
numerous efforts to acknowledge, preserve, and remember their own cultural significance and
accomplishments.
Zendaya, a former child star on Disney,
417
provides a pertinent example of a younger
Black actress who has continued to push for progressive racial politics, while using her career to
advance the social status of Black women in America. On her series K.C. Undercover (2015-
2018), Zendaya only agreed to work for Disney if she could be a producer. At nineteen, she
starred in and produced her own series, recognizing the importance of using her position as an
actress to participate in and influence her onscreen image. She reasoned, “The only way I was
going to come back to the Disney Channel was if I was in a position of more power. One thing
that is really important to me is diversity on the channel. It’s hard as a young person of a
different ethnicity or background to look at the TV and not see anyone who looks like you.
Representation is very important.”
418
Following the example set by many Black actresses before
her, Zendaya used her popularity and commercial viability to reflect and shape cultural images of
adolescent Black girls. She argues that producing situates her within a position of power, which

417
As a child actress, she was on the Disney Channel series Shake It Up (2010-2013).
418
Sandell, Laurie, “Zendaya Explains the Real Reason She Came Back to Disney,” Cosmopolitan, June
2, 2016, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a59215/zendaya-july-2016/.
191
she can use to make Disney a more inclusive channel for Black children. As a producer, Zendaya
used her show to create a Black representational space for a new generation of African
Americans. Young Black actresses such as Zendaya are able to become producers because of the
foundation set by many Black actresses, who fought to be included and struggled to be seen.
Racial Rearticulation Revisited: From Race Women to Millennials
Zendaya’s cultural self-determination place her within a long lineage of African
American actresses who use their lived experience as Black women to alter and redefine how
they are represented onscreen. Historically, Black actresses have often inserted Black cultural
politics into their work, on and off-screen, to counter and offer alternative depictions of African
American women. Furthermore, African American actresses employ different strategies in
rearticulating racial meaning, focusing their efforts on the way Hollywood has traditionally
represented Black femininity on screen. Cicely Tyson, for instance, witnessed firsthand how
embracing her innate Blackness could help rearticulate how Black women saw themselves,
claiming, “I never set out to start a natural hair craze.”
419
While lauded by many for wearing her
hair natural on television, she was also harshly criticized by other Black women for wearing her
“hair nappy on live television.”
420
According to Tyson, “In minstrel shows, in books, on
television, in kitchen-table conversations, our natural hair has always been under siege in a
calculated campaign to devalue us.”
421
She places hair within a broader African American
cultural perspective to demonstrate why the way Black women style their hair matters. Black
hair culture and the politics around Black women choosing to wear their hair in its natural state is

419
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, Just as I Am: A Memoir, (New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, 2021), 186.
420
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, Just as I Am, 189.
421
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, 191.
192
a concern specific to Black women. It is also very much an issue that Black actresses have to
consider and incorporate into their careers.
Diahann Carroll’s experience on the set of Hurry Sundown (1967) illustrates this. The
film was being shot on location in New Orleans and she first approached the director, Otto
Preminger, about having a hairstylist on set capable and trained in dealing with Black hair
textures. He refused asserting, “I never allow any actor to dictate how I should direct a film. I
wouldn’t allow Elizabeth Taylor to tell me how to do her hair in a film, and I won’t allow it from
you!”
422
When it eventually rained and her hair curled up, the hairstylist on set tried to straighten
it back so that her hair would match the previous shot, but was unable to and the production had
to be shut down for the rest of the day. Since he dismissed Carroll’s concerns as a Black woman
and actress, Preminger’s mistake cost the production money. When he compares Carroll to
Elizabeth Taylor, Preminger also silences her and ignores her difference. Black women share a
collective racial consciousness around hair that is articulated in various ways.
423
Viola Davis
wearing her hair natural was about being comfortable with her own beauty and not succumbing
to Eurocentric standards. She arrived at the 84
th
Academy Awards without a wig, and for Davis,
“not wearing a wig at the Oscars in 2012 was my protest. It is a part of my voice, just like
introducing myself to you and saying, ‘Hello, my name is Viola Davis.’”
424
For the first time in
her career, Viola Davis chose to be photographed on the red carpet with her natural hair on full
display. According to Davis, she felt like, “every time I put on a wig that I was apologizing for
who I was, being a dark-skinned woman, very curly hair. I felt like I was hiding it, and I felt like

422
Carroll, Diahann and Bob Morris, The Legs are The Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other
Things I Learned the Hard Way, (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 211.
423
Banks, Ingrid, Hair Matters: Beauty, Power, and Black Women's Consciousness, (New York
University Press, 2000), 21.
424
Saraiya, Sonia, “Viola Davis: ‘My Entire Life Has Been a Protest’,” Vanity Fair July 14, 2020,
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/07/cover-story-viola-davis.
193
I was saying that ‘okay, my characters aren’t very glamorous but look at me…see me, aren’t I
pretty?’ And I felt like I didn’t want to do that anymore.”
425
Cicely Tyson wore her hair natural
as a means of affirming her unapologetic Blackness, a realization and standpoint Viola Davis
would later adopt. The 2012 Oscars symbolized Viola Davis’s self-actualization of her
unapologetic Blackness. Like many Black women in America, these actresses had to translate
their Blackness and defend their hair choices.
Being a young actress on Disney channel did not shield Zendaya from the realities of
being a Black actress in Hollywood, working in a predominantly white industry. In 2015, she had
her own experience at the Oscars when she wore her hair in dreadlocks. Subsequently, the cohost
of E!’s Fashion Police (2010-Present) Giuliana Rancic joked that, “I feel like she smells like
patchouli oil…or weed.” Zendaya quickly responded on social media with a lengthy response to
Rancic’s comments,
There is a fine line between what is funny and disrespectful…To say that an 18 year old
young woman with locs must smell of patchouli oil or ‘weed’ is not only a large
stereotype but outrageously offensive. I don’t usually feel the need to respond to negative
things but certain remarks cannot go unchecked…There is already harsh criticism of
African American hair in society without the help of ignorant people who choose to judge
others based on the curl of their hair. My wearing my hair in locs on an Oscar red carpet
was to showcase them in a positive light, to remind people of color that our hair is good
enough. To me locs are a symbol of strength and beauty…
426

Zendaya’s response actively challenged conventional standards of beauty by accentuating hair
politics through the lens of empowerment and Black cultural politics. She additionally named
several prominent African Americans with dreadlocks in her post, including director Ava
DuVernay, nine-time Grammy nominated singer/songwriter Ledisi, author Terry McMillan,
Harvard University professor Vincent Brown, and historian Heather Andrea Williams, “who also

425
Davis, Viola, “Viola on Why She Stopped Wearing Wigs,” YouTube, September 25, 2012,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7qZfkHkCQg.
426
Zendaya, Twitter, February 23, 2015 (8:20pm), accessed May 4, 2021.
194
possesses a JD from Harvard University, and an MA and PhD from Yale University.”
427
In citing
these individuals, she explains that African Americans from entertainers to academics wear their
hair in dreadlocks, and that the hairstyle, cannot and should not be used to stereotype and
degrade African Americans. She utilizes this moment to rearticulate Black hair culture and hair
politics, forcing Rancic to confront her racial biases and stereotypical notions of African
Americans and Black culture.
428
Following Zendaya’s post, Kerry Washington responded
supportively on Twitter, “Well done Beautiful. XO.” Despite the stance on natural hair taken by
Cicely Tyson in 1963, and later Viola Davis in 2012, Zendaya also had to articulate her
Blackness and defend her hairstyle. For Black women, hair has a social and cultural significance,
and is related to both identity and politics.
429
For example, California became the first state to
sign into law the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair Act, or the CROWN
Act in 2019, which prohibits employers from discrimination based on a person’s hair texture or
hairstyle, effectively banning discrimination against natural hair.
430

