Cold War Victim: Hazel Scott TV Show Cancelled
Hazel Scott was a popular jazz pianist/singer in the early 1940s, who became the first African-American to have her or his own television program, had her program cancelled on this day because of her political views.
Scott was a mainstay at Café Society in New York City (see December 28, 1938), a popular night club for progressive-minded people. For several months in 1950, she had a regular television show on the small Dumont network (which soon went out of business). As such, she was the first African-American to have his or her own television show. (Most people believe that Nat King Cole was the first; see November 5, 1956).
Scott was politically active on civil rights and left-wing issues, performing at many fund-raising events. On June 22, 1950, she was named as a Communist sympathizer in the notorious anti-communist report Red Channels. Then, on July 22, she was called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee HUAC). A week later, on this day, Dumont cancelled her show, and her career never fully recovered.
Learn more: Karen Chilton, Hazel Scott: The Pioneering Journey of a Jazz Pianist from Café Society to Hollywood to HUAC (2008)
Watch Hazell Scott perform in one of her Hollywood movies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmujUkwU19I
Learn more: Larry Ceplair, Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century America: A Critical History (2011)
Learn more about Cold War blacklisting: David Everitt, A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television (2007)
See the great movie about blacklisting, Joe McCarthy, and Edward R. Murrow: Good Night and Good Luck (2005)
Visit the National Museum of African American History and Culture here