Many fans and entertainment industry personnel will be watching or participating in the Black Entertainment Television Awards ceremony in Los Angeles Sunday evening. The awards have been in existence since 2001, when they were established “to recognize the immense talent pool that exists within the African American community by honoring outstanding contributions within entertainment and bringing together the brightest stars from various backgrounds to celebrate their accomplishments.”
Far too many of our “greats” have passed on before they could be honored there. Over the years it has been a struggle to get our great talents to receive acknowledgement and awards in many predominantly white industries. Think of #OscarsSoWhite or the fact that Big Mama Thornton was finally entered into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 40 years after her death.
One of those greats, whose birthday is Sunday, was Lena Horne, born on June 30, 1917. Not only was Horne a groundbreaker in Hollywood—she was a major recording artist, stage actress, and most importantly from my point of view, a fighter for Black civil rights.
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.
Her bio from American Masters:
Born in Brooklyn in 1917, Lena Horne became one of the most popular African American performers of the 1940s and 1950s. At the age of sixteen she was hired as a dancer in the chorus of Harlem’s famous Cotton Club. There she was introduced to the growing community of jazz performers, including Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and Duke Ellington. She also met Harold Arlen, who would write her biggest hit, “Stormy Weather.” For the next five years she performed in New York nightclubs, on Broadway, and touring with the Charlie Barnet Orchestra. Singing with Barnet’s primarily white swing band, Horne was one of the first black women to successfully work on both sides of the color line.
Within a few years, Horne moved to Hollywood, where she played small parts in the movies. At this time, most black actors were kept from more serious roles, and though she was beginning to achieve a high level of notoriety, the color barrier was still strong. … Her elegant style and powerful voice were unlike any that had come before, and both the public and the executives in the entertainment industry began to take note. By the mid-’40s, Horne was the highest paid black actor in the country. Her renditions of “Deed I Do” and “As Long as I Live,” and Cole Porter‘s “Just One Of Those Things” became instant classics.
[…]
In 1963, she participated in the march on Washington and performed at rallies throughout the country for the National Council for Negro Women. She followed that with a decade of international touring, recording, and acting on both television and the silver screen. Horne had found in her growing audience a renewed sense of purpose. All of this came crashing down when her father, son and husband died in a period of twelve months during the early 1970s. Horne retreated almost completely from public life. It was not until 1981 that she fully returned, making a triumphant comeback with a one-person show on Broadway. LENA HORNE: THE LADY AND HER MUSIC chronicled Horne’s early life and almost fifty years in show business. … Throughout the past twenty years, Horne’s performances have been rare yet welcome occurrences.
Pop music editor Fletcher Roberts, wrote for the New York Times in 1996 about Horne’s voice and spirit:
Letting go of painful memories has taken time. Telling her story has undoubtedly helped ease the hurt. The person probably most affected by the success of her 1981 return to Broadway was Lena Horne. ”The Lady and Her Music,” her autobiographical one-woman show, played to sellout crowds for 14 months. … One of those who saw her on Broadway was Susan Lacy, then a producer for PBS and now executive director of ”American Masters,” its acclaimed biography series. It was this experience that led to ”Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice,” the hour long documentary…. An old-movie buff, Ms. Lacy knew little about Ms. Horne beyond what she had seen on the screen, but says she was ”enthralled” by the life she saw depicted onstage. […]
It offers an in-depth look at Miss Horne’s singing and film career, from her debut at 16 at the Cotton Club in Harlem to a starring role in the 1943 film ”Stormy Weather” (its title song became her signature) and roles in ”Cabin in the Sky” (1943) and ”Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946) to her Broadway triumph in ”The Lady and Her Music.” The portrait is fleshed out with interviews with friends and relatives: Alan King, Bobby Short, Ossie Davis, her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley, among others. […]
Even in its outlines, her story is the stuff of legend, offering a window onto the last half century of social change in America. Her nomadic childhood and the failed early marriage that produced two children. Her move to Hollywood at the urging of the N.A.A.C.P., where she became the first black signed by a studio to a long-term contract. Her marriage to Lennie Hayton, an arranger and conductor, who was white, and the nearly two decades she spent as an internationally known chanteuse. Her involvement in the civil rights movement. Her withdrawal from public life after the deaths of Hayton, her father, and her son, Ted, who died of kidney failure at the age of 23, shortly after the passing of her soul mate, Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s arranger and composer.
Here’s the full American Masters documentary ”Lena Horne: In Her Own Voice”:
Given that my dad was a Tuskegee Airman, the photos of Horne with them have a special meaning for me.
Ashley N. Jones wrote about her politics in her bio for Black Past:
Horne also developed a reputation as a political activist. During World War II she often entertained black soldiers in segregated units at her own expense. She also refused to perform before segregated audiences during and after World War II. Horne also worked with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to lobby the U.S. Congress to enact anti-lynching legislation.
Horne’s career stalled in the early 1950s when she was identified as a Communist sympathizer. She was blacklisted by Hollywood studios but was allowed to perform on the rising new medium, television. Despite nearly a decade of ostracism because of her personal and political beliefs, Horne continued to perform in nightclubs and by the late 1950s became a major recording star. Her album, Lena Horne at the Waldorf Astoria, recorded in 1957, was considered by music critics to be the best of her career.
John Meroney, writing for The Atlantic took a much deeper and darker look at what Horne was faced with when she was labeled a communist.
One night after Horne’s show, the 43-year-old black stage and film star Paul Robeson came to her dressing room to pay his respects. […]
On this particular night in 1941, Horne found herself seeking Robeson’s advice. As she later detailed in her letter at the Sands Hotel, she told him she was exhausted by the pressures of show business, the racism she faced from the white establishment, and the disdain she heard from black people who accused her of “trying to pass.” Robeson kept listening. Finally, he exhorted her to devote her life to making the country a better place, to eradicate her pain by helping people everywhere. He named specific groups such as the Council for African Affairs and the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee.
Horne later said she was unfamiliar with these organizations at the time, but she took Robeson’s advice and signed up. She knew the country was still in the Great Depression and the world seemed to be growing closer to war. And with the rise of Hitler in Europe, Robeson’s call to actively oppose fascism felt timely. But she didn’t know that Robeson was part of something much larger, that his dedication and passion came from a force he didn’t discuss in the open, even with a kindred spirit like Horne.
She would find herself in a world of trouble. I can empathize because my parents and their theater, artist, and musician friends were all targeted during those times. In spite of her troubles with the government witch hunt, she would continue to support the struggles of Black folks for freedom and equality. Here she is at the March on Washington with Josephine Baker:
There are lots of songs she’s recorded available on YouTube and streaming services—and I’ll be posting quite a few in the comments section below. I love seeing her in front of and interacting with a live audience, so here is her “An Evening with Lena Horne” from 1994:
She was present in 1984, to receive Kennedy Center Honors, hosted by Dionne Warwick.
Horne joined the ancestors on May 9, 2010, at the age of 92, and did not live to see a Broadway theater renamed in her honor in 2022, the first to be named for a Black woman.
Happy Birthday, Lena Horne!