Black women’s shared racial consciousness around issues such as hair politics and
colorism is often reflected onscreen through Black actress’s active rearticulation of Black
femininity onscreen. It is very intentional that when Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope and Viola
Davis’s Annalise Keating appear together onscreen, included would be a scene involving hair.
This two-part crossover episode begins with Scandal, where Olivia Pope writes on a chalk board
“How to survive a scandal.”
431
This is an allusion and intertextual reference to the opening of the
How to Get Away with Murder pilot episode. Later in the episode, in preparation for a television

427
Zendaya, Twitter, February 23, 2015 (8:20pm), accessed May 4, 2021.
428
Rancic would later issue multiple apologies on social media and on the air of her show Fashion Police.
429
Banks, Ingrid, Hair Matters, 42.
430
Currently, seven other states have passed similar laws.
431
Scandal, 118, “Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself,” directed by Tony Goldwyn, aired March 1, 2018,
on ABC.
195
appearance, Annalise says to Olivia, “Please tell me you know a good hairdresser.” When the
two women find themselves at a salon, Annalise discovers that Olivia was fired from the White
House and lied about it. An argument ensues between the two women, where Annalise accuses
Olivia of judging her from the moment they met:
Olivia: I never judged you.
Annalise: Oh, you judged me immediately. Just like a white man in a boardroom looking
down on me because my hips are too wide and my hue too dark.
Olivia: Oh, so we’re going there? Wow.
Annalise: You think we soul sisters just ‘cause you rented out a hair salon for a few
hours on the Black side of town? Please. I’ve dealt with plenty of bougie-ass Black
women just like you. Spent most of your life in boarding school, Ivy League universities,
with a horse between your legs and a silver spoon in your mouth. You’re not the only one
who knows how to Google. You called me a hot mess, remember? But it sounds to me
that despite all of your failed attempts to stand above me on your little pedestal, we’re the
same. So, keep it real Olivia Pope. Why’d you leave the white house?
Olivia: You know, your skin tone and measurements aren’t the reason people don’t like
you. It’s you, Annalise Keating. You are a bully who insults people and then wonders
why they won’t help you. But hey, you’re just trying to keep it real, right? How’s that
working out for you? Can’t be that great if you had to haul your broke ass on the
Megabus to beg for my help. You may think you know who I am and what I’m about, but
don’t get it twisted. We are not the same. So, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is
Olivia Pope. And I don’t have to explain myself to anyone, especially you…Don’t worry
about your wash and press. I’ll be sure to put that on my siddity-ass, no limit, platinum
card.
Annalise: I’ll pay for my own damn hair.

This brief scene between two Black women deals with race, class privilege, and colorism. Viola
Davis as Annalise Keating brings a different representation of Black womanhood to Scandal, and
her appearance on the show allows for the first and only scene in the series that deals directly
with Olivia Pope’s hair. The scene pulls back the curtain and gives Scandal fans a different view
of Olivia, and this is visually illustrated by the curlers in her hair. The sanctity of the hair salon is
what allows Olivia and Annalise to have an open yet highly contentious conversation. This scene
also exhibits Olivia’s ability to code-switch, where her language, tone, and rhythm shift as she
speaks to another Black woman in a safe, counter-public space. Issues of class and wealth are
196
addressed when Annalise tells Olivia that they are the same; she wants Olivia to know that her
class position does not make her superior. Olivia’s response both foregrounds her Blackness and
her upper middle-classness. She flaunts her wealth by first patronizing and debasing Annalise by
mentioning Megabus, a low budget mode of transportation, then boasting that she has a no limit
credit card. The line “allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is…” is an often-quoted lyric in
Black popular culture from rapper Jay-Z’s song “Public Service Announcement” (2003) meant to
implicitly reassert Olivia’s Blackness. This is Olivia’s way of “keeping it real” and articulating
her Blackness, while simultaneously letting Annalise know that they are not, in fact, the same.
The significance of the scene lies in the way it presents two varying depictions of Black
womanhood, as well as tackling culturally specific concerns relevant to African American
women.
Through cultural archiving, Black actresses’ nuanced performances of Black femininity
can be critically analyzed and studied in relation to the historical paradigm of social and political
activism established by Black women in the late 19
th
century. Annalise mentions her complexion
and size as a possible explanation for why Olivia judges her, reasoning that she is basically ‘too
Black’ for Olivia’s approval. Patricia Hill Collins writes, “Dealing with prevailing standards of
beauty—particularly skin color, facial features, and hair texture—is one specific example of how
controlling images derogate African-American women.”
432
This scene between Olivia Pope and
Annalise Keating reframes mainstream images of African American women by juxtaposing two
very different Black women, and having them interrogate those differences on screen; therefore,
challenging each other’s, and the audience’s, preconceived notions about Black women.
Colorism, the privileging of light over darker skin complexions, is a concern Viola Davis has

432
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge Consciousness and the Politics of
Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2000), 89.
197
continually discussed throughout her career. She participated in the documentary Dark Girls
(2011) about colorism and cultural biases against dark-skinned Black women within African
American communities.
In 2014, New York Times writer Alessandra Stanley described Viola Davis as “a
performer who is older, darker-skinned and less classically beautiful than Ms. [Kerry]
Washington, or for that matter Halle Berry.”
433
Stanley’s comments are steeped in Eurocentric
beauty ideals, but they also reinforce prevailing Hollywood logic that privileges lighter skinned
Black actresses as accepted representations of beautiful Black women. Generally, the darker the
complexion, the narrower the range of roles a Black actress will be offered. In a direct response
to the article, Viola Davis stated, “I think that beauty is subjective. I’ve heard that statement my
entire life being a dark-skinned Black woman. You hear it from the time you come out of the
womb. And classically not beautiful is a fancy term of saying ugly and denouncing you, erasing
you. Now, it worked when I was younger, it no longer works for me now.”
434
Viola Davis makes
the argument that she (as well as many other young Black girls) was taught from birth that
beauty is subject to prepare her for a society that would inevitably attempt to erase her presence,
beauty and humanity. She was also able to utilize her position as a dark-skinned Black actress to
publicly criticize Stanley’s derogatorily racialized language by foregrounding it as an issue of
personal significance that also concerned Black women more generally. Davis continued, “You
know it’s like Ruby Dee said—she wanted that beauty, that hard to get beauty that comes from
within: strength, courage and dignity. And what you’re seeing now are so many Black women

433
Stanley, Alessandra, “Wrought in Rhimes’s Image,” New York Times, September 14, 2014,
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/arts/television/viola-davis-plays-shonda-rhimess-latest-tough-
heroine.html.
434
The View, season 18 episode 9, “Viola Davis,” dir. Ashley Gorman, aired September 25, 2014, on
ABC.
198
[who] came out after that article and they used the #notclassicallybeautiful or whatever…and
they’re stepping into who they are because they are teaching a culture how to treat them, and
how to see them…at the end of day, you define you.”
435
Stanley’s article and Viola Davis’s
unapologetic Blackness inspired many Black women to respond on Twitter with the hashtag
#LessClassicallyBeautiful in solidarity to present varied depictions of Black female identity that
represent their own self-worth and standards of beauty. Black women rallied around Viola Davis
and used social media to empower, speak to, and rearticulate Black women’s individual
standards of beauty, negating external validation from media outlets such as the New York Times
and reporters like Alessandra Stanley. Additionally, Viola Davis cites Ruby Dee as an example
of someone who helped teach her how to embrace and define her own beauty. After this incident,
Viola Davis continued to acknowledge the way in which her dark skin is seen as a hindrance to
her acting possibilities within a predominantly white industry. However, by privileging her art
and her ability to tell her own stories, she has found a way to circumvent these limitations, and
does not allow Hollywood to define her beauty or self-worth.
Colorism in the United States has its roots in the preferential treatment given to mixed
race slaves with lighter skin and the “paper bag test” in the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries, where you had
to be lighter than a paper bag to even enter some spaces or be hired for certain jobs. In her
autobiography, Cicely Tyson wrote, “when it came to colorism in society at large, I was certainly
not immune. No one had to tell me that the fairer your skin and the narrower your nose and lips,
the more stunning you were considered. That belief permeated the atmosphere.”
436
Black
actresses are also well aware of Hollywood’s participation in a color caste system. Diahann

435
The View, “Viola Davis,” aired September 25, 2014, on ABC.
436
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford, Just as I Am, 23.
199
Carroll stated, “Color of skin makes a hell of a big difference.”
437
She knew she was offered the
role of Julia because of her lighter skin complexion. Carroll admitted that, “Through history, the
concept of the ‘pretty’ Black woman in film and television has been primarily a light brown
skinned woman. Until the advent of Norman Lear, who did a spin off out of a show called
Maude with a woman who was dark brown whose name is Esther Rolle and granted he did it
once again out a maid’s role.”
438
Diahann Carroll credits both Norman Lear and Esther Rolle for
presenting the dark-skinned Black woman as beautiful on television. She continues, “Until that
time, always any woman of color who was on screen, who was gonna [sic] have any semblance
or represent any semblance of glamour was a brown, café au lait kind…we have Dorothy
Dandridge, we have Lena Horne...so I knew that that was in my favor...I just knew that that was
the thing that the white community responded to in the past, and it was there at my disposal and I
was aware of it.”
439
While Diahann Carroll knew that her lighter skin complexion privileged her
career, and many others before her such as Dandridge and Horne, her comments also
demonstrate an awareness of a shift, even if only briefly, of television recognizing the beauty in
darker skinned Black actresses, like Esther Rolle. In Carroll’s case, Hollywood’s adherence to
certain beauty standards worked in her favor.
Comparatively, Zendaya has also addressed colorism in Hollywood, specifically in terms
of her privilege as a light-skinned Black woman. Speaking at the Beautycon Festival in 2018,
Zendaya stated, “If the opportunity isn’t there, we will pave the way for our opportunity, and not
just the opportunity for myself but for my entire community…as a Black woman, as a light-

437
Carroll, Diahann, box 089_011a_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260),
UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los
Angeles.
438
Carroll, Diahann, box 089_030b_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
439
Carroll, box 089_030b_s, recording, Diahann Carroll Papers (Collection PASC-M 260).
200
skinned Black woman, that’s important that I say listen ‘I’m using my privilege and my platform
to show you how much beauty there is in the African American community.’”
440
Zendaya
wearing her dreadlocks at the Oscars is an example of her using her platform and visibility to
honor different aspects of beauty with African American communities. While Diahann Carroll
recognized her privileged position within Hollywood’s color caste system, Zendaya, on the other
hand, uses her privilege in an effort to be seen as an ally for darker-skinned Black actresses.
Zendaya’s critique of Hollywood’s adherence to colorism represents a historical progression in
Black actresses’ approach to rearticulating Black femininity, from one of acknowledgment to
direct criticism. She celebrates and advocates for the full spectrum of African American
women’s skin tones to be represented in Hollywood. Zendaya continues, “I am you know,
Hollywood’s—I guess you can say—acceptable version of a Black girl and that has to change.
We’re vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to just be the only representation. So, what
I’m saying is about creating those opportunities, sometimes you have to create the path.”
441
Her
comments echo a “lifting as we climb” approach as a means of dynamically resisting an
institution that rejects depicting darker-skinned Black women as beautiful. Zendaya uses her
agency to support her fellow Black actresses, and demand that Hollywood stop “accepting”
Black women and instead include them—all of them. From Diahann Carroll to Zendaya, Black
actresses continue to connect their lived experiences as Black women to their artistic practice and
craft.
Throughout this dissertation, I have used the careers of Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll,
Esther Rolle, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis to offer an innovative and alternative approach

440
“Zendaya: ‘I’m Hollywood’s acceptable version of a black girl,’ BBC News, April 24, 2018,
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-43879480.
441
“Zendaya: ‘I’m Hollywood’s acceptable version of a black girl,’ https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-
43879480.
201
to studying Black actresses on television that nuances Black women’s performance of Black
femininity by attending to stardom, representational politics, and discourses of Black
womanhood. In their work to represent various aspects of Black cultural identities, Black
actresses have used their activism to define and preserve their own cultural legacies, and the
legacies of other Black women. As the examples of Zendaya illustrate, there are young Black
actresses in Hollywood, who in addition to inserting their lived experience and cultural
knowledge into their work onscreen, use their careers to push for social justice on behalf of
Black women.
Black women’s tradition of social activism fits within a larger oeuvre of African
American actresses, and this has been passed down to younger generations of Black actresses in
Hollywood like Zendaya. Young Black women in Hollywood are taking up this mantle and
following the path created by actresses such as Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle,
Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis. A new generation of Black actresses like Logan Browning
(Dear White People), Marsai Martin (Black-ish), Yara Shahidi (Black-ish and Grown-ish),
Zendaya, and many others are participating in their own representation, constructing their
onscreen narratives, and lifting as they climb. These young Black girls and Black women are
interconnected to past, present, and future Black actresses. In this dissertation, I have situated
Black actresses within a politics of Black feminist theory, a history of resistance, and stardom in
Hollywood, to offer a key intervention into understanding the careers of African American
actresses on television. I conclude by exploring the legacy of this foundation created by the five
actresses that ground this study, who have set a path for the continuing movement for Black
female empowerment.

202
Art and Activism: Black Feminist Theory and Black Women’s Empowerment
Black women’s empowerment is gained through their activist efforts. I assess Black
women’s active engagement with Black cultural politics within a framework of Black feminist
thought, which conceives of Black women’s individual acts of activism as contributing to a
broader social justice project and political movement. Twenty-one year-old actress Yara Shahidi,
argued, “I’ve been an actress for over 10 years, but more importantly, a budding humanitarian
and activist all of my life…It is through my art that I have purposefully chosen to express my
activism because I believe that my dharma, my purpose and my personal work are centered
around gaining equality and parity through art.”
442
Sixteen years old at the time, Shahidi
presented the relationship between her art and activism as part of her life’s purpose; she
envisioned that her role as an actress was to push for equality in Hollywood. As an actress on a
network television show at the time, Shahidi believed that her character Zoe on Black-ish (2014-
Present) is her activism through art, where representing a “complex unabashedly proud Black
teenager may seem like no big deal at first, but it is through my character and characters like her
that the barriers of racism, ageism, sexism and other isms can be broken down. With intentional
programming…you’re witnessing the realization by those in power in Hollywood of the
importance of creating characters that are complex and reflective of true human nature.”
443
She
lists shows like Grey’s Anatomy (2005-Present), Blackish, Transparent (2014-2019), and Jane
the Virgin (2014-2019) as being intentional in their representational programming. In this way,
Yara Shahidi demonstrates her understanding of the way television is situated within larger
networks of power and how altering the narrative onscreen can shift commonsense

442
Shahidi, Yara, “Closing Plenary: The Spirit of Art and Activism-Yara Shahidi,” YouTube, June 30,
2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HceyJdOeH8.
443
Shahidi, Yara, “Closing Plenary: The Spirit of Art and Activism-Yara Shahidi,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HceyJdOeH8.
203
understandings of marginalized communities off-screen. She is able to frame her activism as part
of her life’s work, in many ways continuing, the legacies of Black actresses such as Esther Rolle,
who dedicated their careers to uplifting Black children. Yara Shahidi is the embodiment, the
proof that the groundwork set for future Black actresses continues, as she purposefully uses
television to break down barriers, changing the imagery of young Black womanhood on her new
show Grown-ish (2018-Present).
Activism is an essential component of Black feminist practice, which acknowledges that
despite differences in social class, sexual orientation, education, and other social structures,
African American women share “a group knowledge and a consciousness based on a collective
memory and a shared history as well as common daily experiences of being a black woman.”
444
I
explore how Black actresses embrace Black feminism by using their lived experience to resist
historical amnesia, invisibility, and systemic devaluation in American society. I use the term
historical amnesia to describe how Black women’s voices are silenced, their historical
experiences erased or disparaged, and intellectual production undervalued. Representation is a
matter of survival for Black actresses; it confronts the public erasure of Black women’s history,
that began during slavery. Patricia Hill Collins argues, “popular perspectives on Black political
activism often fail to see how struggles for group survival are just as important as confrontations
with institutional power.”
445
By contesting the way Hollywood wields its immense power,
Shahidi emphasizes how television shows, “consciously and unconsciously perpetuate
stereotypes by creating characters or casting people based on what a few in power seem to deem
as believable…Good, bad, or indifferent, TV helps define our collective reality and if a child

444
Alinia, Minoo, “On Black Feminist Thought: thinking oppression and resistance through intersectional
paradigm,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 38.13 (2015), 2335.
445
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought, 202.
204
grows up never seeing themselves representative as successful or as the hero, then they are the
anomaly if they succeed and the expectation if they fail.”
446
Esther Rolle, Diahann Carroll, Viola
Davis all emphasized the importance of Black children being able to see images on television
that are reflective of the multi-dimensionality and complexity of African American culture. Yara
Shahidi’s statement links her to these actresses in terms of their collective efforts. In confronting
Hollywood on an institutional level, Black actresses are in fact fighting for Black women’s
survival. As cultural archivists and Black feminist thinkers, politicized Black actresses contest
Hollywood’s tokenism and exclusion, relating their experiences as Black women to their
professional endeavors in a deliberate attempt to empower themselves and other Black actresses.
Actress Logan Browning’s essay, “Hollywood’s Role in the Black American
Experience,” written for the Television Academy, interrogates Hollywood as an image-
producing institution, focusing on issues of race and racial representation. Browning, who stars
in the Netflix series Dear White People (2017-Present), wrote:
We’ve been forced to conform to the status quo for so long, there’s a belief that our
current circumstances are unique. The conversations happening now are merely a
continuation of the equality movements of the past. In order to protect and liberate Black
lives, the world needs to see Black stories represented with nuance and regarded as equal.
At every level we have to be willing to reimagine the structures in place, rather than
accept the current ones as good enough. The Television Academy has an important duty
to curate consideration for content from Black creatives, especially titles that may not be
as mainstream.
447

Browning alludes to the Black Lives Matter movement being a continuation of African
American’s struggles for civil rights. She links the political efforts of Black Americans to
cultural politics and the need for representation. In asserting why representation matters, she

446
Shahidi, Yara, “Closing Plenary: The Spirit of Art and Activism-Yara Shahidi,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HceyJdOeH8.
447
Browning, Logan, “Hollywood’s Role in the Black American Experience,” Television Academy, July
28, 2020, https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
205
relates African Americans survival and liberation in America to the need for more multi-faceted
Black narratives on television. Succinctly stated, she advocates for nuanced performances of
Black cultural identity as a means of achieving social and political freedom for African
Americans. According to Hill Collins, empowerment “requires transforming unjust social
institutions that African-Americans encounter from one generation to the next.”
448
For Black
actresses, Hollywood has made minimal changes in the past sixty years, as new generations are
still confronting the same issues. In her essay, Logan Browning also argues that the Television
Academy has failed to consider shows from Black creatives as Emmy award contenders,
especially ones with a primarily Black audience. She cites her show Dear White People, a
“comedy based in anti-racist content,” which has never been nominated for an Emmy.
449
The
series, according to Browning, is “a treasure of performances, writing, comedic storytelling, and
directing that rivals any of the shows nominated in the past 3 years…Our show presents some of
the most important and socially conscious episodes of television ever made.”
450
As an act of
cultural archiving, Logan Browning’s article makes an argument about the artistic significance of
Dear White People, while simultaneously calling out the Television Academy for its blatant
exclusion of the series.
Self-intervention, agency, and activism are integral to advancing Black feminist thought
as a conceptual framework for interpreting the cultural and social activism of African American
actresses. Through her agency and activism, Browning intervenes by demanding the Television
Academy examine its practices of exclusion. She asks why the series has not yet earned at least
one Emmy nomination, posing questions such as, “Is it our title? Is it because our show confronts

448
Hill Collins, Patricia, Black Feminist Thought, 273.
449
Browning, Logan, “Hollywood’s Role in the Black American Experience,”
https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
450
Browning, Logan, https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
206
people with the truth? Is it because not enough of our peers are Academy members? Or is it
because we’ve been unlucky, and fingers crossed for next season?”
451
In theorizing the
circumstances for the show’s absence from the Emmys, Browning suggests that it is the African
American cultural perspective that negates the series from being considered. She further reasons,
“The truth is, this trend reinforces our distrust in the mainstream meters of success. How can I
base my artistic value on an accolade I’ve been eligible for (Outstanding Lead Actress in a
Comedy), but in my 31 years have never seen a Black woman win?”
452
Within the framework of
Black feminist theory, Browning underscores her own exclusion from Hollywood, but also the
marginalization of other African American actresses. She doubts the possibility of conventional
conceptions of success, and therefore stardom, given the way Black actresses have historically
been omitted or overlooked from mainstream accolades.
African American actresses, especially those interested in representational interventions
that reframe and alter the dominant cultural imagery of African Americans, often go
unrecognized and unacknowledged by the mainstream entertainment industry. Esther Rolle’s
career in Hollywood is one such example. In archiving the cultural and political activity of
African American actresses, this project has been a celebratory and recuperative work that has
theorized Black women’s stardom within dominant discourses of media studies. As Logan
Browning argues, traditional meters of success do not fully, if at all, encompass the work Black
actresses do to create Black representational spaces on television. Browning concludes her essay,
“The exposing of truths, deep unlearning, and reimagining of systems can be uncomfortable.
However, Hollywood has the ability and incredible assignment to affect cultural and societal

451
Browning, Logan, “Hollywood’s Role in the Black American Experience,”
https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
452
Browning, Logan, https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
207
change. No one is free until everyone is free.”
453
Browning’s entire essay defines her reality and
truth, where she is empowered as a Black actress in Hollywood to position her issues within a
larger Black cultural consciousness. She pushes for changes in Hollywood on an institutional
level, so that African Americans and other under-represented groups are given equal
opportunities to have their stories told, seen and valued. Her final sentence comes from civil
rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer’s speech, delivered in 1971 at the Founding of the National
Women’s Political Caucus in Washington, D.C., where she stated, “Now, we’ve got to have
some changes in this country. And not only changes for the black man, and not only changes for
the black woman, but the changes we have to have in this country are going to be for liberation
of all people—because nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
454
Browning does not name
Hamer, but the quote has been repeated and recycled often in Black popular culture. By
paraphrasing Hamer’s line to conclude her essay, Logan Browning connects her work as an
actress to a politics of empowerment, a history of struggle and resistance, and broader political
and racial formations in America. Black feminist thought allows for a reinterpretation of the past
“through new theoretical frameworks by beginning with the assumption that Black women’s
knowledge has been subjugated/suppressed and that Black women have the right and
responsibility to reclaim, discover and reinterpret that which affects their reality.”
455
In their
resistance to historical amnesia, Black women as cultural archivists, are constantly recovering
and repeating knowledge that is passed down from generation to generation.

453
Browning, Logan, https://www.emmys.com/news/member-news/in-my-opinion/logan-browning.
454
Hamer, Fannie, The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is, edited by Maegan Parker
Brooks and Davis Houck, (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 139.
455
Brock, Rochelle. “Recovering from ‘yo mama is so stupid’: (en)gendering a critical paradigm on Black
feminist theory and pedagogy.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 24.3 (2011):
380.
208
In lifting as they climb, Black actresses are able to protect, keep and amplify Black
women’s legacies. Kerry Washington, for instance, references the same Fannie Lou Hamer quote
when discussing her position as a producer and her desire for inclusivity. She states, “When we
talk about our intersectional identities, we have to bring all of us, and [I bring] all that I am, all
of the communities [I represent]. And that [is reminiscent of the] Fannie Lou Hammer [quote]—
‘we are not free until we are all free.’”
456
She gives Hamer a shout out as a way of remembering
the significance of her words and their importance to Black women’s collective knowledge and
consciousness. Washington discusses intersectionality within the context of Black women’s
ability to lift as they climb, dismantling Hollywood’s practice of tokenism, arguing that “the goal
can’t be to be the only one in the room.”
457
Hamer’s words have become a part of Black
women’s critical pedagogy, teaching new generations of Black actresses to lift as they climb.
The Combahee River Collective (CRC) , a group of Black feminist thinkers, writers, and
activists, published a statement in 1977 that argued, “If black women were free, it would mean
that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of
all the systems of oppression.”
458
The CRC are widely considered forerunners in formulating
some of the basic tenets of Black feminist theory.
459
Rochelle Brock argues that “redefining our
knowledge begets empowerment, which forces a reconceptualization of the power relations that

456
Jackson, Angelique, “Kerry Washington and Lavern Cox on Making Their Own Opportunities
and Achieving Inclusivity on Set,” Variety, https://variety.com/2021/film/features/kerry-washington-
laverne-cox-producing-inclusivity-1234910669/?jwsource=cl.
457
Jackson, Angelique, “Kerry Washington and Lavern Cox on Making Their Own Opportunities
and Achieving Inclusivity on Set,” https://variety.com/2021/film/features/kerry-washington-laverne-cox-
producing-inclusivity-1234910669/?jwsource=cl.
458
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 33-34. The group met regularly in the
1970s.
459
The group’s name is derived from a military raid, planned and led by Harriet Tubman. Naming the
group after Tubman’s work is another act of cultural archiving and remembering her legacy.
209
control and define our society.”
460
In remembering their collective past, Black women are able to
generate specialized knowledge that cultivates Black women’s shared history and collective
archive. Fannie Lou Hamer’s words are a part of Black women’s cultural archive, where the
phrase gets recovered, reused, and repeated as a means of linking Black women’s liberation
movements from generation to generation.
From Ruby Dee’s 1966 “Some Reflections on the Negro Actress: Tattered Queens” to
Robin Givens’ 1991 article “Why Are Black Actresses Having Such a Hard Time in
Hollywood?” and Browning essay (2020), Black actresses use multiple methods to communicate
their experience of working in Hollywood. They write articles and essays, make social media
posts, give poignant interviews in magazines and on red carpets. These are all moments where
Black actresses are using their agency and popularity to contest and challenge Hollywood as an
image-producing industry with the power to mediate meanings of race and provide nuanced
depictions of Black femininity on screen. In using her voice to advocate for her series, Logan
Browning links her art and artistic practices to a tradition and movement of Black actresses
asserting their cultural significance and demanding a space for Black women in Hollywood. In
their quest for institutional power, Black actresses are moving from a path of struggle to one of
empowerment. As I have illustrated throughout this dissertation, empowerment for Black
actresses is reflected in the way they embody the 1904 National Association of Colored Women
(NACW) approach of “lifting as we climb.” Their individual acts of resistance collectively
represent a social justice movement, and politicized Black actresses have made incremental
changes, making it easier for the next generation of Black actresses. Black women’s stardom has
been vital to these efforts.

460
Brock, Rochelle, “Recovering from ‘yo mama is so stupid,’” 394.
210
Disrupting Traditional Hollywood Stardom: Being Black Famous
In her opening monologue on Saturday Night Live (SNL) (1975-Present) this year, host
Regina King stated, “I’ve had a pretty wild career. If you’re Black, you probably know me from
being in like some of your favorite movies, and if you’re white, you probably know me from
Watchmen—or this monologue right now. And I’m not complaining, I kind of like it that way.
Whenever Black fame gets too crazy for me, I just go to the nearest white town and I’m a regular
old suspicious shopper again.”
461
Regina King is an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy award
winning actresses, but the humor in her opening joke is based on its verisimilitude, plausibility,
and her awareness that despite her lengthy career of achievements and success in Hollywood, she
is still a Black woman. Therefore, she is not exempt from the realities of being Black in America.
By using the term “Black fame,” she acknowledged that being the host of SNL does not signal
crossover stardom, and that her recognition remains attached to African American audiences.
She does not assume that the primarily white SNL audience knows who she is, as she is only the
fourteenth Black woman to host the show.
462
Her joke also exemplifies one way that Black
performers categorize their celebrity. Regina King is an actress, producer, and director, who has
been working in Hollywood for over thirty-five years. Black famous exists to be able to name,
interpret, and theorize the stardom of actresses like Regina King, whose work in front of and
behind the camera has created a cultural legacy that can be celebrated by African American
audiences. Black famous is not in opposition to mainstream Hollywood stardom, but in fact, a

461
Saturday Night Live, 901, “Regina King,” directed by Don Ray King, aired February 13, 2021, on
NBC.
462
In nearly 900 episodes, only 14 Black women have hosted SNL. Cicely Tyson was the first to host in
1979, followed by Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Janet Jackson, Queen Latifah, Rosario Dawson,
Gabourey Sidibe, Kerry Washington, Maya Rudolph, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Tiffany
Haddish, and Issa Rae. In fact, when Issa Rae joked in her opening monologue that she was the first Black
woman to host, the audience believed her and applauded until she admitted that she was joking.
211
parallel system that studies the stardom of African Americans, especially Black women, in terms
of cultural significance, audience identification, and staying power. As Viola Davis argues, “No
one ever talks about significance. They talk about success…There’s no measuring significance
and living a life of purpose. Significance is something way deeper. It’s about legacy.”
463
Black
famous allows African American actresses the ability to be significant and leave a legacy. Black
famous is a vital framework for theorizing the circumstances of African American stardom in the
context of the entertainment industry, history and cultural legacy. For African American
actresses, stardom is the ability to craft and participate in their own stories, taking an active role
in rearticulating ideological understandings of Black womanhood. In doing so, these actresses
become significant to Black audiences, allowing them to leave a legacy onscreen.
When introducing Angela Bassett for her Black Girls Rock! “Icon” award in 2019,
Regina King stated, “if you looked up H.B.I.C. in the dictionary [audience explodes into
applause] it would be a photo of our next honoree…My sister, Angela Bassett is the epitome of a
boss lady. She’s an ivy league graduate, a powerhouse of the stage and the screen…Her acting is
only matched by her voracious beauty and tireless activism. She’s a beacon for Black excellence,
carving a path for Black actresses to follow for generations to come.”
464
Regina King’s
introduction describes Angela Bassett’s stardom in terms of her cultural significance, activism,
and generational influence. Bassett’s popularity among Black women is indicated in the way the
audience, comprised of mostly Black women, bursts into applause when Regina King labels her
a “H.B.I.C.”
465
Even though King was also an honoree that night, she “had to present this award

463
Lee, Benjamin, “Viola Davis: ‘I stifled who I was to be seen as pretty. I lost years,’ The Guardian,
October 20, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/20/viola-davis-stifled-who-was-lost-years-
the-help.
464
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), dir. Sandra Restrepo, aired September 8, 2019, on BET.
465
A colloquial acronym meaning head bitch in charge.
212
because I felt like only I could do it.”
466
The sisterhood and friendship that the two women share
is on full display when Regina King asks the audience, “y’all remember this with the flick of the
cigarette?” She then backs up from the microphone and imitates Angela Bassett’s walk in
Waiting to Exhale (1995) after her character burns her husband’s car. As Regina Kings walks
towards the microphone imitating Bassett’s character Bernie, the reaction shots of the audience
clapping and laughing, indicate that most know the reference. The camera also cuts to Angela
Bassett, who sits in the audience, laughing as her friend does an impression of one of her most
iconic characters. Black actresses remain interconnected as a result of their efforts to name and
support each other’s legacies. Regina King never mentions the film by name or Angela Bassett’s
character, because she is in a counter-public space where there is an assumption of recognition.
In this space, neither Regina King nor Angela Bassett have to make jokes about their fame or
define their stardom.
The Waiting to Exhale scene that Regina King references has been recycled and
recirculated often in Black popular culture. King acknowledges this when she asserts, “She
inspired generations of female empowerment. When you see that GIF, you know—It’s going
down.”
467
Nearly twenty-five years after the film premiered, the audience response and
enthusiastic laughter suggests Angela Bassett’s staying power is derived from her generational
influence. It is through television and social media, and Black women’s efforts at sharing these
images, that Angela Bassett’s early film work is able to be seen by younger generations of Black
women. She is given the “Icon” award as a way of recognizing her status as Black famous.
Angela Bassett’s socio-cultural value to African American audiences is evident in the audience’s
knowingness, cultural memory, and the way she is celebrated. For example, in her acceptance

466
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), on BET.
467
Regina King, Black Girls Rock! (2019), on BET.
213
speech at the 51
st
NAACP Image Awards in 2020, singer and musician Lizzo stated, “Miss
Angela Bassett. Thank you for this award. It says that I am the entertainer of the year, but you
are THE entertainer PERIOD! Period, hands down. Thank you so much.”
468
In her shout out to
Bassett, who was seated in the audience, Lizzo thanks her for the way she has represented Black
women onscreen for decades. Being Black famous gives Black actresses the power to mediate
sociopolitical understandings of race, the ability to convey notions of Black femininity, while
shifting the narrative of Black female representation onscreen. Lizzo’s shout out demonstrates
the influence of Angela Bassett’s cultural legacy.
In the short video that preceded her acceptance of the “Icon” award, Angela Bassett
discusses her career in terms of what being an icon means, stating, “I think I have a reputation
for playing smart, nuanced Black characters. I didn’t have much control over the roles that were
offered at that time, but the only thing I did have control over was my ‘yes,’ and more
importantly, my ‘no.’”
469
The power in saying “no,” for Angela Bassett, disrupts the cycle of
stereotypical imagery in Hollywood. Like Cicely Tyson and Esther Rolle, Bassett underscores
the importance of role selection to her career and her stardom. Her willingness to say “no,” gave
her agency in an industry that often pigeonholes Black actresses. Bassett continued, “I grew up
seeing images of Black women on television and on film, and for a great part of it, there were
two types: she who is overly sexualized and she who was devoid of. And it was really, quite a
simplistic picture of the Black woman, one that internally I can’t help but reject.”
470
Bassett
places her work within the historical context of Black women on screen, while positioning her
career as the sum total of her attempts to alter these images. She additionally connects her lived

468
Lizzo, 51
st
NAACP Image Award, dir.Tony McCuin, aired February 22, 2020, on BET.
469
Angela Bassett, Black Girls Rock! (2019), dir. Sandra Restrepo, aired September 8, 2019, on BET.
470
Angela Bassett, Black Girls Rock! (2019), on BET.
214
experiences as a Black woman to her career as an actress. Parallel to Cicely Tyson’s career,
Angela Bassett has also portrayed several real-life Black women including: Betty Shabazz, Rosa
Parks, Tina Turner, Katherine Jackson, Voletta Wallace, and Coretta Scott King.
471
In her
acceptance speech, she discusses her purposeful selection of roles and what they meant
throughout her career. She names and thanks all of the women she has depicted on screen, who
have “inhabited me, who have empowered me, inspired me, strengthened me and elevated
me.”
472
In shouting out these women, Angela Bassett connects her own cultural legacy to theirs.
It is an act of cultural archiving that simultaneously makes an argument about the social
significance of these women. Angela Bassett’s cultural significance to African American
audiences stems from her racially meaningful representations that have a lasting cultural memory
such as Reva Styles in Boyz n the Hood (1991), Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do with It
(1993), and Bernie Harris in Waiting to Exhale. Angela Bassett established herself as Black
famous in the 1990s and has remained a working actress, producer and director as a result of her
staying power. Angela Bassett’s role selection, the cultural resonance of these roles, her
generational influence and willingness to speak up on issues relevant to Black women all
contribute to her being Black famous. Black famous for African American actresses is the ability
to leave a legacy on screen, while shifting the narrative of Black womanhood in America.
Forming Black Representational Spaces: Understanding Intersectionality in the Era of
New Media

In her memoir We’re Going to Need More Wine, actress Gabrielle Union wrote about
Black womanhood, “My humanness doesn’t insulate me from racism or sexism. In fact, I think I

471
Betty Shabazz (civil rights advocate and Malcolm X’s widow), Rosa Parks (civil rights activist/icon),
Tina Turner (singer/performer), Katherine Jackson (mother of Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson…all
the Jacksons), Voletta Wallace (mother of rapper the Notorious B.I.G.), and Coretta Scott King (activist
and Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow).
472
Angela Bassett, Black Girls Rock! (2019), on BET.
215
can deal effectively with the world precisely because I am a black woman who is so comfortable
in my black-womanness. I know what I can accomplish. And anything I have accomplished, I
did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman.”
473
Black actresses
are cognizant that their intersectional identities puts them at a disadvantage in Hollywood.
However, in her unapologetic Blackness, Gabrielle Union argues that being a Black woman not
only contributed to her success, but also taught her how to cope with the marginalization of
Black women in American society. Through critical pedagogy, Black women have been able to
disseminate and teach ensuing generations the best practices to encountering and dealing with
discrimination. Black women’s shared historical experience, as well as Black collective memory
contribute to their ingrained understanding of intersectionality. Intersectionality does not always
present itself as unapologetic Blackness, and each generation has used an intersectional
framework in their work as actresses in varied ways, including demanding visibility and
inclusion as well as creating Black representational spaces on television. From the race women
generation to “generation Z,”
474
intersectionality has remained a theoretical nexus that connects
Black actresses to Black women’s cultural history, intellectual thought, and activism.
Intersectionality links generational differences between Black actresses, even for a
younger actress such as twenty-two-year-old Amandla Stenberg,
475
whose work includes The
Hunger Games (2012), The Hate U Give (2018), and the Netflix limited series The Eddy (2020).
In 2015, Stenberg gained attention for posting a video on Tumblr that went viral called “Don’t
Cash Crop My Cornrows,” about cultural appropriation. At the 2016 Black Girls Rock!
ceremony, in her opening video for the “Young, Gifted and Black” award, Stenberg stated,

473
Union, Gabrielle, We’re Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and
True, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2017), 224. Kindle Edition.
474
Generation Z refers to the generation of people born after 1996.
475
Stenberg identifies as nonbinary but accepts the pronouns she/her.
216
“Black identity and empowerment is really important to me. I express that most through social
media, and so that’s why I made the video on cultural appropriation. I don’t think that it’s logical
for people who are not Black to take that culture, and make it their own, when they could still be
harboring racist feelings towards Black people. I want to see that racism end.”
476
While only
seventeen years old at the time, Stenberg’s intersectional identity is reflected in her Black
cultural consciousness, but also in her chosen medium. The tools, methods, and approaches that
Black actresses use to reframe their image within popular culture are very much determined by
generation. For Stenberg’s generation, popularly referred to as Generation Z, social media and
internet activism is the most accessible platform to get their message out.

According to the Pew
Research Center, “Members of Gen Z are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous
generation, and they are on track to be the most well-educated generation yet. They are also
digital natives who have little or no memory of the world as it existed before smartphones.”
477

Gen. Z actresses such as Yara Shahidi and Amandla Stenberg participate in various acts of online
activism, using new media platforms as a communal landscape where Black women’s
knowledge is created and shared.
478

Amandla Stenberg’s early entry into Hollywood was dampened by online racist backlash
when some fans of the Hunger Games book series were angered after it was announced that she
would be playing the character Rue. Reflecting back on the experience, Stenberg stated, “It was
my first interaction with like very clear and direct racism. It makes you care about your craft

476
Amandla Stenberg, Black Girls Rock! (2016), dir. Joe DeMaio, aired April 5, 2016, on BET.
477
Parker, Kim and Ruth Igielnik, “On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We
Know About Gen Z So Far,” Pew Research Center, May 14, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-
trends/2020/05/14/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-
so-far-2/.
478
Both actresses are of mixed-race heritage. Shahidi identifies as half Black and half Iranian, and
Stenberg identifies as half Black and half Danish.
217
much more than everyone else, and it makes you more talented.”
479
Similar to Gabrielle Union,
Stenberg envisions the denigration as inspiration and motivation that can only make her better
and more successful. The online backlash she experienced as a child actor, shaped her perception
of Hollywood and her work as an actress. Stenberg became a much more politically minded and
socially conscious actress. The cultural awareness that she exhibited in her “Don’t Cash Crop
My Cornrows” is what earned her the role in The Hate U Give. Her popularity began to quickly
rise with covers on magazines such as Elle, Seventeen, Teen Vogue, Time, and Variety. Despite
her growing popularity, her willingness to say “no” and her role selection process in many ways
impeded her potential for more work as an actress. Amandla Stenberg argued:
When I get a script, first I think, “okay, does this capture me?” And I think about how its
positioning Blackness, positioning womanhood. Is it positioning it in relationship to
whiteness, as something that is subservient to it, or is it functioning organically and
independently, outside of the confines of heteronormativity, misogyny, and racism? I
don’t think there’s a character that I’ve played that isn’t one facet of me in some way, or
a lot of different facets of me. It’s like this interesting kind of balance of the personal as
political, recognizing that, because I am Black and gay and a woman, those aspects of my
identity are gonna [sic] be inherently politicized, because they’re aspects of identity that
have been traditionally, historically persecuted…I guess you could call it activism. But
for me, it’s also just existing as myself and not make myself smaller to fit within certain
boxes.
480

In the same way Cicely Tyson’s corporeal experience helped her select her roles, the questions
Stenberg asks herself when selecting roles interrogates racial and political formations, and the
ability of her characters to be culturally reflexive of her multiple identities. Her relationship to
the cultural and political activity of African American women is indicated in her profound
understanding of the relationship between her personal and political endeavors, and her

479
Amandla Stenberg, Black Girls Rock! (2016), on BET.
480
Hornaday, Ann, “‘The Hate U Give’ star Amandla Stenberg is redefining celebrity for a new
generation,” Washington Post, October 4, 2018,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/lifestyle/amandla-stenberg-looks-a-lot-like-the-future-of-
celebrity/.
218
unwillingness to fit into Hollywood’s limited boxes for Black actresses. Black feminist theory
was formulated and created out of Black women’s active engagement with social justice issues,
and the “historical reality of Afro-American women’s continuous life-and-death struggle for
survival and liberation.”
481
Importantly, Stenberg’s affirmation of the personal as political must
be read within a Black feminist discourse. The Combahee River Collective is credited with
establishing the feminist principle, the personal is political. Their statement posits, “There is also
undeniably a personal genesis for black feminism, that is, the political realization that comes
from the seemingly personal experiences of individual black women’s lives.”
482
Black women’s
individual experiences are political, which they have used to create a collective knowledge that is
passed down from generation to generation. For Black actresses, this knowledge results in
artistic practices and production tied to histories of struggle and Black political culture. Amandla
Stenberg understands that her political relevance is created by the cultural work she produces,
and her efforts at self-representation. While her film and television career is still developing,
Amandla Stenberg has alternatively used her visibility to create a Black representational space in
the realm of graphic novels. She co-created the series Niobe: She Is Life, which became the “first
internationally distributed comic with a black female author, artist, and central character.”
483

Generation Z actresses are expanding the realm of possibilities for Black representational spaces,
using film and television as a central nexus to explore other platforms and possibilities.
Shout Out to Issa Rae For Lifting as She Climbs
While not a member of Generation Z, Issa Rae also found her voice on the internet and
used it as a platform to tell more stories that demonstrated the multidimensionality of Black

481
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 29.
482
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 30.
483
Okwodu, Janelle, “First Look at Amandla Stenberg’s New Comic Book, Niobe: She Is Death,” Vogue
May 22, 2017, https://www.vogue.com/article/first-look-at-amandla-stenbergs-new-comic.
219
womanhood.
484
Her career began when she used social media and her YouTube series The Mis-
Adventures of Awkward Black Girl (2011-2013) to create a Black representational space that
reflected her identity as a Black woman, who also happened to be incredibly socially awkward.
In her memoir, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Rae writes, “Online content and new
media are changing our communities and changing the demand for and accessibility of that
content. The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and
the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we
want to see.”
485
Her comments are quite similar to the CRC passage in the opening epigraph,
“We realize that the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our
liberation is us.”
486
Cicely Tyson, Diahann Carroll, Esther Rolle, Viola Davis and Kerry
Washington created a pathway for Black actresses to use their careers and commercial viability
to create Black representational spaces, where Black women’s voices are prioritized. Issa Rae’s
work on television, where she foregrounds African American cultural discourses and political
agendas, is a tangible manifestation of the groundwork created by the actresses before her. In
creating these spaces through her efforts at self-representation, Issa Rae has been able to bring
other Black women to HBO, creating jobs and opportunities for artists who would otherwise
remain on the outskirts of traditional media outlets. Issa Rae additionally wrote, “But with ever-
evolving, new accessible technologies, there are so many opportunities to reclaim our images.
There’s no excuse not to, and I’ve never felt more purposeful in my quest to change the
landscape of television.”
487
Her role in creating and producing the web series Awkward Black

484
Both actresses are also featured in the film The Hate U Give.
485
Rae, Issa, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, (New York: Atria Books, 2015), 46. Kindle
Edition.
486
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 31.
487
Rae, Issa, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, 48.
220
Girl eventually led to her HBO show Insecure (2016-Present). In 2011, she started Issa Rae
Productions, which has now developed into Hoorae, a multi-media entertainment company.
Created in 2020, Hoorae oversees Color Creative (artists management company for
multi-hyphenates), Issa Rae Productions (film, television, and digital platforms), and Raedio (the
audio content and music label).
488
Under Hoorae, Issa Rae has worked to create and produce
more stories, to give more African American artists, writers, and directors an opportunity to
work. She was able to leverage the success of Insecure “into opportunities for other creators,
obviously opportunities to create more shows, and more recently opportunities to create films
and other television shows across all of Warner Media.”
489
Rae’s upcoming projects demonstrate
her attempts to change the landscape of television, with her new series RAP SH*T, about two
female rappers in Miami and a docu-series Seen & Heard, about the history of Black
representation on television. Moreover, Hoorae currently has twenty-two movies and television
shows currently in development, most of which are for HBO and HBO Max.
490
Issa Rae, and her
multimedia production company, aim to be an outlet other Black artists can come to when trying
to gain access into Hollywood, or move from digital platforms to more traditional networks. In
keeping with her digital roots, Hoorae maintains a strong new media reach as well; Rae
contends, “Our roots are digital, I would not be here if it weren’t for digital. As a company, we
recognize all the value and potential that exists in the digital space. Since 2012, we’ve used our
digital platforms as a space to introduce new creators and create new web series, fund those web

488
Rae, Issa, “Introducing Hoorae,” YouTube, March 24, 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKhhAvmDaY. Raedio also includes a podcast network, music
supervision and library, publishing, and live events.
489
She has a first look deal with Warner Bros, Pictures New Line, and HBO Max. Rae, Issa, “Introducing
Hoorae,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKhhAvmDaY.
490
Spano, Brittany, “Issa Rae Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” Rolling Stone, May 2021.
221
series...”
491
She joined Patreon in 2014, a website created to directly support artists online by
receiving exclusive content, “ as a way to support these creators financially, to be able to license
short films, to be able to fund productions, and it not only serves as support to creators but it is a
hub for creating community driven events.”
492
Through Hoorae, she is able to open doors for
African Americans, women, and other people of color, while remaining intentionally connected
to Los Angeles and her community in her business endeavors. Issa Rae recognizes that her
successful transition from YouTube to television and film is uncommon, but through Hoorae, she
aims to help other Black artists, especially Black women, make the transition into film and
television.
Issa Rae used her popularity and the success of Insecure to bring Robin Thede, creator
and star of A Black Lady Sketch Comedy Show (2019-Present) to HBO, which shows her
commitment to African American women. Rae executive-produces and is featured in numerous
skits on the series. Robin Thede admits that Issa Rae “finds the greatest pride in watching others
succeed, especially Black women.”
493
A Black Lady Sketch Comedy Show earned three Emmy
nominations in its first season and is currently airing its second season. Importantly, the series is
written, produced and stars Black women; episodes are directed by Black women, and the show
has featured notable Black actresses of different generations including Marla Gibbs, Loretta
Devine, Angela Bassett, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Gabrielle Union, Laverne Cox, Lena Waithe and
Marsai Martin. The success of the show, according to Issa Rae, “has been an important proof of

491
Rae, Issa, “Introducing Hoorae,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKhhAvmDaY.
492
Rae, Issa, “Introducing Hoorae,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKhhAvmDaY.
493
Jackson, Angelique, “Issa Rae’s Next Chapter: How ‘Insecure’ Creator Is Becoming a Media Mogul
with Production Banner Hoorae,” Variety September 30, 2020, https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/issa-rae-
insecure-hbo-hoorae-1234936020/.
222
concept for the Hoorae model of development and production and its future at HBO.”
494
Issa
Rae’s ability to leverage her success and lift as she climbs has created a space on HBO for more
Black narratives that feature African American women.
495
She argues, “It’s about rooting our
place within this industry, establishing longevity, building the platforms, because I’ve seen it all
disappear. I’ve seen us be hot. I’ve seen us be a trend for years, and it’s frustrating to know what
we’re capable of but then constantly see it be ripped from under us because we don’t have the
control.”
496
The 1970s, the 1990s, the 2010s, have all seen moments where Black representation
is marked by hypervisibility, only to quickly fade to relative absence. With television shows like
Scandal (2012-2018), Being Mary Jane (2013-2019), HTGAWM (2014-2020), Power (2014-
2020), Empire (2015-2020), Black Lightning (2017-2021), Pose (2018-2021) off the air, and
other shows like Black-ish (2014-Present) and Insecure (2016-Present) coming to an end, Issa
Rae’s concerns about Black narratives disappearing are not unwarranted. As a creator, producer,
and actress Issa Rae has utilized television and new media platforms to make this contemporary
moment of Black creativity and agency a sustained movement. By creating opportunities for
more Black women to work and establishing HBO as a hub for Black female artists, Issa Rae has
empowered African American women by lifting as she climbs.
Creating Legacy
In their role as cultural archivists, African American actresses individually contribute to
larger African American cultural discourses and Black collective memory by naming,

494
Jackson, Angelique, “Issa Rae’s Next Chapter,” https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/issa-rae-insecure-
hbo-hoorae-1234936020/.
495
Examples include Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You (2020) and Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country
(2020-Present), Regina King’s starring role in Watchmen (2019). Similar to the way the success of
Scandal opened opportunities for Viola Davis on HTGAWM or Simone Missick on NBC’s All Rise (2019-
2021).
496
Jackson, Angelique, “Issa Rae’s Next Chapter,” https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/issa-rae-insecure-
hbo-hoorae-1234936020/.
223
remembering, and recirculating images of other Black women. By centering Black actresses’
voices, this dissertation has created an archival paradigm that allows for a more intricate reading
of their cultural and political efforts at self-representation. From the race women generation
onward, each succeeding generation of Black actresses has endeavored to rearticulate and
redefine cultural images of Black women. Black actresses have formed a collective knowledge
that embraces, acknowledges and builds on the work of previous generations, in addition to
preserving their own cultural legacies and the legacies of other Black women. The NACW model
of “lifting as we climb” is a vital part of Black women’s legacy of empowerment.
For African American actresses, legacy is determined by the way in which they lifted as
they climbed. According to Esther Rolle, “I ruffle a lot of feathers. And I’m also selective—that
makes you a troublemaker. But so be it. I laid a cornerstone for black actors, and that makes me
happy.”
497
Her legacy encompasses the way she challenged Hollywood to alter Black women’s
representation as the “Hollywood maid,” in the process championing a series whose cultural
significance has outlived her, all while opening the door for future Black actresses. In her legacy
as a trailblazer for Black actresses on television, Diahann Carroll wrote, “It’s nice to finally
understand that I’ve had a good run of a life. Now I just have to hope that what I put out there in
my career is something that younger actors can still draw upon today. Whenever I find myself
around young actors such as Halle Berry and Angela Bassett, they tell me how inspiring my
work is to them.”
498
African American actresses have created their own archive, and younger
Black actresses empower previous generations using shout outs to remember those who paved
the way, while holding the door open for other Black women to walk through. Cicely Tyson

497
Allis, Tim and Lois Armstrong, “Esther Rolle’s Maid-with Sass Trades Good Times for Hard Times in
Driving Miss Daisy,” People. February 12, 1990, https://people.com/archive/esther-rolles-maid-with-
sass-trades-good-times-for-hard-times-in-driving-miss-daisy-vol-33-no-6/.
498
Carroll, Diahann and Bob Morris, The Legs are The Last to Go, 9.
224
concluded her autobiography, “folks are always asking me what legacy I want to leave—what
roots beneath my soil I most hope will outlive me….I want to feel as if I embodied our humanity
so fully that it made us laugh and weep, that it reminded us of our shared frailties. I want to be
recalled as one who squared my shoulders in the service of Black women, as one who made us
walk taller and envision greater for ourselves.”
499
As cultural archivists, politicized Black
actresses have created various approaches to contest their historical experience of being made to
feel invisible and seen as less than human. Cicely Tyson wanted to embody Black women’s
humanity onscreen, and her legacy will remain the way in which she used her career as a
platform to shift ideological understandings of Black womanhood in America.
Being seen and remembering one’s history, means something to Black actresses because
it is a matter of surviving in an industry that has historically controlled the narrative of Black
femininity onscreen, reducing Black women to simplistic stereotypes and tropes that demeaned
and denied them their full humanity. For African American women, “To be recognized as
human, levelly human, is enough.”
500
Viola Davis and Kerry Washington are still creating their
legacies, but they are both lifting as they climb, following the foundation of Black women’s
empowerment established by the Black club women in the early twentieth century, and
producing lasting and nuanced performances of Black womanhood as they do it. African
American actresses preserve their own history for younger Black actresses such as Issa Rae and
Logan Browning, and a new generation of Black actresses such as Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg,
Yara Shahidi, and Storm Reid, to remember, contribute to and amplify.

499
Tyson, Cicely and Michelle Burford. Just as I Am, 399.
500
The Combahee River Collective, “A Black Feminist Statement,” 31.
225
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Asset Metadata

Creator Young, Ashley Simone (author)

Core Title I can't afford the luxury of just being an actress: the politicized work of African American actresses on television

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Cinematic Arts (Critical Studies)

Degree Conferral Date 2021-08

Publication Date 07/20/2021

Defense Date 06/11/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag African American,OAI-PMH Harvest,stardom,television

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Acham, Christine (committee chair), Jacobs, Lanita (committee member), McPherson, Tara (committee member)

Creator Email ashleysy@usc.edu,ashleysy501@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC15613659

Unique identifier UC15613659

Legacy Identifier etd-YoungAshle-9804

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Young, Ashley Simone

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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